The World's First De-Extinction? George Church on Bringing Back the Dire Wolf - Amanpour and Company PBS

[Rhiannon12866]

This week marked a major scientific breakthrough: the resurrection of the dire wolf, a species that went extinct over 12,000 years ago. A Dallas-based biotech company, Colossal Biosciences, is behind the project and Walter Isaacson speaks to its co-founder, Harvard University geneticist George Church. - Originally aired on April 11, 2025.

[TomWilm]

1. This is just a designer dog, a modified gray wolf ...

“This is a designer dog. This is a genetically modified gray wolf,” says Jacquelyn Gill, a paleoecologist at the University of Maine, who has worked with Shapiro in the past but was not involved in this project. “I have more than 14 Neandertal genes in me, and we wouldn’t call me a Neandertal.”

The pups “don’t have any traits that would allow us to understand the dire wolf any better than we did yesterday,” Gill says, adding that understanding ice age organisms isn’t just a matter of knowing what they looked like or what they ate—but also about knowing what they did in those ancient ecosystems. ...

[Rhiannon12866]

2. Thank you! But the pups are sure cute!