science

cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/5631254

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/science by /u/calliope_kekule on 2025-04-12 04:47:47+00:00.

A joint research team has successfully demonstrated the complete confinement of mechanical waves within a single resonator—something long thought to be theoretically impossible...Many technologies around us—from smartphones and ultrasound devices to radios—rely on resonance, a phenomenon in which waves are amplified at specific frequencies. However, typical resonators gradually lose energy over time, requiring constant energy input to maintain their function..."We have broken a long-standing theoretical boundary," said Professor Junsuk Rho, who leads the research. "While this is still in the fundamental research phase, the implications are significant—from low-loss energy devices to next-generation sensing and signal technologies."

Colossal Biosciences claims three pups born recently are dire wolves, but they are actually grey wolves with genetic edits intended to make them resemble the lost species

A research team from Helmholtz Munich and the Technical University of Munich has developed an advanced delivery system that transports gene-editing tools based on the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing system into living cells with significantly greater efficiency than before. Their technology, ENVLPE, uses engineered non-infectious virus-like particles to precisely correct defective genes—demonstrated successfully in living mouse models that are blind due to a mutation.

Humans tend to put our own intelligence on a pedestal. Our brains can do math, employ logic, explore abstractions and think critically. But we can’t claim a monopoly on thought. Among a variety of nonhuman species known to display intelligent behavior, birds have been shown time and again to have advanced cognitive abilities. Ravens plan for the future, crows count and use tools, cockatoos open and pillage booby-trapped garbage cans, and chickadees keep track of tens of thousands of seeds cached across a landscape. Notably, birds achieve such feats with brains that look completely different from ours: They’re smaller and lack the highly organized structures that scientists associate with mammalian intelligence.

Summary

US company Colossal Biosciences claims to have recreated dire wolves, extinct for over 10,000 years, by genetically engineering three pups.

Using ancient DNA from fossils and modifying gray wolf cells, the genetic material was transferred to dog eggs carried by domestic dog surrogates.

The pups, Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi, are expected to grow larger than modern wolves.

Colossal aims for "de-extinction" and using these techniques for conservation.

However, independent scientists note this achieves only superficial resemblance, not full revival, and the pups lack parental hunting instruction.

While not the gigantic uber-canines of fantasy lore, these pups will become roughly-gray-wolf-sized dire wolves, and represent the first de-extincted animal species, raising a number of ethical questions about returning animals to ecosystems that may not be stable for long.

https://archive.ph/f9SuU