Latest news with #deextinction
Forbes
7 days ago
- General
- Forbes
Should We De-Extinct The Woolly Mammoth? No, Save The Elephants
Should we bring back extinct animals? Wrong question. Why are we bringing back extinct animals when we have animals, plants, and fungi that are going extinct now, daily? By 2050, up to half of all species now alive could be extinct. Should we sacrifice the lives that can still be saved for poorly conceived experiments? As much fun as it may be for well-funded geneticists, from the perspective of conservation this is inefficient and frustrating. Bringing back a 12 foot tall flightless bird does sound hilarious, but is that the best use of resources? 12% of all bird species are endangered. If fans of Game of Thrones want to make their special wolves a reality, then they have the right to fantasize or show intellectual curiosity about the possibility. I would simply like to put in a word for the animals that exist now, that are important, and that are being threatened. Research has shown that the pursuit of de-extinction can have a net negative effect on biodiversity, the great cause the proponents claim to champion. Paris Hilton and the CIA are among the investors in Colossal Biosciences, a company that's valued at $10 billion, and undertaking several de-extinction projects. They 'brought back' the dire wolf last year, and they've bred a woolly mouse in anticipation of a woolly mammoth. The progress that humanity has made with genetics is impressive, but is this application useful? Beyond curiosity, creating cute new pets, or as a preface for transhumanism, what's the specific utility to humanity in bringing back an animal that by definition, isn't adapted for the world and will spend its life in a zoo; we'll be breeding novelties to create more caged, emotionally stunted animals for people to leer at for an afternoon. Let us note that no extinct animals are actually being brought back. Some of their genetic traits are being edited into their nearest living relatives, or animals that look like them thanks to convergent evolution, and those proxies are what we're talking about. Proponents are redefining terms as is convenient for them, as Colossal does on their website with 'de-extinction.' The Dire Wolves born last year are not Dire Wolves. They're Grey Wolves turned white with stronger jaws and about another dozen gene edits. They sure aren't the Dire Wolves that went extinct about 12,000 years ago, and diverged from living Canids about 5.7 million years ago. Dire wolves were genetically closer to a Dhole or Dingo anyway. This is a farce. The 'Woolly Mammoth' will be a hairy Asian Elephant; the 'Moa' will be an edited Emu. Get Ready For Moa Flu Zoonotic diseases are those that pass between humans and animals. Rabies, Bird Flu, Swine Flu are examples. These disease occur more often when different animals are kept in contact with each or people, which allows the diseases to evolve in different environments. Disease inducing microorganisms can jump between hosts, mutating and adapting and sometimes evolving into something devastating. The risk for ancient animals is greater as they don't have immune systems suited for modern diseases. How will the hybrids being created react, when they have half archaic and half modern DNA? Will this make them more resilient, or more vulnerable? This is a big unknown and we shouldn't be optimistic. From this resurrection would be a disease for which no modern Sapien is adapted. Remember the Native Americans and smallpox. Do we want to reintroduce viruses that can reduce our population by an order of magnitude? The Bird Flu and Covid were bad enough, shall we find out what the Moa or Dodo Flus will be like? June 2025, Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia. Habitat Loss, driven by development projects like ... More hydropower dams, continues to be the biggest threat to the Asian Elephant. False Cure, Red Herring Of A Solution What's cooler than breeding hybrids of extinct animals? Keeping them alive in the first place. At this pace, half of living species will be gone forever by 2050. When people think that we can bring back extinct animals, which we now understand isn't in fact what's happening, they'll think that protecting the species we have is less of a priority. After all, if an organism is that important then we'll just birth another one. It falsely allays concerns about biodiversity, the variety of life that is essential to strong ecosystems, where every organism with its niche performs its vital task. Removing any link on a food web has impacts on others; we can't view the death of one species as being important only for that species. What led to the death of the Dire Wolf in the first place? The death of all the herbivores it ate. To the point, why aren't we bringing back these forgotten herbivores? Because they weren't featured on Game of Thrones so no one cares. June 2025, Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia. A mother can birth a calf once every four years. The ... More threats against these dwindling animals continue. Stop deforestation. Do not rely on the misnomer of de-extinction. If we use the de-extinction programs to garner interest in conservation, then I support them. Otherwise it's hard not to view this as an unnecessary indulgence. Given the constant threats against Asian Elephants in the Cardamom Mountains that Wildlife Alliance protects, we can't get excited about making a hairy one while ignoring the bald ones that still exist, for now, constantly threatened by large development projects like hydropower dams. Let these projects bring attention and funding to current at-risk species, to excite the imagination and educate people about the importance of biodiversity and protecting nature. Otherwise, don't do it.
