I love her; I subscribe to her channel.
It was difficult knowing where this should go. Arguments abound. Can’t release them into the wild even if they didn’t present a threat. So why? To raise zoo attendance?
In theory bringing back an extinct species would help us learn about them. In this case, though, there’s the problem that they didn’t actually resurrect dire wolves, they introduced a few of their key traits into grey wolves. Like 15-20 genes, which would be much less than what we have from neandertals despite us not being neandertals.
Right now most of the headlines seem to be repeating Colossal Biosciences’s description of these as dire wolves without questioning, but here is one of the rare exceptions.
And just for the record, I have seen criticism of this company being entirely about hype rather than good science before too.
Yeah, Ars is pretty harsh on these claims as well.
While this is being portrayed as the return of the dire wolf, these animals are primarily a variant of gray wolves, as many of the genetic changes that create their large size and pale coat already exist in some gray wolf populations. They carry only a few changes that are specific to dire wolves. (This is very much like what the company announced with woolly mice.)
(The comment about the “wooly mice” was my first thought as well)
They’ll create a subsidiary hawking their de-extincted wolves. Their subsidiary’s domain will be called Dug-up-Pupper.com
And now BBC has the correct story too. Think the truth will catch up after so many places echoed the press release without consideration?
But I guess the company has probably gotten the hype it needs to impress investors either way. I frickin’ hate the post-truth world corporations have built.
Platypuses are not marsupials, they lay eggs like you literally just said.
Nominative determinism in action, yet again!
According to the Google Translator, Grandoni means big guys… So Dino Grandoni…
Apart from the herbivore bit, that could be a labrador…
… During a recent expedition, researchers drilled more than 487 metres into the West Antarctic ice cap and discovered a sub-glacial river flowing beneath the Ross Ice Shelf, earth.com released.
The river, as high as a 30-storey building and as wide as a city block, is a mixture of freshwater and seawater, slowly making its way towards the ocean.
“We found water at the end of the borehole and, with the help of our camera, we even discovered a shoal of lobster-like creatures 400 kilometres from the ocean”, said expedition leader Huw Horgan. …
Once again, our friends at Farmingdale Observer have curiously tagged a story as Home Improvement:
Other curious applications of this tag may be found here and here.
Methinks they need a Science category/tag.
ETA:
And I’m an idiot. These are living critters, not fossils. I’ll move this to “interesting,” if y’all think I should.