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https Scientists say they revived dire wolf through biotech company's de-extinction process In a scientific breakthrough that could forever change how humans interact with our planet, Colossal Biosciences said it has brought back an extinct animal that last walked the Earth roughly 10,000 years ago: the dire wolf. The U.S.-based biotechnology company is also known for its ambitious goal of bringing back theextinct woolly mammothby 2028. Colossal also said it had cloned four red wolves, a critically endangered animal with under two dozen thought to be left in the wild. ''We're not a foundation, we're not a nonprofit, we are not an academic think tank. We are trying to actually develop products and build technologies,'' Ben Lamm, the companys CEO and co-founder, told ABC News. Colossal says its investors include Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Paris Hilton and Peter Jackson. In March, the company revealedthe ''woolly mouse,''a new type of mouse with a thicker coat of fur modeled after the woolly mammoth. ABC News was given exclusive access to Colossals Dallas, Texas, laboratory, where the dire wolf went from an idea to a reality. ''I had all the confidence that this was going to work,'' Beth Shapiro, Colossals chief scientist, told ABC News. |
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@trunking | 22 April 25 |
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Shapiros team had to extract more dire wolf DNA from two existing fossils to better sequence the animal's genome. From there, Colossal elected to use a close relative of the dire wolf as the base. ''We've taken a gray wolf genome, a gray wolf cell. which is already genetically 99.5 percent identical to dire wolves because they're very closely related,'' Shapiro said. ''And we've edited those cells at multiple places in its DNA sequence to contain the dire wolf version of the DNA.'' Not everyone is convinced. Dr. Julie Meachen has made studying wolves her lifes work, and was a co-author, along with Shapiro, on a 2021 paper that concluded dire wolves and gray wolves diverged millions of years ago. Meachen is impressed with Colossals announcement but remains skeptical. ''I don't think they are actually dire wolves. I don't think what we have is dire wolves,'' Meachen told ABC News. ''What we had is something new -- we have a mostly gray wolf that looks like a dire wolf.'' Shapiro disagrees with that thinking. ''I think that the best definition of a species is if it looks like that species, if it is acting like that species, if it's filling the role of that species then you've done it,'' she said. |
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@trunking | 22 April 25 |
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Shapiros team used surrogate dogs -- which have since been adopted through the humane society -- to help give birth to the dire wolves and Colossal says no animals were harmed in the process. Two of the dire wolves were born late last year, while the third arrived in early 2025. All three live in a secure 2,000-acre nature preserve at an undisclosed location. The older pair are named Romulus and Remus after the mythological founders of Rome, who are traditionally depicted as being suckled by a she-wolf. The youngest one is named Khalesi after a character from the fantasy show ''Game of Thrones,'' in which dire wolves play a major role. ''So when I saw them born and they were white, I was like, we've done it,'' Shapiro said. ''Those are dire wolves.'' The wolf field is a small one, and Meachen and Shapiro are working together on an upcoming research paper about dire wolves, but Meachen is not paid by or advising Colossal. |
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@trunking | 22 April 25 |
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She wonders if Colossals efforts would be better spent on keeping the animals left on Earth alive. ''Is this for purely entertainment purposes?'' Meachen asked. ''The mission of helping to preserve the species that are alive and save them from the brink of extinction is an incredibly admirable mission. That is a mission that I could get behind 100 percent.'' Colossal hopes its red wolf program is just the beginning of a broader effort to do just that. ''This sort of technology, as it becomes more widely available, is going to have tremendous benefits across biodiversity conservation,'' Shapiro told ABC News. The State of North Dakota has also invested in Colossal, with an eye on helping the state save its dwindling bison population. Lamm -- Colossals CEO and co-founder -- also hopes that its technology could one day help human healthcare in a meaningful way. With the race on to produce scientific breakthroughs, Dr. Robert Klitzman, a bioethicist and geneticist at Columbia University, cautioned that it is important to carefully consider the impact of tinkering with ecosystems. |
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@trunking | 22 April 25 |
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''So one wants to be careful if you're mucking around with genes, that there may be things we don't understand,'' Klitzman told ABC News. ''You may produce a wolf that's twice as ferocious. You may produce a super wolf, or a super rat, or super mouse if you're playing with mice or rats, for instance, that eats everything in sight.'' Despite this concern, Klitzman still believes Colossals technology could offer benefits if used properly. ''If there's an animal that we humans killed off and there are no more such animals and they have a place to live where they can go back into their wild environment and thrive,'' he said. Colossal continues full steam ahead to its goal of reviving the woolly mammoth in 3 years, with chief scientist Shapiro saying it is just as risky to not use their technological breakthroughs. ''If we decide as a society that these new technologies that are at our fingertips are too risky, that we don't want to take the chance, that we're not going to try to save species by implementing genetic engineering types of technologies -- that is a choice that also carries consequences,'' she said. |
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@faun | 22 April 25 |
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So, given the state the world is in right now, and someone thought it'd be a good idea to bring back an extinct breed of wolf... kayden.
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@shadow27 | 23 April 25 |
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Well, the environment that a wooly mammoth would thrive in is well and truly gone. I think eventually what they REALLY want is to have enough of these animals revived to open up a zoo or theme park.. it's doubtful they would survive in the wild.
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@revelz | 26 April 25 |
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Did yous actually read all that?
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