The poster talking about money seems to have nailed it - think the company probably is some type of theranos type hype machine.
Colossal says its investors include Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Paris Hilton and Peter Jackson.
Paris Hilton and Tom Brady - scientific experts. LOL.
The Theranos analogy is inaccurate because they have serious scientists involved and I don't doubt that they did the 20 CRISPR edits they claim to have done. And that is actually a significant technical achievement.
The problem is that they then claim that this is enough to create a dire wolf. The hype itself seems borderline criminal, and the journalists are too credulous here about the exact science. But you need someone who understands population genetics to actually point out how ridiculous that is.
I mean speciation used to be done entirely by morphology, now it’s done by genetics. I would assume they are reasonably close to highest-effect genetic differences here if they are calling it a dire wolf… but wed need to see the WGS :)
No mention of the fact it might not be legit. ABC is a joke.
I shouldn't have shared the link in the 1st post without doing a little research. I was just trying to be nice to ABC as I had seen the video on MSN and was trying to link to an original source. Ironicailly, the story I linked to had a different video in it.
The poster talking about money seems to have nailed it - think the company probably is some type of theranos type hype machine.
Colossal says its investors include Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Paris Hilton and Peter Jackson.
Paris Hilton and Tom Brady - scientific experts. LOL.
The brain trust behind Colossal is legit. George Church is as close to a living legend in synthetic biology / biotech / genetics as you can get.
The dire wolf genome is public and what they used to guide their engineering efforts. I assume as some point (soon) they will publish the 20 engineered genes which they claim were sufficient to drive the re-speciation to a dire world.
The hype is a bit much, we don’t know the exact changes here, but the company isn’t a SCAM - its valuation is hilariously high, but no realistic path to revenue - but the people working on it are the real deal.
Following up on this - it’s good work that should be done. I’d rather a US company doing it than leave it to China.
Scientist here, with one of those fancy biology degrees that don't mean much these days. You cannot make an animal from solely a genome. It's not possible. Genetics alone does not have that power. You need the social and environmental upbringing too (especially for something like a mammoth, which has also been talked about in this thread). And if you want to "de-extinct" a species to the point where a population is roaming again in the wild, you also need to bring back the now-extinct ecological environment.
This company is selling Jurassic Park dreams (and they will always be dreams) to non-scientists who don't know enough to be able to criticize it. The most we can hope from this line of research (which is still interesting by itself and should be pursued) is to bring back something very, very recently extinct like the thylacine or the dodo bird. Even if you somehow manage to bring back a large and genetically diverse enough population that overcomes inbreeding (we're talking at least a couple hundred individuals that are not clones), you also need to fix whatever current issue caused the animal to go extinct in the first place. Otherwise, it will just go extinct again.
The nerd in me finds this stuff extremely cool, but the scientist in me knows how far away we are from doing anything actually relevant here. Maybe within our lifetimes? Hard to say if that's even realistic. They are just trying to generate enough buzz to get more investor money by selling clickbait pseudoscience stories.
There's a good chance that the company is looking for a big influx of money and is putting this (probably fake) news out there to bring it a lot of cash.
A year from now the company will have disappeared.
Thanks. This whole episode has taught not to trust the mainstream media yet again.
No mention of the fact it might not be legit. ABC is a joke.
I shouldn't have shared the link in the 1st post without doing a little research. I was just trying to be nice to ABC as I had seen the video on MSN and was trying to link to an original source. Ironicailly, the story I linked to had a different video in it.
The poster talking about money seems to have nailed it - think the company probably is some type of theranos type hype machine.
Colossal says its investors include Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Paris Hilton and Peter Jackson.
Paris Hilton and Tom Brady - scientific experts. LOL.
