Headline Roundup • April 8th, 2025
Dire Wolf De-Extinction: Great Progress or 'Playing God'?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Colossal Biosciences, a private biotech company, announced what it called the successful revival of the extinct dire wolf species using genetic editing and cloning techniques.
Key Details: Colossal Biosciences extracted and sequenced the genomes of dire wolves from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull, and then made 14 key edits in the genomes of gray wolves to match those of the dire wolves. The edited cells were inserted into dog eggs, which were then implanted into surrogate mother dogs. The result was the birth of three dire wolf pups, named Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi. The company has plans to bring back other extinct species such as the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the Tasmanian wolf.
Key Quote: "We are an evolutionary force at this point," says Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s chief science officer, speaking of humanity as a whole. “We are deciding what the future of these species will be.”
For Context: Dire wolves, which weighed around 150 pounds and were about twice the size of today's gray wolves, last roamed North and South America around 12,000 years ago. They went extinct at the end of the last Ice Age. The new dire wolves, which are currently housed in a private 2,000-acre facility in the northern United States, have physical characteristics similar to their extinct counterparts, including a thick white coat and more muscular legs.
How the Media Covered It: Coverage of this scientific breakthrough varied across the political spectrum. Reason (Center bias) focused on the scientific process and the potential it holds for reviving other extinct species. Time Magazine (Lean Left bias) provided a more detailed exploration of the ethical implications of using genetic engineering to prevent existing species from becoming extinct. The Daily Caller (Right bias) expressed skepticism towards the experiment, suggesting the possibility of unintended consequences of introducing new species into ecosystems and dangers of applying these technologies to humans.
Revised by the AllSides staff (of humans) after a first draft from our custom AI. Learn more. Suggest an improvement to this summary.
Featured Coverage of this Story
Colossal Biosciences
Dire wolves went extinct around 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. Weighing around 150 pounds, they were about twice the size of today's gray wolves. Dire wolves roamed both North and South America, preying on ancient horses, camels, sloths, and bison.
Colossal Biosciences, the private company aiming to bring back from extinction the woolly mammoth, announced today that it had produced three dire wolf pups using genetic editing and cloning. The researchers at the company extracted and sequenced the genomes of dire wolves from a 13,000-year-old tooth from Ohio and a 72,000-year-old...
Scientists are playing God once again, and although they may have recently achieved something admittedly cool, it’s all but doomed to backfire in the worst possible ways.
Biotech company Colossal Biosciences announced Monday that they have revived an extinct dire wolf species using “meticulously reconstructed” DNA from fossils that date back to 11,500 and 72,000 years. The company is calling the two wolves, aptly named Remus and Romulus in a nod to the myth of ancient Rome’s origins, the world’s first “de-extinct animals.”
“This moment marks not only a milestone for us...
Romulus and Remus are doing what puppies do: chasing, tussling, nipping, nuzzling. But there’s something very un-puppylike about the snowy white 6-month olds—their size, for starters. At their young age they already measure nearly 4 ft. long, tip the scales at 80 lb., and could grow to 6 ft. and 150 lb. Then there’s their behavior: the angelic exuberance puppies exhibit in the presence of humans—trotting up for hugs, belly rubs, kisses—is completely absent. They keep their distance, retreating if a person approaches. Even one of the handlers who raised...
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