ABC News
22-07-2025
- Science
- ABC News
Extinct Species
MICHELLE WAKIM, REPORTER: What do you think about bringing extinct animals back to life? PERSON: I think it's a bit scary, but I think it's a really cool idea. PERSON: The world has adapted without them, but then if they come back, the right climates and stuff won't be right for them. PERSON: It would be really cool, but it could interrupt the food web or the food chain. PERSON: It could go really wrong. PERSON: It could very wrong. PERSON: Some things would go wrong. PERSON: It just depends on the animal and what it can do to society, like a dinosaur, that would just not be a good thing. PERSON: Well, I watched Jurassic Park. So not the plot of Jurassic Park? PERSON: Yeah, no, not the plot of Jurassic Park. PERSON: I think the plot of Jurassic Park would be cool. When we talk about de-extinction, bringing extinct animals back to life, Jurassic Park, the 1993 sci-fi film, often comes to mind. JURASSIC PARK: Welcome to Jurassic Park. But now, in real life, America Biotech company Colossal Biosciences has announced plans to de-extinct this. Do you know what this animal is? PERSON: An emu? PERSON: Uh, it looks like an emu. PERSON: I don't know. PERSON: An emu? This is the moa, and to be fair, it is in the same family as the emu. Moa were big flightless birds that once inhabited New Zealand and became extinct around 500 years ago due to over-hunting, habitat destruction and introduced predators. And the moa isn't the first animal Colossal Biosciences is keen to de-extinct. They've been working on woolly mammoths, the Tassie tiger, and these guys, which the company says are the first dire wolves to be born in more than 10,000 years. BETH SHAPIRO, COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES: The process of de-extinction is that we extract DNA from ancient bones, and we sequence that DNA and assemble ancient genomes. DNA, which stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, is like a blueprint that exists inside the cells of all living things. It's made up of chemical bases, adenine, thionine, cytosine, and guanine. They form the building blocks of DNA, which determines how all living things look and act. Sometimes you can also find DNA preserved in dead things. Now might be a good time to bring in Associate Professor Nick Rawlence. Part of his job is to get DNA out of archaeological, and fossil remains. NIC RAWLENCE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO: So, think Jurassic Park, but we don't bring back dinosaurs. De-extinction in the strictest sense is bringing back an animal that has been extinct, bringing it back to life. The only way to do that is through the process of cloning. So, if we think of Dolly the sheep. NEWS REPORTER: When the world first said, 'Hello Dolly' there were hopes this was the beginning of a revolution. Dolly was the first mammal to be cloned and was born back in 1996. But the thing about cloning is you need really high-quality DNA for it to work. ASS. PROF. RAWLENCE: The problem with extinct animals is that for the most part, their DNA is really badly degraded. It's like you've taken that DNA, and you've put it in a wood-fired pizza oven at 500 degrees overnight, and it comes out fragmented in shards, crumbs, dust, chemically modified. Nic says while we can take these damaged bits of DNA and kind of put them back together like a puzzle, there will be missing pieces and holes in the final product. Sound familiar? JURASSIC PARK: Gaps in the DNA sequence. We use the complete DNA of a frog to fill in the holes and complete the code, and now, we can make a baby dinosaur. So, if ancient DNA is too damaged to clone, what is Colossal Biosciences actually doing when they claim to de-extinct animals? BETH SHAPIRO, COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES: To de-extinct the moa, we are collecting DNA from all nine species of moa. We'll be comparing the genome sequences to genomes of living birds to identify what it is that made moa unique, and using the tools of genome editing to make those changes in the DNA sequence of the living close relatives. ASS. PROF. RAWLENCE: So, the only way to get an animal that's similar to one that was extinct is to use genetic engineering. So, bringing back the dire wolf, you've created a genetically engineered grey wolf; you would do the same with emu and moa. A good analogy is if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. What we have is we've got something that looks like a dire wolf, but we're not entirely sure it actually behaves like a dire wolf. PERSON: If you made it look like it and genetically put it together like that, then it might not have the same behaviours as it had a long time ago. PERSON: If they're just taking an emu and sort of like changing it to bring it back, I mean, what are we really going to gain from this? I don't think it's very necessary. PERSON: Why do we need the moa, kind of? It's like, what purpose does it have here? It could maybe endanger emus? PERSON: They might create a new animal, that's nothing like the original one, that went extinct. So, knowing all of this, we're left with the classic dilemma. JURASSIC PARK: Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. ASS. PROF. RAWLENCE: I'm against de-extinction. I would say by all means develop the technology but use it to save what we've got left. You could use this technology to genetically engineer animals to be resistant to a disease, giving them the chance to evolve with climate change in a fast-changing world. Colossal scientists said we have a moral obligation to bring back these species and undo the sins of the past; I'd say we need to learn from them, otherwise we're doomed to repeat them. PERSON: If it's used for commercial purposes, that would cross the line, I reckon. If it's used to kind of help the environment and save endangered species or stuff like that, that could be really good. PERSON: Maybe like polar bears. I know they're, like struggling because of climate change. So maybe, yeah, doing something for the polar bears. PERSON: If it's going to cause more harm than good then there's no need to bring them back and take money out of the science budget as a whole. PERSON: Especially with climate change it's a much better idea to focus on the animals that we have now because, like, we don't know if in a while those animals are going to be extinct as well.