"mainstream medium" "trying to be nice to abc" wawawa. shut up. you fell for clickbait and shared it without reading like any other idiot. you're no different. shallow reactionism is not the line to take when all you had to do was read. also, rich people can give money to things and not be at all versed in what they give it to. decline reads STEEP
Scientist here, with one of those fancy biology degrees that don't mean much these days. You cannot make an animal from solely a genome. It's not possible. Genetics alone does not have that power. You need the social and environmental upbringing too (especially for something like a mammoth, which has also been talked about in this thread). And if you want to "de-extinct" a species to the point where a population is roaming again in the wild, you also need to bring back the now-extinct ecological environment.
This company is selling Jurassic Park dreams (and they will always be dreams) to non-scientists who don't know enough to be able to criticize it. The most we can hope from this line of research (which is still interesting by itself and should be pursued) is to bring back something very, very recently extinct like the thylacine or the dodo bird. Even if you somehow manage to bring back a large and genetically diverse enough population that overcomes inbreeding (we're talking at least a couple hundred individuals that are not clones), you also need to fix whatever current issue caused the animal to go extinct in the first place. Otherwise, it will just go extinct again.
The nerd in me finds this stuff extremely cool, but the scientist in me knows how far away we are from doing anything actually relevant here. Maybe within our lifetimes? Hard to say if that's even realistic. They are just trying to generate enough buzz to get more investor money by selling clickbait pseudoscience stories.
Glad to see someone actually posting some sense. If we truly have the technology and means to "de-extinct" a species, it would be so incredible and beyond the scope of just plug and play with genes of a current species. But I still can't get over how the knee-jerk reaction of everyone is just "dur... have ya seen Jurassic Park?!?" As if a completely fictionalized movie should have any input on what science should do. I hope all of you will bring this same energy if NASA brings forward compelling studies on extraterrestrial microorganisms and you follow with "bad idea, dude, I seen Predator!"
I just can't get over the way people jump straight to the idea that we possess the reasonable possibility to engineer large therapod dinosaurs in a modern climate/ecosystem and they could survive to adulthood and reproduce. I know that "life, uh um uh, finds a way" but unfortunately the way life is finding right now is not multi-ton super predators. Again, if we really did have that kind of ability, our science would have advanced so far beyond just gene editing that we would effectively have strong armed nature out of control of many facets of life on Earth.
The genes in mammals are all pretty close. It’s about how you turn and off the genes that is important.
“Humans share a much closer genetic relationship with mice than with fruit flies. Approximately 85% of human DNA is similar to that of a mouse (Mus musculus) when comparing the overall genome sequence. This figure jumps higher—up to 90-95%—when focusing specifically on protein-coding genes, which are the functional blueprints for building and running our bodies. About 99% of human genes have a direct counterpart in the mouse genome, reflecting our shared mammalian ancestry. This high degree of similarity makes mice a go-to model organism for studying human biology, diseases, and drug responses.”
It's a pity because the overhype takes away from the fact that it is actually an impressive technological feat to stack this many precise genome edits into a single non-model organism genome. But the extreme hype and lack of transparency (no publication or preprint) means that I have lost all respect for this team.
Is this safe? And being monitored.
I mean it blows my mind that the govt won't let a 19-yr old soldier have a beer but they'll allow this with seemingly no oversight.
Glad to see someone actually posting some sense. If we truly have the technology and means to "de-extinct" a species, it would be so incredible and beyond the scope of just plug and play with genes of a current species. But I still can't get over how the knee-jerk reaction of everyone is just "dur... have ya seen Jurassic Park?!?" As if a completely fictionalized movie should have any input on what science should do. I hope all of you will bring this same energy if NASA brings forward compelling studies on extraterrestrial microorganisms and you follow with "bad idea, dude, I seen Predator!"
I just can't get over the way people jump straight to the idea that we possess the reasonable possibility to engineer large therapod dinosaurs in a modern climate/ecosystem and they could survive to adulthood and reproduce. I know that "life, uh um uh, finds a way" but unfortunately the way life is finding right now is not multi-ton super predators. Again, if we really did have that kind of ability, our science would have advanced so far beyond just gene editing that we would effectively have strong armed nature out of control of many facets of life on Earth.
