Varieteng

So can we vote for Dire wolves now? (I know they are grey wolf based hybrids including jackle, red wolf, timber wolf, and artic fox dna arcoding to some sources idk how accurate that entire list is so please correct me) but still 😂

Nah, those aren’t Dire Wolves, sorry. 😅

What Colossal Biosciences did was examine some Dire Wolf (Aenocyon dirus) DNA and edited 14 genes of Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) DNA to match it. They even made sure to make the animals white, using a coat coloration gene expressed in Domestic Dogs, because they believe Dire Wolves would have been white (based on no published evidence; Dire Wolves were a temperate species and their coloration was more likely similar to jackals or Dholes).

DNA contains millions of genes. You can not make 20 changes in only 14 genes and have a whole other species, let alone a whole other genus.

Despite what the company is claiming, Gray Wolves are not the closest relatives of Dire Wolves, which we know from a (peer-reviewed) DNA study done in 2021. They are more close to jackals, African Wild Dogs, and Dholes than they are to wolves. Despite being around the same size, they do not share “99.5%” of the DNA of Gray Wolves; there are hundreds of thousands of genetic differences between the species.

What Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi are are three Gray Wolves that have been genetically modified to look like pop culture “Dire Wolves” from a TV Show. They do not contain any Dire Wolf DNA and they can not and will not fill the same niche that Dire Wolves did.

Apparently, Colossal is doing legit conservation work alongside their clickbait-y work, and they use the sensationalized concepts to get funding from rich idiots and celebrities. If they can get some Elon-Musk-awesomebro-type to fund their “Dire Wolf de-extinction”, they can use that money to clone critically endangered Red Wolves (Canis rufus) on the side.

Lots of thoughts recently. Everything feels plastic.

I could go on and on about why all that AI "art" is bad. I could mention theft, lack of creativity, it's impact on the work field and environment, but countless people have already said all that. I wanted to touch on something that to me is the most utterly wrong about all of it.

Art is more than just something pretty to look at or listen to. It's therapeutic. It's a form of communication. A tool for human connection. It's a pure, human need.

Ok but- if given the chance……. would you high five Reuniclus?