Hank Green has a good video on the subject. This is like grafting genes into chimpanzees to make them stand upright and be hairless, and calling them human. There's some cool technology going on here, but it isn't anywhere near a full clone.
this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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BREAKING NEWS! AUSTRALOPITHECUS HAS JUST BEEN DE-EXTINCTED!
Stephen Baxter catching strays...
Thanks for the link, that's an interesting material. However, I had to re-read that sentence three times trying to make sense of clothing items in genetics.
UPDATE: It has been fixed. Thank you : ).
Well, have you tried bending over in skinny jeans?
They needed a grabby headline for their sponsors to get excited about. "Multiplex CRISPR gene editing on Grey Wolf" doesn't scream SciFi enough.
Is anyone surprised by this? I feel like similar things have happened in the past with back breeding
So what's the genetic difference? If the copy was good enough, surely they would be dire wolves? Also, what is the motivation to bring back dire wolves?
I'm not the president of genetics, but dire wolves are apparently super different to present-day wolves. They're not even in the Canis genus. Regular grey wolves are Canis lupus and dire wolves are Aenocyon dirus. Canis and Aenocyon split off from a common ancestor 5.7 million years ago.
To create these new dire wolves, scientists modified 14 genes to express traits they considered to simulate the appearance of dire wolves--I specifically say simulate because in at least one case (the white coat), they took a gene from regular ass-dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) rather than replicating the original dire wolf coat.
I'm guessing, but there's probably more than 14 genes that changed since these two species diverged almost 6 million years ago. These wolves are almost certainly much, much closer to Canis lupus than Aenocyon dirus.
Sources:
Lol ass-dogs
On a serious note, does anyone else get some serious Dunning-Kruger vibes from this? Like serious scientists and experts in the field are very specificly saying that these are not dire wolves. The only people saying they are dire wolves are the owners of the private company that made them. A company with an invested economic interest in people believing them. I'm not an expert geneticist, but I hope you'll excuse me if I believe the scienctists over the people saying, "you can tell it's a direwolf by the way that it is!" so that they can make money.
It’s not Dunning-Kruger because the scientists know they’re lying. It’s just capitalism.
What an embarrassingly stupid waste of money. Gene editing tropical plants so that they can grow in other climates or common plants to be more pest/drought resistant would improve the lives of billions of people yet time and money is being wasted on this crap.
Bringing back species that disappeared because of humans and restoring ecosystems are possible ones. Jurassic Park is another.
that disappeared because of humans and restoring ecosystems are possible ones
Yeah, 10,000 years ago. Is it really restoring when the ecosystem has been functioning for such a long period without it? Wouldn't it sooner disrupt it?
Yes. It's utterly useless now (and they aren't being introduced into existing ecosystem to my knowledge). They view it as a proof of concept for more recently extinct species as well as a potential tool for restoring species to ecosystems in the future as extinction events pick up speed.
However, it should be noted that extinction events are a symptom, not the core problem, so I'm not sure exactly where we'd restore extinct species to, since human use of the land is the root cause of most ecosystem collapses, and it's unlikely that they can rebuild populations in the places they died out of (and the land probably won't be yielded back anyway).
Super cool stuff that they did regardless, but can't figure out how it's going to accomplish what they seem to want to accomplish.
Yeah this was my reaction a while back when I saw their promos about how they want to de-extinct wooly mammoths and dodos. Like ok neat, but where are the mammoths supposed to slot in, a rapidly warming arctic that will more likely have palm trees than ice by the end of the century?
I mean I’m being a little obtuse here on purpose—these species choices are obviously guided by marketing potential. No one will pay attention if they resurrect some niche mouse that went extinct a couple years ago, so they’re picking stuff that looms large in pop consciousness.
But in the end, it’s a private company, and I very much doubt their whole goal is to make money off of conservation societies and zoos to make extinct animals—far more likely it’s to refine and recreate new genetic editing procedures which will then get ported into making purpose-built animals for industry (think the sheep who’s milk has certain valuable enzymes or chemicals built in) or like human biotech (so, like, GATTACA).
The “founder” gives off strong Palmer Luckey vibes. (This is based on visual aesthetic and his general demeanor vibes only, he could be a saint, I have no idea)
Yep. Certainly wouldn't be the first time that something is made to seem altruistic but ultimately gets used in questionably-ethical ways.
There are a lot of species that we made disappear in the last 150 years that could be beneficial to restoring current ecosystems.
Totally, but the dire wolf is not one of them
They do plan on using the tech for those applications though.
The "dire wolf" is just a media strategy to show off their technologies.
Yes it would.
They're still largely grey wolves DNA, with a few aesthetic genes of direwolf grafted in.
Anyway… this is useless science for humanity. Let’s focus on saving the species that are still alive.
b-b-but pidgeon
If you're American I don't think you really want passenger pigeons
Why be disappointed? This wolf died off for a reason. If you brought it back it would likely die off again. Beyond that if you don’t bring back a pack of them then they will be very lonely as they are pack animals.
Big puppy
Probably because of constant media lies.
We’ll have more accurate clones of more recently extinct species. DNA just doesn’t last that long.
Haha the reaction guy does need a Winterfell style fur cloak around his shoulders though.
But like, of LARP quality though.
I said as much "How much of that DNA is just wolf? No way that thing is authentic."
And then both the people smiling look disappointed. Let me tell ya, I really know how to set a mood.
Ffs now how am I supposed to sleep tonight?
Well, it's nonetheless a step forward, and we should cherish it! 😁