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.