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No, tech bros have not just de-extincted a wolf that died out 12,500 years ago

Scientists at a U.S. biotech firm are falsely claiming the ‘un-extinction‘ of dire wolves – which died out around 12,500 years ago.

Dire wolves? Nah, bro.

Colossal Biosciences – which is a Dallas start-up specialising in de-extinction, used advanced genetic engineering to replicate the features of dire wolves. Many news outlets are naming it ‘worlds first true de-extinction event’.

However, it is not what it seems.

Scientists are calling it out for what it is – BS.

According to the firms website, they are also attempting to revive the wooly mammoth, using experiments on mice. Where are these (pretend) Woolly mammoths going to live when all the ice has melted due to the climate crisis?

Extinction means extinction

Scientists broadly agree that ‘de-extinction’ is not possible – especially not of dire wolves. According to Yale Environment 360:

The challenges begin with accurately mapping the extinct species’ genome. DNA starts to break down as soon as an animal dies. Any genetic blueprint from a museum specimen or from tissues found in permafrost will always be fragmented. The chances of perfectly recreating it are slim. A second problem is that animals have DNA in both their cell nuclei and in the cytoplasm outside the nucleus. This other type of DNA, mitochondrial DNA, is inherited from the mother during gestation. De-extincted animals don’t have mothers of their own species.

Other factors compound the difficulties. The microbial makeup of the surrogate womb would differ from the past. An infant mammoth or thylacine would be raised without siblings and by parents of a different species. Thanks to climate change, temperatures would be warmer. A new set of microbes and invertebrates would crawl over its skin. The behaviors and social environments that shaped the original species would be absent. The de-extincted animal may have visual similarities to the missing creature, but it would be far from the same thing.

The site also warns that de-extinction technology could divert funding from vital conservation work, create ‘new vectors for pathogens’ (hello global pandemic V2!), and make extinction less of a threat.

Earlier this year, Colossal announced that it had raised an additional $200m – taking the total they have raised to $435m.

In theory, analogue for species gone extinct could help drive ecological processes that benefit the broader ecosystem. Nevertheless, imagine how much useful conservation work could be done with that amount of money.

What’s more, a study found that diverting funds to ‘de-extinct’ species, reintroduce them, and conserve them, could in fact endanger existing species as well. Crucially, it identified that:

For every other species considered for de-extinction, reintroduction would at best be neutral but at worst harm up to 14 existing species

So, it might give people the fuzzy feels of righting a moral wrong, but the reality is that it could actually exacerbate the threats species face today.

Scientific hubris of mammoth proportions

More than 47,000 species are threatened with extinction. Yet tech bros are more interested in bringing back the ones that went extinct thousands of years ago, instead of protecting the planet and limiting future damage:

Living in Earth’s sixth extinction event be like:

Could ≠ should: I’ve seen this film before…

So here we are. Scientists really grew up on the 90s pop culture diet of dino-de-extinction disaster cautionary tale, and thought, let’s go God-mode:

Where does this end? Am I going to be fighting both tech bros and T-rex’s in 20 years?

Dire wolves eating tech bros? Sounds familiar.

Putting the future of the planet in the hands of tech-bros is a recipe for disaster.

If Ian Malcolm were writing God Creates Dire Wolves, the opening would go something like this:

God creates dire wolves. God destroys dire wolves. God creates tech bros. Tech bros destroy God. Tech bros create (fake) dire wolves. Dire wolves hopefully eat tech bros. Women inherit the Earth.

Feature image via the Canary

By HG

This post was originally published on Canary.