ABC News
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Moa De-extinction
The US company Colossal Biosciences has announced plans to bring back the Moa - an extinct giant bird that once called New Zealand home. It's got the backing of a famous Kiwi filmmaker. But not everyone is convinced that we can resurrect extinct animals or that we should be trying. Join Justina on an epic adventure to discover what it takes to bring something back from extinction.
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Why giant moa — a bird that once towered over humans — are even harder to de-extinct than dire wolves
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A biotech company that claims to have brought dire wolves back from extinction has announced plans to resurrect giant extinct birds called moa. However, experts say that dire wolves were never truly resurrected, and that moa will be even harder to de-extinct. Earlier this month, Texas-based Colossal Biosciences said it had teamed up with filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson and Indigenous partners to bring back the 12-foot-tall (3.6 meter) South Island giant moa (Dinornis robustus) and other moa species. These flightless birds roamed New Zealand until they were hunted to extinction by early Māori settlers around 600 years ago. The new project will be coordinated by the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre, a joint venture between the main Māori tribe (iwi) on the South Island of New Zealand and the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. It's a multifaceted project that aims to combine traditional Māori knowledge, wildlife conservation and genetic engineering-driven de-extinction. However, the project has already come under fire. Critics have highlighted that some Māori iwi oppose de-extinction, while several scientists have argued that genetically modifying living animals can't bring back lost species. The scientific criticism is similar to the commentary after Colossal unveiled its "dire wolves" — a species that went extinct more than 10,000 years ago. Colossal's "dire wolves" are genetically modified gray wolves (Canis lupus) with 20 gene edits. The company claims they are dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus) because they have some observable traits identified in the dire wolf genome, such as increased size and a white coat. However, genetically, they're still mostly gray wolves. The same will be true for the living animal Colossal modifies for the moa project — but for moa, it's even more complicated. Related: T. rex researchers eviscerate 'misleading' dinosaur leather announcement Moa's closest living relatives are a group of South American birds called tinamous. The largest tinamou species is smaller than most domestic chickens, so is minuscule compared to South Island giant moa. Australia's emus (Dromaius novaehollandiae) are the next closest relative, but while these large flightless birds are physically more similar to giant moa, they're still not as big, growing to an average of 5.7 feet (1.75 m) tall. Both of these living relatives also separated from moa a long time ago. "The common ancestor of the moa and tinamou lived 58 million years ago, while the common ancestor of moa and emu lived 65 million years ago," Nic Rawlence, director of the Otago Palaeogenetics Lab at the University of Otago in New Zealand and a critic of the moa plan, told Live Science in an email. "That's a lot of evolutionary time." To put that in context, dire wolves only split from modern wolf-like canids — the group that includes gray wolves — around 5.7 million years ago (or even more recently at 4.5 million years ago, according to a recent preprint involving some of Colossal's scientists). That means moa had a lot more time to evolve unique traits. Image 1 of 3 Image 2 of 3 Image 3 of 3 Rawlence explained that moa and their closest living relatives descended from a group of small flying birds called lithornids. These animals lived around the world and gave rise to different groups that independently lost the ability to fly. As Rawlence puts it, these flightless birds were "filling the job vacancies in the ecosystem left by the extinction of the dinosaurs." Moa and emu lost flight through a process called convergent evolution, whereby different organisms evolve similar traits. That means, according to Rawlence, that the physiological and developmental mechanisms behind their body plans evolved independently, potentially via different genetic routes, which poses a challenge when it comes to bringing moa back. "Genetically engineering specific genes in an emu to match a moa could have dire developmental consequences given this independent and convergent evolutionary history," Rawlence said. Live Science asked Colossal whether there were any health risks associated with genetically engineering living animals to be more like extinct animals. Colossal's chief science officer, Beth Shapiro, told Live Science that the company was certified by the American Humane Society and that animal welfare was a priority in their work. "We thoroughly evaluate health risks