Scientists Bring Dire Wolf Back From Extinction... Almost
fliptop writes:
The dire wolf has been extinct for over 10,000 years. These two wolves were brought back from extinction:
The dire wolf, an animal that has been extinct for over 10,000 years has nearly come back after scientists at Colossal Biosciences were able to edit the DNA of a more modern wolf to appear and have the features of the dire wolf, a type of wolf that was made famous by "Game of Thrones."
Colossal Biosciences posted to X with a video clip of two small wolf cubs barking, "You're hearing the first howl of a dire wolf in over 10,000 years. Meet Romulus and Remus-the world's first de-extinct animals, born on October 1, 2024."
[...] The Dallas-based company, which has put on challenges to bring back the dodo bird as well as the woolly mammoth, was able to obtain DNA from fossils of dire wolves in 2021 and then edit the DNA of grey wolves in order to weave the key features of the dire wolf in with the grey wolf cubs. The embryos were edited and placed into a surrogate wolf-mother. Three wolves were born as a result, two male and one female, the New York Times reported.
From the AP News report:
Colossal scientists learned about specific traits that dire wolves possessed by examining ancient DNA from fossils. The researchers studied a 13,000 year-old dire wolf tooth unearthed in Ohio and a 72,000 year-old skull fragment found in Idaho, both part of natural history museum collections.
Then the scientists took blood cells from a living gray wolf and used CRISPR to genetically modify them in 20 different sites, said Colossal's chief scientist Beth Shapiro. They transferred that genetic material to an egg cell from a domestic dog. When ready, embryos were transferred to surrogates, also domestic dogs, and 62 days later the genetically engineered pups were born.
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