'Dire Wolf' Pups Are Cute, But Not the Real Thing

Rise of designer animals: Gene-edited 'Dire Wolves' spark debate

A Dallas startup claims to have created dire wolves, but experts say the gene-edited pups are designer animals - not true de-extinction.

'Dire Wolf' Pups Are Cute, But Not the Real Thing

Colossal Biosciences created a new, not ancient, animal. That’s still an impressive scientific achievement.

The US company Colossal Biosciences claims to have brought the extinct "shadow wolf" back to life. This species (Canis dirus) died out more than 10,000 years ago and is not directly related to the grey wolf living today. In fact, Colossal has created no more than a genetically modified grey wolf, which is changed in 20 places in its genetic material. Among other things, the wolf is now larger and has a modified fur. In numerous media reports abo…

Tom Brady Reveals How He Got Associated With the Company That Brought Dire Wolves Back From Extinction

Whether it’s his two NFL teams during his playing career, the New England Patriots or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, or his numerous ventures off the field (we’ll ignore FTX for now), it seems like every organization Tom Brady has been a part of achieves massive success. The latest entrant to this list is Colossal Biosciences, the company that recently made a historic achievement by resurrecting the dire wolf — a species extinct for over 10,000 years…

The Dire Wolves are back… or are they?

Hello and welcome to Sync #514!This week, Colossal Biosciences proclaimed that dire wolves are back and unveiled three white-furred pups the company claims have been brought back from extinction. We’ll take a closer look at these claims, the reactions they’ve sparked, and whether this marks a genuine scientific breakthrough or a well-timed publicity stunt.In other news, the 2025 AI Index Report is out, offering a snapshot of the progress AI has …

Colossal Biosciences responds to criticism of the Dire Wolf “de-extinction”, but not convincingly

Colossal Biosciences®, of course, recently announced the “de-extinction” of the dire wolf, which involved editing a gray wolf genome in 20 places (DNA bases), all edits involving 14 genes.  15 of the 20 sites change apparently involved substituting dire-wolf based nucleotides for wolf bases, while the other five, mainly involving coat color, were simply mutations already known to lighten the coat color in dogs and wolf, and the edits were based …