The De-Extinction of Dire Wolves: Colossal Success or Dire Mistake?
On April 7, a biotechnology company named Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences came forth with an extremely bold claim against the laws of nature itself: that using their revolutionary “de-extinction” technology, they can “mak[e] extinction a thing of the past.” As a proof of concept, Colossal revealed that they had made 20 edits to a gray wolf embryo’s DNA and, on October 1, 2024, three dire wolf pups were born, the first of their species to walk the earth in over 10,000 years. To many, this is a spark of hope.