‘De-extinction' criticism sparks smear campaign
An Otago paleogenetics researcher who has been critical of Colossal Biosciences' plan to "de-extinct" the giant moa has been targeted by online "smear" articles aimed at discrediting him.
University of Otago paleogeneticist Associate Prof Nic Rawlence has publicly said there was no such thing as de-extinction, and the American company's plan was "a pipe dream that will likely never take flight".
"Once something is extinct, it is gone."
He said Colossal would be creating a genetically engineered emu or some other genetically engineered ratite that may look like a moa, but was unlikely to function or sound like a moa.
Colossal also claimed to have iwi engagement in the project, but Prof Rawlence said based on his experience working with Ngāi Tahu, there was no appetite for de-extinction among many of the individual rūnanga.
Now, supporters of Colossal have launched a "smear campaign" on him and other top scientists around the globe who have publicly criticised the de-extinction project.
He said there had been three AI-generated articles published in media around the world attacking his professional credibility.
One called him a "hypocrite" because he also uses fragmentary ancient DNA to reconstruct lost ecosystems — the same technique Colossal will use to bring back the giant moa.
The article said he could not criticise Colossal without criticising his own work.
"That's complete rubbish because we're very conscious of the limitations of the data that we use, and we don't over-extrapolate and over-extend our conclusions.
"Colossal are selling that they're de-extincting things when they're not. I'm not selling my work as de-extinction."
The second "hit piece" accused Prof Rawlence of being more concerned about being a media fixture than actually doing research.
"It said I should go focus on improving my mediocre publication record.
"My publication record — well that speaks for itself."
The third one that came out earlier this week said he was "misappropriating and misrepresenting the Maori voice" around the extinction.
"All the engagement work I have done around sequencing moa genomes or looking at New Zealand's taonga species with iwi, hapu, runanga and trusts around the country, means we know the feelings of mana whenua and they are against de-extinction."
Colossal chief executive Ben Lamm has told media the company had no involvement in the AI-generated articles.
However, Prof Rawlence said it was clear the company did not like the critical commentary.
He published a comment piece on The Conversation website about de-extinction, topped with a "tongue-in-cheek headline" saying: "First the dire wolf, now NZ's giant moa: why real 'de-extinction' is unlikely to fly".
On July 12, Mr Lamm posted on X about the article, saying: "There are sometimes crazy, weird conspiracy articles about @colossal which make us laugh — But the dumbest headline of all time goes to this article whose author doesn't even know moas couldn't fly.
"If the moas [sic] fly, we really f...ed up. LOL. I wish people did more research. DUMB — LOLOLOLOLOL."
Prof Rawlence said there was also a YouTube video from Colossal about de-extinction science that called its detractors "armchair critics".
"Colossal may not be behind the AI-generated smear campaign, but they definitely are wanting to smear and take down critical commentary."
Prof Rawlence said he was not concerned about the campaign to discredit his work.
"It's water off a moa's back for me.
"Under the Education Act, universities have a critic and conscience role enshrined in the legislation, so we can speak out within our area of expertise — which is exactly what we have done.
"We provided critical scientific commentary that we did not support de-extinction and that there were serious scientific, ethical, ecological and indigenous engagement concerns.
"If the supporters of Colossal had any substantial critique to counter our scientific commentary, they would have used it.
"Instead, they're resorting to this — low blows and personal attacks. So to me, it just means our messages are actually hitting home."
He believed Colossal's actions were very "Trump-ish".
"If a CEO or a director of a museum or the boss of a university put this tweet out, he would be called up in front of his board, reprimanded, or even worse.
"But this is Trump's America, and everything is upside down.
"So I wouldn't call it very inspiring behaviour at all."