of any proposed edit before selecting them for our final list of edits," Shapiro said in an email. Colossal's moa de-extinction plan Before Colossal begins creating its modern-day moa, the company aims to sequence and rebuild the genomes of all nine extinct moa species, while also sequencing high-quality genomes of their closest living relatives. This will allow Colossal to identify the changes that led to the moa's unique traits, including their large body size and lack of wings, according to Colossal's website. The researchers will then use primordial germ cells, the precursors of sperm or egg cells, from living species to "build a surrogate bird" and make genetic changes to create birds with moa traits. The company needs both male and female surrogates to carry the sperm and egg of their "moa," to then produce the genetically modified offspring. Colossal's website states that emus' larger size makes them a more suitable surrogate than tinamous. However, details on this part of the process are limited. Shapiro told Live Science that they were "still in the process of selecting the surrogate species for moa de-extinction." Emus lay large green eggs, around 5 inches (12 cm) long and 3.5 inches (9 cm) wide. Still, that's nothing compared to a South Island giant moa egg, which were 9.5 inches (24 cm) by 7 inches (17.8 cm). RELATED STORIES —'We didn't know they were going to be this cute': Scientists unveil genetically engineered 'woolly mice' —Colossal's de-extinction campaign is built on a semantic house of cards with shoddy foundations — and the consequences are dire —Dodos were fast and powerful, not slow and inept, definitive preserved specimen suggests "A South Island giant moa egg will not fit inside an emu surrogate, so Colossal will have to develop artificial surrogate egg technology," Rawlence said. Colossal briefly mentioned artificial eggs during its moa announcement, but didn't provide details on this part of the process. Live Science asked Colossal whether they could explain how Colossal will hatch a South Island giant moa. "Our exogenous development team is exploring different strategies for artificial egg incubation, which will have application both for moa de-extinction and bird conservation work," Shapiro said in an email.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Dire Wolf Company's Next Target? A Giant Flightless Bird
It has taken no end of imagination for Sir Peter Jackson, the Academy Award winning—and, not incidentally, knighted—director of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, to produce his entire body of cinematic work. It's a quality Jackson has had since he was a small child, when he would conjure up visions of the future. 'When I was a kid [I dreamed of] personal jet packs and flying cars and things,' Jackson said in a recent conversation with TIME. 'One of those other things I always dreamed of was to be able to bring back extinct species.' No-go on the jet packs and the flying cars. But the business of de-extinction? That's very much happening. In April, the Dallas-based biotech company Colossal Biosciences announced that it had successfully brought back the dire wolf, an animal whose howl had not been heard on Earth since the last member of the species vanished more than 10,000 years ago. Three young dire wolves currently live on a 2,000-acre preserve in an undisclosed location to protect them from the media and curiosity-seekers, and Colossal aims to produce more of the animals, with the ultimate goal of perhaps rewilding the species. Read more: The Return of the Dire Wolf The company is not stopping there. Colossal also wants to bring back the dodo, the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger—or thylacine—and more. The goal is both to increase genetic diversity and to hone genetic editing techniques to fortify existing but threatened species. Now, Colossal has announced one more species to add to its growing menagerie: the emu-like moa, a giant flightless bird that stood up to 12 ft. (3.6 m) tall, tipped the scales at more than 500 lbs (230 kg), and once ranged across New Zealand, before it was hunted to extinction by humans about 600 years ago. Like the moa, Jackson is a native New Zealander; 'I am a very proud kiwi,' he says. He is also a Colossal investor and acted as intermediary and facilitator bringing the company into partnership on the moa project with the Ngāi Tahu Research Center, a group that was founded in 2011 to foster intellectual development and conduct scientific studies for and by the Ngāi Tahu tribe of the Indigenous Māori people. 'Some of those iconic species that feature in our tribal mythology, our storytelling, are very near and dear to us,' says Ngāi Tahu archaeologist Kyle Davis, who is working on the moa de-extinction project. 'Participation in scientific research, species management, and conservation has been a large part of our activities.' 'This is completely a Māori initiative,' adds Ben Lamm, CEO and co-founder of Colossal. 