Okay, Chelsea, I have three different articles
for you to choose from. Not all of them are necessarily
Dooming Loom, so... Okay. How have you sorted
them for me to choose? Well, I have three. I'm
going to give you a vague idea of the topics.
One is De -Extinction, one is Financial Times,
and one is Astronomy. Well, I'm definitely not
choosing anything financial. So let's go with
De -Extinction. Did you hear about the dire wolf
that was cloned recently? I did actually. Oh
good. Because this is in line with it. Would
you like me to tell you about it? This article
is on that and kind of the things that weren't
talked about when everything was pumped through
the news system with it. So, this one comes from
a site that we've used many a time, Live Live
Science. We're never sure how to pronounce it.
If only we were able to look into this at some
time in our spare time, but we will not. This
came out April 9th, 2025 by Sasha Pear. And it
is titled, Colossal de -extincted direwolf isn't
a direwolf and it has not been de -extincted,
expert says. I love where this is going. In an
announcement on Monday, April 7th, scientists
revealed to the world that they have brought
back long -extinct direwolves with genetic engineering.
Researchers with biotechnology company Colossal
Biosciences shared images of three adorable Snow
White pups which they said marked the world's
first de -extinction. I don't think that's necessarily
true, but let's not get into this now. Okay,
fair enough. Also, you're gonna think they're
claiming that. Dire Wolves, which were made famous
by HBO's television series Game of Thrones, went
extinct at the time of the last Ice Age. By creating
Lookalike Pops, Colossal CEO Ben Lam said that
the company has, quote, made healthy dire wolf
puppies, end quote, and resurrected these predators
after more than 10 ,000 years of de -extinction.
But many experts say the language used by Colossal
to describe these creations is misleading, quote,
what Colossal have produced is a gray wolf with
dire wolf -like characteristics, end quote. Nick
Rollins, an associate professor and co -director
of the Otago Paleogenetics Laboratory at the
University of Otago told the New Zealand Science
Media Center quote this is not a de -extincted
direwolf rather it's a hybrid end quote to make
the pup scientists extracted DNA from two prehistoric
direwolf fossils a 13 ,000 year old tooth discovered
in Sheridan pit Ohio and a 72 ,000 year old ear
bone from American Falls in Idaho Using this
DNA, the researchers pieced together a partial
direwolf genome, which they then compared with
the genomes of the direwolf's closest living
relatives including wolves, jackals, and foxes.
Based on their results, the scientists selected
the gray wolf as an egg donor to quote bring
back end quote direwolves. Despite the two species
not actually being that closely related, experts
said. Quote, new information shows that the original
direwolf itself was not really a wolf, end quote.
David Mack, an adjunct professor specializing
in wolf ecology and behavior at the University
of Minnesota and senior research scientist with
the U .S. Geological Survey, I guess that probably
should say former at this point because he's
probably been fired from that, told Live Science
in an email. Evolutionarily speaking, direwolves
split from wolves roughly six million years ago,
forming an entirely separate group from modern
-day gray wolves. Quote, Dire wolves are in their
own genus, so a very different species." Philip
Sedon, a professor of zoology at the University
of Otago, told New Zealand Science Media Centre.
Quote, the average acol might be more closely
related to dire wolves, end quote. De -extinction
requires egg cells from a living animal to hold
and grow the genetic material of the animal scientists
want to create. Having selected grey wolves to
perform this step, colossal scientists then collected
cells from grey wolf blood samples and modified
them to resemble the cells found in dire wolf
fossils. Using CRISPR gene editing technology,
the team made a total of 20 edits in 14 genes
that they identified as important in giving dire
wolves their traits. Next, in a similar process
as the one used to clone Dolly the Sheep in 1996,
the scientists inserted the modified cell's DNA
into a grey wolf's egg cells, whose own genetic
material had previously been removed. At this
point, the grey wolf egg cells contained all
the genetic information required to build the
wolves with some of the defining characteristics
of dire wolves. The egg cells were then left
to mature in the lab, and the resulting embryos
were implanted into the wombs of domestic dogs,
which are technically a subspecies of the grey
wolf. Colossal's first direwolf puppies, and
direwolf is in quotations, Romulus and Remus
were born October 1st, 2024, meaning they are
now 5 months old adolescents. According to Colossal,
they are being held and continually monitored
in a nature preserve surrounded by 10 foot tall
fencing. That doesn't really sound like a nature
reserve. They will live out their life in a luxurious
preserve under human care." Bridget Von Holt,
a professor of evolutionary genomics and epigenetics
at Princeton University, who collaborates with
Colossal on the project, told LiveScience in
an email, Their health always remains unpredictable
and of potential concern." A third pup, Khaleesi,
was born on January 30th, 2025. It's unclear
how dangerous these animals are, but their behavior
is unlikely to differ dramatically from that
of a captive gray wolf. Especially as they have
been constantly surrounded by humans, von Holt
said. Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi will not be
released into the wild, but in the future Colossal
said it will consider options to introduce animals
into, quote, secure and expansive ecological
preserves potentially on indigenous land, end
quote. But some experts doubt very much that
these introductions would be successful, quote,
any release of the wild would be fraught with
negative PR and legal consequences, which would
probably also be the case with any of the other
types of newly created animals, end quote, Mech
said. Regarding the direwolf specifically, Mack
said there is a question mark over how they might
fit into modern ecosystems. Quote, they occupied
an entirely different ecological niche than exists
today, end quote he said. Many experts have criticized
Colossal's announcement, but some have also praised
the technological breakthroughs the company made
along the way. Quote, certainly this involves
advances in genetics technology, and these might
have applications for the conservation of existing
species, end quote said and said. One species
that is already benefiting from the Colossal's
breakthrough is the Red Wolf, the world's most
endangered wolf. The company announced the birth
of two litters of cloned Red Wolves on Monday,
boosting the number of Red Wolves held in captivity
in the US and offering new hope to the species.