john.lewis@odt.co.nz
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scoop
13 hours ago
- Scoop
Jim Lovell To Donald Trump: From America's Best To Its Worst
Wednesday, 13 August 2025, 1:36 pm Opinion: Martin LeFevre - Meditations Taken aboard Apollo 8 by Bill Anders, this iconic picture shows Earth peeking out from beyond the lunar surface as the first crewed spacecraft circumnavigated the Moon, with astronauts Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell aboard. Image Credit: NASA The astronaut Jim Lovell died last week. Those of us old enough to recall Apollo 8's circumnavigation of the moon, captained by Lovell over Christmas 1968, will tell you that it was nearly as much of a global event as Neil Armstrong's landing less than two years later. Like most American boys at the time, I followed the Apollo missions closely. 1968 is the same year that '2001, A Space Odyssey' came out, which is considered one of the best films of all time. By grappling with the big questions about humanity's place in the universe, the movie inspired me as a 16-year-old to be a philosopher, though I didn't realise it until ten years later. Apollo 8 was the first time humans left Earth orbit, and it was a huge gamble for NASA. The United States was locked in an ideological struggle with the USSR, and in John F. Kennedy's words, 'landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth' was a national priority. Though Apollo 8 wasn't originally scheduled to orbit the moon, NASA took a chance, and the mission was a tremendous success. Equaling the technical feat, there was a moment of global unity that Lovell, Borman and Anders provided that Christmas Eve. As a billion people from 64 countries – one-quarter of the world's population at the time – watched and listened, the three astronauts took turns reading the first lines from Genesis. This mission was the first time humans had seen the entire Earth from space, and Bill Anders is credited with taking the most famous photo from space, 'Earthrise,' which started the global environmental movement. Irrespective of the Christian creation myth of Genesis, anyone with half a heart cannot now listen to the Christmas message from humankind's first spacefarers as they orbited the moon without it bringing a tear to the eye. Not out of any traditionally religious sentiment, but because it crackles with the highest aspirations of the human race. It's hard to fathom now, but the backdrop of the immensely successful Apollo program was the immense failure the Vietnamese War was becoming, and the generational division it was spawning. The contradiction between America's technological prowess and political/military failure reverberates to this day. Indeed, the unaddressed darkside of American character came to dominate its culture and politics to the point of the present destruction of our democracy. Both Lovell and Armstrong were men of exceptional integrity, humility, courage, and competence. Lovell's leadership was instrumental in bringing the badly disabled Apollo 13 crew home, and Armstrong's cool competence landed the Eagle on the moon with only seconds of fuel left. How did the United States come to be ruled by the worst example of its manhood in Donald Trump and his henchmen like Vance, Hegseth and Homan? The short answer is that the American virtues that produced the space program reached the zenith of their external expression with Apollo, and since the moon landing have been eroded year after year by Americans refusing to turn and face the darkness that produced the atomic bombings and the horrors of Vietnam. The first Gulf War supposedly exorcised the ghosts of Vietnam, but it led, after the wasted Clinton years, to the 'forever wars against terror.' Even Barack Obama doubled down in Afghanistan, and in his professorial purblindness, kissed the bankers asses in 2009 after the financial meltdown, and opened the door to Trump. Today, nothing brands the United States as an authoritarian banana republic more than sending the National Guard into Washington DC to stop a crime wave that's been in decline. As one commentator said, 'No one is really supposed to believe that the deployment of troops to America's most liberal, most racially diverse, and most culturally thriving cities is an actual response to an actual crisis. Rather, the thinness of the pretext is itself a demonstration of power.' Trump cannot 'impose suffering' however. He can't even impose his will without a prostrate citizenry, focused solely on its personal escapes. In 1968, the American people would have revolted en masse to being ruled by an ugly-mouth tyrant. After all, we threw out the much less criminal and despotic Richard Nixon in 1974. Authoritarianism in a nation that has no history of democracy arises from longstanding internal conditions of fear and domination in all its forms. Authoritarianism in a nation that gave birth to modern democracy, and prided itself on the power of the people, arises from relatively recent internal conditions of individualism, apathy, indifference and a collective abrogation of responsibility as citizens. It's pointless to write about 'the core features of fascist regimes,' and refer abstractly to the 'collapse of rhetoric and reality.' Yes, 'the ability to make your lies have the force of fact is a terrifying power,' but in a culture that has long prized 'my perspective,' and 'my truth,' seeking and speaking truth has eroded to the point that few feel there is any such thing as truth anymore. The continuous drumbeat of 'competing narratives' in the national media only adds to the underlying corrosion. Even in a woefully imperfect democracy, which is what America has arguably been since a few decades after its inception, tyranny emanates not from the top down, as pundits and academics would have you believe, but from the bottom up. The evil of nationalism is again sweeping the world. Neil Armstrong didn't even want to plant a ridiculous flag on the moon. Look up at the moon tonight. Now NASA is making a priority of building a Trump-driven nuclear power plant on the lunar surface, motivated by the lunacy of extending nationalistic dominion to our nearest celestial neighbor. The man-made evil that flows through Trump and Putin means to destroy the human spirit as surely as the American spirit has been destroyed by the perennial denial of self-made darkness. How far we've come technologically, and how far we've regressed spiritually and philosophically. Martin LeFevre Apollo 8 genesis reading © Scoop Media
