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115

The Dire Wolf, an Extinct Prehistoric American Canine, Has Been Resurrected (thedebrief.org)

submitted 10 months ago by will_a113@lemmy.ml to c/science@lemmy.world

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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.

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[–] egrets@lemmy.world 38 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

You were right the first time - they're CRISPR-edited gray wolves engineered to exhibit the physical traits they found in dire wolf DNA.

There's an 80-gene difference between dire wolves and gray wolves, and they've modified 14 of what they felt to be the most variant differences.

It's still fascinating and tremendously difficult, and probably the best we can hope for in a very long time, but I don't feel Colossal are being totally honest in their presentation.

[–] ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Damn. You're right. Those journalists were sneaky slipping in this quote and not challenging/clarifying it:

“We took a 13,000-year-old tooth, and a 74,000-year-old skull, and we made puppies,” Lamm told The Debrief.