Researchers claim to have revived long-extinct dire wolf species

The Manila Times

Researchers claim to have revived long-extinct dire wolf species  US biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences says they have cloned three dire wolves, a species that has been extinct for over 10,000 years, by using extinct dire wolf DNA to edit a donor gray wolf genome.   COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES/TMX/REUTERS VIDEO  Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe  Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net  Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion   Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital   Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer Stitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcher  Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein  Soundcloud: https://tmt.ph/soundcloud   #TheManilaTimes #tmtnews #wolf

Transcript

00:00So, yes, they have slightly genetically modified wolves, maybe.

00:18And that's probably the best you're going to get.

00:21And those slight modifications seem to have been derived from retrieved dire wolf material.

00:30Does that make it a dire wolf?

00:31No.

00:32Does it make a slightly modified gray wolf?

00:35Yes.

00:36And that's probably about it.

00:48When you claim all these great big things and then you don't provide the associated

00:51evidence, especially in something as controversial as this, that is a massive red flag.

00:56It suggests that, well, at best, they've over-exaggerated.

01:03At worst, they're lying through their teeth.

01:33We don't, we don't have the technology to modify entire genomes.

01:50We can modify components of genomes and we can certainly sequence genomes, but the fact

01:58that fossil evidence, unless it's only recently extinct and very essentially not been degraded

02:04for very long.

02:05This is why sort of the Jurassic Park concept is even more fantastical because we're talking

02:10about tens of millions of years between deposition of the individual and finding the fossil.

02:18So the DNA degradation would mean that if you could get a few base pairs out, you're

02:22doing well.

02:23And that's not enough to create an entire genome.

02:25Where do you put them?

02:27I mean, this is one thing that seems to be completely lost on the de-extinction people

02:31is that, let's say that even you managed to bring back a sufficient number of mammoths

02:37or dire wolves to create a viable population.

02:40This is important because you need thousands of completely genetically diverse individuals

02:45in the population to have any chance of surviving in the future.

02:49The whole Adam and Eve concept that we create two and they can just go on and do their own thing.

02:54Now that's called inbreeding depression.

02:56And then things die very quickly.

02:59Most introductions of most species fail, over 99%.

03:03Why?

03:04Because there's a few individuals that inbreed themselves out of existence.

03:08This is the same with respect to humans.

03:12It happens in humans.

03:13It happens in mice.

03:14It happens in the smallest individuals.

03:26It happens in animals.

03:29It happens in humans.

03:32It happens in animals.

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