News Feeds

A moth antenna can be integrated into the electronics of a drone to create a smell-seeking bio-hybrid – but it only detects the smell of a female moth

This really is just a coincidence – I posted yesterday about using AI and modern genetic engineering technology, with one application being the de-extinction of species. I had not seen the news from yesterday about a company that just announced it has cloned three dire wolves from ancient DNA. This is all over the news, so here is a quick recap before we discuss the implications.

The company, Colossal Biosciences, has long announced its plans to de-extinct the woolly mammoth. This was the company that recently announced it had made a woolly mouse by inserting a gene for wooliness from recovered woolly mammoth DNA. This was a proof-of-concept demonstration. But now they say they have also been working on the dire wolf, a species of wolf closely related to the modern gray wolf that went extinct 13,000 years ago. We mostly know about them from skeletons found in the Le Brea tar pits (some of which are on display at my local Peabody Museum). Dire wolves are about 20% bigger than gray wolves, have thicker lighter coats, and are more muscular. They are the bad-ass ice-age version of wolves that coexisted with saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths.

The company was able to recover DNA from 13,000 year old tooth and a 72,000 year old skull. With that DNA they engineered wolf DNA at 20 sites over 14 genes, then used that DNA to fertilize an egg which they gestated in a dog. They actually did this twice, the first time creating two males, Romulus and Remus (now six months old), and the second time making one female, Kaleesi (now three months old). The wolves are kept in a reserve. The company says they have no current plan to breed them, but do plan to make more in order to create a full pack to study pack behavior.

The company acknowledges these puppies are not the exact dire wolves that were alive up to 13,000 years ago, but they are pretty close. They started pretty close – gray wolves share 99.5% of their DNA with dire wolves, and now they are even closer, replicating the key morphological features of the dire wolf. So not a perfect de-extinction, but pretty close. Next up is the woolly mammoth. They also plan to use the same techniques to de-extinct the dodo and the thylacine.

What is the end-game of de-extincting these species? That’s a great question. I don’t anticipate that a breeding population of dire wolves will be released into the wild. While they did coexist with grey wolves, and can again, this species was not driven to extinction by humans but likely by changing environmental conditions. They are no longer adapted to this world, and would likely be a highly disruptive invasive species. The same is true of the woolly mammoth, although it is not a predator so the concerns are no as – dire (sorry, couldn’t resist). But still, we would need to evaluate their effect on any ecosystem we place them.

The same is not true for the thylacine or dodo. The dodo in particular seem benign enough to reintroduce. The challenge will be getting it to survive. It went extinct not just from human predation, but also it ground nests and was not prepared for the rats and other predators that we introduced to their island. So first we would need to return their habitat to a livable state for them. Thylacines might be the easiest to reintroduce, as they went extinct very recently and their habitat still largely exists.

So – for those species we have no intention of reintroducing into the wild, or for which this would be an extreme challenge – what do we do with them? We could keep them on a large preserve to study them and to be viewed by tourists. Here we might want to follow the model of Zealandia – a wildlife sanctuary in New Zealand. I visited Zealandia and it is amazing. It is a 500+ acre ecosanctuary, completely walled off from the outside. The goal is to recreate the native plants and animals of pre-human New Zealand, and to keep out all introduced predators. It serves as a research facility, sanctuary for endangered species, and tourist and educational site.

I could imagine other similar ecosanctuaries. The island of Mauritius where the dodo once lived is now populated, but vast parts of it are wild. It might be feasible to create an ecosanctuary there, safe for the dodo. We could do a similar project in North America, which is not only a preserve for some modern species but also could contain de-extincted compatible species. Having large and fully protected ecosanctuaries is not a bad idea in itself.

There is a fine line between an ecosanctuary and a Jurassic Park. It really is a matter of how the park is managed and how people interact with it, and it’s more of a continuum than a sharp demarcation. It really isn’t a bad idea to take an otherwise barren island, perhaps a recent volcanic island where life has not been established yet, and turn it into an isolated ecosanctuary, then fill it with a bunch of ancient plants and animals. This would be an amazing research opportunity, a way to preserve biodiversity, and an awesome tourist experience, which then could fund a lot of research and environmental initiatives.

