There are two good stories from today; both related to animals.
First off, the chicken. That was me, after yesterday’s fear, the damage wasn’t too bad! While I still am concerned about the way things are heading, my job, my opportunities, and thus, my future, it wasn’t the bloodbath I was expecting. If you haven’t guessed by now, the chicken is me.
The other story that crossed my desk today was that of the Dire Wolf, which went extinct 13,000 years ago. Well, it was extinct, until a company called Colossal Biosciences brought them back to life using gene-editting technology.
Now, to be fair, they’re not EXACTLY Dire Wolves. But the three pups – Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi – are close to them. Using Grey Wolf DNA, and then editing them to replicate Dire Wolf DNA, the team at Colossal were at the very least able to reproduce a brand new species. The company is now looking at de-extincting the DoDo and the Wooly Mammoth, which I think is possibly the coolest thing ever.
As a conservationist, I am thrilled that many of the species that have been lost, to both the sands of time and human predation, could be coming back. There are a lot of them (99.9% of all species are now extinct), but it would be so cool to be able to bring some of the famous ones, and preserve the ones teetering on extinction.
This always reminds me of one of a truth I hold quite dear: every problem our species has ever faced has been solved by one tool, our ability to create. We’re not the top of the animal kingdom because we’re faster, bigger, or possessors of sharper talons or potent venom. We’re because of our brains.
Leave a Reply