NZ Herald
21 hours ago
- NZ Herald
How Trump's funding cuts threaten US science and global innovation
Khvorova built her career by thinking boldly, but if slowdowns and cuts to federal science funding continue, she'll be forced to winnow her ambitions. 'What is happening right now is absolutely suicidal,' said Khvorova, speaking softly in Russian-accented English. 'I will stop making drugs. I will reduce my lab from 30 people to five. I will stop training scientists.' With stunning speed, the Trump Administration has over the past six months cut research dollars, terminated grants and hit the brakes on federal funding, destabilising an 80-year-old partnership between the government and universities that has made the United States a scientific superpower. The policy twists may sound arcane, but to researchers, everything is at stake. Day-to-day, Khvorova's lab is bright and buzzing. Scientists are trying to develop cures for Huntington's disease or halt the muscle loss that comes with ageing. Longer term? 'I have no clue,' Khvorova said. The Trump Administration portrays its changes as a targeted correction. Officials say grants are being terminated because they touch on topics with which the Administration disagrees, such as increasing diversity in science. Funding to specific universities has been frozen because they haven't protected Jewish students, according to the Administration. Fundamental research, Trump officials vow, will thrive. 'The money that goes to basic and blue-sky science must be used for that purpose, not to feed the red tape that so often goes along with funded research,' Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science Technology and Policy, said in a speech at the National Academy of Sciences in May. From left, Gregory Smith, Nathan Gioacchini and Philip Soglo synthesise strands of RNA at U-Mass Chan Medical School. Photo / Kate Wool, The Washington Post In contrast, a recent report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that President Donald Trump's budget request for 2026 – including a 40% cut to the National Institutes of Health – would slice the nation's basic research portfolio by about a third. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office found that a 10% cut to the NIH budget would result in two fewer drugs invented per year, a gradual decline that would go into full effect in 30 years. The Trump Administration's science agenda is getting pushback in courts, in Congress and at the state level, but the impacts are being felt in research institutions across the country. As of August 1, the Chan Medical School had a US$37 million ($62m)shortfall in funding because of long delays at the National Institutes of Health. Khvorova is no stranger to doing science under challenging conditions. She trained at Moscow State University in the waning days of the Soviet Union, when there was sometimes no hot water, no reagents for experiments, no salaries. Even that has not prepared her for the abrupt policy swings that threaten the unique American research system. 'We are working on developing cures, which are not politically oriented,' Khvorova said. 'Democrats age, and Republicans age.' Disruptions will ripple over decades, since no one can predict what science breakthroughs in the lab will turn into world-changing innovations. Khvorova's work built off years of federally funded research into soil-dwelling microscopic roundworms that revealed short strands of RNA perform like symphony conductors, controlling the activity of genes and turning their volume down. Worcester, a gritty former mill city in Central Massachusetts, is home to two Nobel laureates and an RNA Therapeutics Institute that has spawned 12 start-ups. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, a company based on the phenomenon originally discovered in roundworms in labs at Chan Medical School and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, has discovered six drugs now approved for diseases that include rare genetic conditions and high cholesterol. The company's market capitalisation has soared to more than US$50 billion, and it has 2200 employees. Basic research 'is almost like the starter when you bake sourdough bread. You can't make the bread without it,' said John Maraganore, who led Alnylam for nearly two decades before he stepped down in 2021. 'Girls just wanna have (NIH) funding' In the labyrinthine, slightly cluttered labs at Chan Medical School, scientists tend to high-end instruments with geeky names like 'Dr Oligo', using them to synthesise strands of RNA aimed at treating fatal forms of dementia or diseases that cause muscles to waste away. Under sterile hoods, they grow millions of mouse liver cells for experiments. In a small room called the 'wormhole', decorated with colourful worms hanging from the door jamb like icicles, Victor Ambros, a Nobel Prize-winning worm biologist, zooms in on mutant roundworms wriggling across a yellowish agar gel. Unlike Harvard University, which has had billions of dollars in funding choked off by the Trump Administration, Chan hasn't been targeted. But it is not untouched. Like hundreds of other institutions across America, it has been thrown off stride day-to-day and week-to-week by the Trump Administration's unprecedented efforts to downsize and reshape the agencies that support science. Uncertainty looms over nearly every experiment and conversation. Slogans, not scientific sketches, are scrawled on the frosted glass wall of one office: 'We want scientific data, not alternative facts!' 'Girls just wanna have (NIH) funding' 'Science Not Silence!' More than a dozen NIH grants, out of several hundred, have been terminated, though they are tangled up in lawsuits challenging the Trump Administration's actions. About 200 employees have been laid off or furloughed, about 3% of the medical school's 6500 employees. A hiring freeze has been in place since March. Graduate school offers to nearly 90 young biomedical scientists were rescinded, though 13 spots were salvaged for next year's class. 