A company called Colossal Biosciences has been working on "de-extinction" with projects set up to bring back extinct species such as the dodo, woolly mammoths, and Tasmanian tigers. Their first announced success, however, has been the birth of three dire wolves, two males named Romulus and Remus, and a female named Khaleesi. Dire wolves have been extinct for ten thousand years.
These wolf pups were produced by a complex process that involved sequencing dire wolf DNA from fossils. This DNA is not viable, but it could be compared to modern canine DNA. Then they spliced modern wolf DNA in 20 places to make it resemble the dire wolf DNA. Once that was accomplished, the resulting cell was grown using the usual methods of cloning, including embryo implantation into domestic dogs who gave birth to these puppies.
Colossal Biosciences considers this a major breakthrough in bringing back extinct species, but scientists from elsewhere have their doubts. Sure, they look like dire wolves, but can they really be a different species, or are they just genetically-modified grey wolves? Read about how the dire wolves came about at New Atlas. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: Colossal Biosciences)
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