I think the bottom line is that de-extinction projects can work out well, if they are managed properly. The question is – do we have faith that they will be? The chance that they are is increased if we engage in discussions now, including some thoughtful regulations to ensure ethical and responsible behavior all around.

 

The post De-extincting the Dire Wolf first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

A blood test can accurately determine whether someone without known risk factors for preeclampsia may be at risk of developing the potentially fatal hypertensive pregnancy condition

A blood test can accurately predict whether someone without a known risk of preeclampsia is likely to develop the potentially fatal hypertensive pregnancy condition

Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, we now know that a day on Uranus lasts for 28 seconds longer than previously thought - a difference that could be crucial in planning future missions to the gas giant

NGC346 is a young star cluster in the Small Magellanic Clouds with an estimated 2,500 stars. It’s about 200,000 light years away and this image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope reveals a beautiful region of star formation. The bright blue stars are many times more massive than the Sun and will live short lives ending in spectacular supernova explosions. The image helps us to understand the stellar formation process in a galaxy that has fewer metals than our own Galaxy.

Many of our preconceived notions about immigrants likely bear very little resemblance to the facts.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

One NIH staffer described Bhattacharya’s note as a “thank you and can’t wait to work with you email ... in the middle of the massacre.”

The post Drs. Jay Bhattacharya, Marty Makary, and a Cruel April Fool’s Day first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Mercury pollution accumulating in trees could offer a new way to monitor destructive gold mining operations

Researchers have successfully demonstrated the UK's first long-distance ultra-secure transfer of data over a quantum communications network, including the UK's first long-distance quantum-secured video call.

Astronomers have discovered a remarkable star system just 150 light-years from Earth that's destined for a spectacular cosmic display. The system contains a white dwarf star drawing material from its companion star, with the pair orbiting at just 1/60th of the Earth-Sun distance. With their combined mass reaching 1.56 times that of our Sun, these stars are gradually spiralling toward each other, setting the stage for a spectacular explosion. Fortunately, scientists estimate this cataclysmic event won't occur for roughly 23 billion years, long after our own Sun will have reached the end of its life cycle.

A study reveals that termites are not simply spreading through natural processes, suggesting humans may be helping them 'conquer the world' by unknowingly transporting them aboard private boats.

Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence-based method to more accurately detect antibiotic resistance in deadly bacteria such as tuberculosis and staph. The breakthrough could lead to faster and more effective treatments and help mitigate the rise of drug-resistant infections, a growing global health crisis.

The world is littered with trillions of micro- and nanoscopic pieces of plastic. These can be smaller than a virus -- just the right size to disrupt cells and even alter DNA. Researchers find them almost everywhere they've looked, from Antarctic snow to human blood. In a new study, scientists have delineated the molecular process that causes these small pieces to break off in such large quantities.

A web platform uses a chatbot to enable any chemist -- including undergraduate chemistry majors -- to configure and execute complex quantum mechanical simulations through chatting.

A web platform uses a chatbot to enable any chemist -- including undergraduate chemistry majors -- to configure and execute complex quantum mechanical simulations through chatting.

Researchers have found special atomic patterns called quasicrystals in 3D-printed aluminum alloys. Quasicrystals increase the strength of 3D-printed aluminum, the researchers discovered, making it possible to use in lightweight, high-strength objects such as airplane parts. Once thought impossible, quasicrystals led to a 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Despite its uniquely rich inventory of organic molecules, Saturn's largest moon, Titan, may be able to support only a minuscule amount of biomass, if life exists on the moon, according to a study using bioenergetic modeling.

Although astronomers have ruled out a smash-up between Earth and an asteroid known as 2024 YR4 in the year 2032, the building-sized space rock still has a chance of hitting the moon. In fact, the chances — slight as they are — have doubled in the past month.

Colossal Biosciences claims three pups born recently are dire wolves, but they are actually grey wolves with genetic edits intended to make them resemble the lost species