'We have this feeling of extreme uncertainty, in a context where, previously, we could depend upon a robust system, a merit-based system that was predictable for the right reasons – the best science will get funded,' said Ambros, who shared the Nobel in medicine last year. Jesse Lehman, a graduate student who focuses on understanding the speed and dynamics of immune defences against pathogens, became hooked on science when he first felt the rush of discovering things no one else knew. There are no guarantees in this career – the contest for federal funding is exceptionally competitive. But what has fuelled the system is its reliability. The federal Government funds the best research, year after year, and scientists chase grants without worrying that the funder may lose interest in neuroscience or immunology and decide instead to buy a sports team. But now, federal funding may be there one moment and gone the next. 'I have this fear that the career that I've worked 10 years on developing just may not be viable,' Lehman said. The 20-year path to success Research institutions nationwide experience layoffs and uncertainty due to the funding reductions. Photo / Kate Wool, The Washington Post In textbooks, science is a steady march of progress. In the lab, it's an iterative process – filled with detours and dead ends that sometimes turn out to be surprises that push the field forward. In 2006, Chan biologist Craig Mello shared the Nobel Prize with Stanford University biologist Andrew Fire for the discovery of a phenomenon called RNA interference: short double strands of RNA could silence genes. It is a profound biological mechanism shared not just by tiny worms, but by humans. Other scientists built on the work, capturing the interest of venture capitalists and pharma companies. Many human diseases are caused by errant genes. What if, instead of treating patients' symptoms, doctors could give their patients drugs that just shut off the problematic ones? More than a billion dollars flowed into start-ups, but biology turned out to be a bit more complicated. Investor ebullience evaporated. Alnylam, an RNAi company, began trading below the amount of cash it had on hand, meaning investors thought its stock was less valuable than the money it had in the bank. Years of science – including a lot of chemistry – eventually turned a profound biological mechanism into a new class of safe effective drugs. 'Sickness doesn't have political boundaries,' said Phillip Zamore, a co-founder of Alnylam and a professor of biomedical sciences. 'Everyone deserves a better treatment for their disease, and I just want to make that possible. And I can't do that if my lab, my university, my colleagues' ability to do science is destroyed.' In the past few years, several biotech companies have spun out of Chan, including Comanche Biopharma, which is focused on a treatment for pre-eclampsia – a complication of pregnancy – and Atalanta Therapeutics, which is searching for cures for neurodegenerative diseases. Khvorova, a co-founder of both companies, came to the US with very little money in the mid-1990s, intending to check a box on her CV and stay a year or two. Instead, she became a 'typical example of the American Dream', as she puts it. She's an inventor named on nearly 250 patents. She just scooped up one of the most prestigious prizes in biomedical research, with a US$2.7m award. She should be on top of the world. But as she walked to her lab on a recent Tuesday, she gestured sadly at a collection of empty champagne bottles sitting high up above the cabinets in the lounge outside. Each bottle, she noted, is a trained graduate student – a reminder that most of next year's class was turned away.
Otago Daily Times
a day ago
- Otago Daily Times
Analysing past pandemics to inform future responses
About 9000 people died in six weeks when the 1918 influenza pandemic swept through New Zealand, making it the largest natural disaster in the country's history. Now University of Otago researchers have joined forces with researchers at Durham University (United Kingdom) and the University of Tubingen (Germany) to complete the first digital analysis of the pandemic, in a bid to provide insights for managing future infectious disease emergencies. Also known as the Great Influenza Epidemic and the Spanish flu, the deadly global pandemic lasted from 1918-20, and was caused by the H1N1 subtype of the influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was in March 1918, in Kansas, United States, and a month later there were cases in France, Germany and the UK. It was quickly spread around the globe by troops during World War 1. Between 1918 and 1920, nearly a third of the global population (an estimated 500 million people) had been infected, and up to 50 million people are estimated to have died from the virus, making it the deadliest pandemic in history. Project co-leader and University of Otago Health Protection Aotearoa Research Centre director Prof Michael Baker said the pandemic was still the largest natural disaster in New Zealand's history, killing about 0.8% of the population — the equivalent of about 40,000 people today. "While the social history of this pandemic has been comprehensively described by historians, notably Prof Geoff Rice, there has not been a full epidemiological analysis using case data. "This project will fill that gap and provide insights into how a poorly controlled modern influenza pandemic could affect the country." The researchers now had a digital database that showed who got infected and when in 1918, and who died, which would allow them to see how the virus moved through New Zealand. "This is why influenza is actually quite worrying, because it has a very short incubation period, and it would sweep through the country very rapidly. "If we had a comparable influenza virus arriving in New Zealand tomorrow, it would probably infect most of the country within a few weeks, it would absolutely overwhelm the health system, and we would not be using an elimination approach at that stage — it would be a mitigation approach, where we just try to dampen it down. "It would put massive strain on our ability to manage people with ventilators and so on, so it could cause 40,000 deaths in that period of time if it behaved the same way." Project leader and Durham University bioarchaeologist Prof Rebecca Gowland said the project was the first step towards a more comprehensive programme aimed at better understanding past global pandemics, including the Black Death in 1348, the 6th century Justinian plague in Europe and the Tudor-era English Sweating Sickness. The aim was to better understand how social connections and differences influenced the spread of pandemics through the centuries, and how individuals and societies responded to the threat they pose.