'We feel like the Colossal team is an extension of the research center and the Māori.' Bringing back the moa would have implications not only for the species itself but for the environment it once inhabited and could again. The bird was what is known as a cornerstone species, one whose grazing and browsing helped prune and shape the jungle flora. Moas were also prolific dispersers of seeds from the plants they ate. The loss of the species not only eliminated that forest-restoring function, but also led to the related extinction of the Haast's eagle, which relied almost exclusively on the moa as prey. Restoring the moa would not bring the eagle back but could help at least partly restore the primal New Zealand woodlands. Bringing back the moa is of a piece with Colossal's other work, which seeks not only to restore vanished species, but to prevent related ones from slipping over the event horizon of extinction. Genetic engineering mastered in the dire wolf project, for example, is being used to edit greater diversity into the genome of the endangered red wolf. Knowledge gained in the effort to bring back the thylacine could similarly help preserve the related northern quoll. 'There are some species of birds on the South Island of New Zealand that are endangered due to the fact that they have reduced gene pools,' says Paul Scofield, senior curator of natural history at Canterbury Museum, author of 20 papers on the moa genome, and one of the scientists working on the de-extinction project. 'Some of the technology that Colossal is working with is very applicable to them.' Read more: Scientists Have Bred Woolly Mice on Their Journey to Bring Back the Mammoth That technology is decidedly challenging. De-extincting the dire wolf involved sequencing ancient DNA collected from fossil specimens and then rewriting the genome of cells from a gray wolf to resemble the extinct species with the lost ancient genes. The edited nucleus was then inserted into a domestic dog ovum whose own nucleus had been removed. That ovum was allowed to develop into an embryo in the lab and then implanted into the womb of a surrogate domestic dog, which carried the dire wolf pup to term.' Bringing back the extinct moa is harder since the incubating will be done outside the body, inside an egg. The first step in this work once again calls for sequencing the genome of the extinct target species and once again turning to a closely related living species—either the tinamou or the emu—for help. Colossal scientists will extract primordial germ cells—or cells that develop into egg and sperm—from a tinamou or emu embryo and rewrite their genome to match key features of the moa. Those edited cells will then be introduced into another embryonic tinamou or emu inside an egg. If all goes to plan, the cells will travel to the embryo's gonads, transforming them so that the females produce eggs and the males produce sperm not of the host species but of the moa. The result will be an emu or tinamou that hatches, grows up, mates, and produces eggs containing moa chicks. 'We've had some pretty big successes so far,' says Lamm. 'We have a breeding colony of tinamous but not emus, but have access to emu eggs through the many breeders out there." None of this means that the work is remotely done. Lamm concedes it could be up to ten years before a moa once again walks New Zealand—though it could come sooner. 'I'd rather underpromise and overdeliver,' he says. For now, Colossal and the Ngāi Tahu Research Center are still working to sequence the moa genome, and to do that they have to get their hands on more DNA samples. Museum specimens of moa remains satisfy some of that demand, but DNA degrades significantly over the centuries and what can't be harvested from private collections has to be dug up in field excavations—with a special eye to long, DNA-rich moa bones like the femur and tibia. 'There are a couple of really significant fossil sites, particularly one in North Canterbury, about an hour north of Christchurch,' says Scofield. 'So far we've sampled more than 60 individuals.' If those don't prove sufficient, he adds, 'we will have to go out and dig some more holes.' None of this comes cheap, and while Lamm does not disclose the exact funding for the moa de-extinction project, he does say it is an eight-figure sum. 'I saw the new Jurassic World movie and someone in it says it costs $72 million to bring back one animal,' he says. 'I was like, 'That's probably accurate.'' That up-front expenditure could pay off handsomely down the line, boosting ecotourism to New Zealand and benefiting Colossal's basic research, which is already showing for-profit potential. So far, Colossal has spun off two new companies: One, called Breaking, uses engineered microbes and enzymes to break down plastic waste. The other, Form Bio, provides AI and computational biology platforms for drug development. But it's the intangibles—the wonder of midwifing a long-extinct species back to the global family of extant ones—that is Colossal's and the Māori's most transcendent work. 'This has an excitement value to it that movies don't have,' says Jackson. 'When I see a living moa for the first time I'm going to be absolutely amazed beyond anything I've ever felt.' Write to Jeffrey Kluger at