But at the end of the day, Colossal's claim that
it has resurrected the direwolf is spurious.
Seddon and others have said, quote, Colossal
compared the genomes of the direwolf and the
gray wolf, and from about 19 ,000 genes, they
determined that 20 changes and 14 genes gave
them a direwolf, end quote Roland said. Moreover,
Colossal's quote direwolves unquote. Aren't technically
the world's first the extinction? Oh good, they
answered that. In 2003, scientists in Spain cloned
an extinct wild goat species known as the Picardo
or the Pyrenean Ibix. A baby goat was born, but
it died seven minutes later due to a lung defect.
The announcement on Monday means that quote,
we have GMO wolves and might one day have GMO
Asian elephants. But for now, extinction really
is forever. End quote, sad and sad. That's the
end of the quote. That's the end of the article.
Can I share my screen with you? Yeah, go ahead.
I got to thinking while you were speaking. Oh,
they got the puppies up there. Yeah. Oh, those
aren't puppy. Those are full groans. This is
like some crazy Jurassic Park. First of all,
this is the most fancy website I've ever been
on. It does really look like an advertisement
for like Pacific Northwest Park or something
like that. It is crazy. Okay, I just was taking
a look through this website while you were talking
and... It is I just have to go through it. Look
at this I'm on I'm showing Taylor the colossal
comm website actually and I'm on the heading
for D extinction There's a few things that I
wanted to point out to you on here because this
is I mean I'm surprised that I don't see any
t -rexes or Raptors on here. Look at this rebuilding
extinct species for existence today Oh good.
Yeah, just wait. Oh, they got some holy mammoths
Wow. This is fully just PR. It is. And I'm not
seeing any mention of meatballs at all. by the
way oh you got to get to the food cart part of
this yeah because jurassic park had a food court
so down here when i scroll on see we're right
here we're in the human causation section yeah
there's one where we can go to all the species
that are about to go extinct that they would
like to eventually replace here we're in the
extinction stats Anyhow, I think I lost it, but
I just wanted to show you how beautiful this
website was, first of all. Oh, right here! That
is... Endangered Animal Backup. Oh, good. That
doesn't sound like one of the problems we talked
about with the extinction. Nope. It seems like...
Is that Kathy Bates? It does look a lot like
short -haired Kathy Bates. That was just a lot
of you listening to us scroll through a website.
You couldn't even hear the scrolling. Poor guys.
I just really want to emphasize that this website
really seems to downplay the fact that we talked
about in the extinction episode. If you want
to go learn more about it, go listen to it. But
basically, if we think we can clone or bring
a species back from extinction or not have to
worry about an endangered species because we
can clone them, it takes away the impact of people
having to worry about other species. huge impact
because we can just clone them back and that
website worried me a lot with how they're just
kind of downplaying that or at least using it
for advertising yeah it's like don't worry science
but the other worrisome thing like how about
like reintroducing these kinds of things back
into our environment because nature like evens
itself out and then you're just like dire wolves
yeah and I just because I found this article
on reddit I was reading through it it's not on
this but it's on another one the Dire Wolves
post found a really good comment from somebody
named Saint Ulvaman was posted 23 days ago which
would be April 7th from when we're recording
and they said I'm a geneticist myself though
I have different specialty I've never done any
work like this but I'm paid to know a lot about
this one thing they don't seem to have done anything
specific to account for is that Dire Wolves weren't
wolves they were about as separate from wolves
as chimpanzees are from humans jackals and african
wild dogs are more closely related to wolves
than dire wolves that makes sense it's just like
a mammoth like you can't recreate a mammoth in
itself no exactly so there were definitely more
than 20 differences between what they actually
sampled in the wolf genome they used. Change
20 genes in a human and you might get something
that looks like a chimpanzee if you've done a
really good job of picking the right 20 genes.
But you're still going to get something that
is very genetically different from a chimpanzee
because you started from a human and most of
its genes were human. The same applies here.
So although this is very interesting work, that
helps us observe the effect of old genes from
a popular understanding, it's really important
to note that these are actually not real dire
wolves yet. Their wolveshoof's genes have been
edited to be a bit more like dire wolves. But
that's scary though, isn't it? That feels like
a horror movie starting. It's like weird. It
really does. Yeah, and it could go horribly wrong.
Well, the fact that they even say these will
never be released into the wild because they
don't really know how loaning will impact anything
when they do it because it can just go so horribly
wrong and I misspoke it's not like the mammoth
at all because they had mammoth DNA to create
those meatballs and What they're doing with the
entire wolf is they they're trying to recreate
its DNA They don't have any actual DNA from it.
No, they did have DNA two samples Yeah, and then
they cloned it through the genetics of a wolf.
So where's the company with the direwolf meatball?
That is a great question, but there's no evidence
that a direwolf's gonna be more delicious than
a wolf, and we don't make wolf meatballs. You
know, I don't eat meat, but I would fully imagine
that a wooly mammoth meatball would be way better
than a direwolf. It's gotta be worth it. I mean,
who's trying it, though? No one, so... Great
question. I know. I'm full of them. But yeah,
I mean, you guys got 48 hours now. Go explore
that website. See how our major issues that we've
caused this planet have no impact on the future
because we can just bring everything back. Don't
let them rope you in. Bye.