Mostly agree.
But bolded part is incorrect.
Ummm, ever heard of Jordan Hasay - oh wait, I mean orcas?
Could future generations of human descendants in 21XX(or beyond) be reaching out to us to try and guide us through better solutions with superior future technology?
They could be posting towards a potential future-past passage through the Internet.
No mention of the fact it might not be legit. ABC is a joke.
I shouldn't have shared the link in the 1st post without doing a little research. I was just trying to be nice to ABC as I had seen the video on MSN and was trying to link to an original source. Ironicailly, the story I linked to had a different video in it.
The poster talking about money seems to have nailed it - think the company probably is some type of theranos type hype machine.
Colossal says its investors include Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Paris Hilton and Peter Jackson.
Paris Hilton and Tom Brady - scientific experts. LOL.
"mainstream medium" "trying to be nice to abc" wawawa. shut up. you fell for clickbait and shared it without reading like any other idiot. you're no different. shallow reactionism is not the line to take when all you had to do was read. also, rich people can give money to things and not be at all versed in what they give it to. decline reads STEEP
A lot of people fall for clickbait though. The articles can be incredibly misleading.The dire wolf hit the paper front page of the Star this morning. It caught my eye because of this thread.
Most people will not want to do a lot of additional research after reading an article. Decline reads steep - the decline of the press more like. I don't believe that the average IQ has declined to the extent that journalism has due to various pressures and issues.
I do see your point in terms of the idea that we should read critically but there are serious issues even with a good portion of articles. It's sad. I feel quite strongly about this which is why I posted. It's always been this way but never to this extent.
TLDR: You shouldn't have to research articles because they publish inaccurate information - but increasingly, we are where we are.
It's a GMO grey wolf not the dire wolf. Basically they just did what dog breeders have been doing for millenia and selected genes for a white coat. Then they spun ridiculous PR to generate buzz and investment.
The poster talking about money seems to have nailed it - think the company probably is some type of theranos type hype machine.
Colossal says its investors include Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Paris Hilton and Peter Jackson.
Paris Hilton and Tom Brady - scientific experts. LOL.
The Theranos analogy is inaccurate because they have serious scientists involved and I don't doubt that they did the 20 CRISPR edits they claim to have done. And that is actually a significant technical achievement.
The problem is that they then claim that this is enough to create a dire wolf. The hype itself seems borderline criminal, and the journalists are too credulous here about the exact science. But you need someone who understands population genetics to actually point out how ridiculous that is.
The way we train and select journalists is outdated. A science reporter should be someone with a science background not an English major.
1) Why should it be done? I don't want designer baby or eugenics.
2) What is their possible business model? Designer pets?
Because the technology has amazing potential - multiplex edits in organisms are extremely hard. We can't practice on humans so why not practice on animals?
Why is de-extinction not a worthy cause? Humans have caused massive damage to animal populations globally, why shouldn't we work to undo some of them.
Do you want to be able to solve genetic diseases? There's so many unsolved questions in genome engineering!
What do you mean by designer babies or eugenics - define those specifically.
Their business model is discuss a lot in the biotech media. It's basically "we can work with governments that will see the value from a tourism or a ecological standpoint" - I think it's basically BS but people are excited by the core technology here.
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
It's a GMO grey wolf not the dire wolf. Basically they just did what dog breeders have been doing for millenia and selected genes for a white coat. Then they spun ridiculous PR to generate buzz and investment.
I mean could you selectively breed a grey wolf to have to dire wolf morphology? Probably? How many generations would it take? 100? 1000?
Could you selectively breed a grey world to have the 20 genome edits they made in these animals? LOL...
The approach so much faster and better (more precise, easy to characterize) that tradition breeding.
JFC. They are not dire wolves, or at the very minimum it's way too early to make the claim they are dire wolves, they just contain some of the genes of dire wolves (20 genes). This is a private company making these claims. Where is their peer-reviewed research?