Return of the dire wolf

[Fantasy Lover]

The Return of the Dire Wolf

Colossal Biosciences has genetically engineered the first dire wolf to live in over 10,000 years. Here's what that means for other extinct species.

time.com

We have almost 7 fucking movies dedicated to why this is a bad idea!!!

 

[carcinoGeneticist]

What the hell is even the point? Bad idea aside, dire wolves have been all dead for 10 000 years. Genetically engineering new ones doesn't change the fact that all the naturally-occuring dire wolves are dead. I don't think bringing them back makes much of a difference.

 

[Tosk]

Funnily enough, I was just reading an article about how this claim might be a little bit bullshit.

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But, as pointed out in the Time Magazine article, this didn't mean sticking dire wolf DNA into the grey wolf's DNA.

We spoke to Emily Roycroft, of Monash University's Evolutionary and Conservation Genomics Research Group, to make sense of this.

"The company claims to have used a gene-editing technology to make 20 targeted changes to 15 different genes of the grey wolf," Dr Roycroft said.

"Five of the edits are in genes already known to produce light coats in grey wolves."

Colossal has been calling the wolves "dire wolves".

But Dr Roycroft wouldn't.

"This is a grey wolf with an edited genome, not a dire wolf," she said.

"The genetic edits may have given these wolves a lighter coat to look reminiscent of a dire wolf — but what makes a species is more than just skin deep.

"Extinct dire wolves are around 5.7 million years diverged from living grey wolves, and a lot of evolutionary and genetic changes happened across those millions of years.

"Editing a few genes of the grey wolf does not make a dire wolf.

"There are many other factors that make dire wolves unique, including an entire suite of genetic, epigenetic and behavioural differences that we don't currently understand.

"We have to ask, is modifying a living species to show superficial traits from an extinct relative really de-extinction?"

A startup says it has 'de-extincted' dire wolves. But what does that actually mean?

A US startup claims to have brought an extinct species back into existence. It's prompted debate about the difference of resurrecting an extinct species and genetically modifying an existing one.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Fantasy Lover]

It's still playing God. Like the quote in Jurassic park goes: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

 

[Santaman]

I'd invest my time and resources to make plants, especially those we use for food , climate change resistant, these sorts of things seem showy off y at most.

 

[scotpens]

It's still playing God. Like the quote in Jurassic park goes: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

If "playing God" means modifying nature, that genie left the bottle at least 10,000 years ago.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Playing God means humankind will gain the knowledge of being God eventually.... We are the gods we make

 

[somebuddyX]

Jon wargs into Ghost, then the POV chapter is from Ghost/Jon, then Ghost gets sacrificed so Jon can return to his human body. Nymeria takes on the Boltons tasting that delicious manflesh. Bran eats Summer; summerpaste confirmed. Shaggydog is literally a shaggydog story and amounts to nothing.
Wait...this isn't ASOIAF...

 

[Spider]

Calling these wolves "dire wolves" is like calling half to 3/4 of the population of Earth either Neanderthals or Denisovans because they have some of that DNA in them. They aren't "Dire Wolves".

 

[Nerys Myk]

So, it’s not as dire as we thought.