• judgyweevil@feddit.it
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    20 hours ago

    Is Colossal:

    1. A legit company with a strong scientific foundation
    2. A total fraud
    3. A company that does some real research but inflates their claims in order to get more funds?
    • yistdaj@pawb.social
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      18 hours ago

      Pretty sure it’s 3, they have a history of claiming to resurrect extinct species when they’re just modifying existing species to be a little more similar to the extinct one.

      They claimed to bring back dire wolves but they’re more similar to grey wolves. They make the argument that the genes they used are what most makes a dire wolf a dire wolf, but it’s controversial.

      I also remember hearing they said they would bring back a population of red wolves by extracting red wolf DNA that had been absorbed into a coyote population, but seemed to ignore the existing red wolves (which could do with extra genetic diversity) and worked using coyotes as a base.

      • yistdaj@pawb.social
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        3 hours ago

        They’re modified grey wolves, Colossal Biosciences had a separate project on red wolves.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      When I bring this up IRL, with examples of insect population changes, people’s jaws are on the floor. I don’t have to quote science papers, just, “Remember what it was like?”

      I’ve seen the biodiversity crash on my front porch in just 5 years. I got frogs back in the hood, hoping there’s dragonfly larva maturing.

      • Arghblarg@lemmy.ca
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        18 hours ago

        I used to see swarms of grasshoppers every summer as a kid (80s), now a single one is a rare sight.