De-extinction company announces that the dire wolf is back

[Arjen]

They kill one million humans a year

Grant them honorary membership to humanity. Normally, it takes humans to reach those numbers. Humans that on many occasions get paid to do so.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I completely agree - the larger the species, the less we have to worry about them. The smaller biological(ly active) species get, the more threatening they become to humanity at large. Think Andromeda Strain vs. Jurassic Park.

Indeed. When "JP" came out I was always baffled by people freaked out about de-extincting the T-Rex. A full-grown T-Rex could be *easily* tracked, and could even have a bomb planted in it's noggin so it could be switched off it it ever got uppity; but if someone cranked out an exciting new microbe, we could have interesting times. And then late 2019 came along...

 

[Justo Miranda]

Indeed. When "JP" came out I was always baffled by people freaked out about de-extincting the T-Rex. A full-grown T-Rex could be *easily* tracked, and could even have a bomb planted in it's noggin so it could be switched off it it ever got uppity; but if someone cranked out an exciting new microbe, we could have interesting times. And then late 2019 came along...

Every time we thaw a mammoth, dig up a mummy, or dig into the permafrost, we play the lottery to reactivate unknown viruses for which there are no defenses today. So far we have been lucky and all those who have been identified were harmless. But someone will already be thinking of a new version of Tut's curse to use against scientific research.

 

[publiusr]

Smaller dinos like Drinker and others might outcompetes some mammals.

Of course, we saw that when the America's were linked by volcanism.

I think South America had a marsupial version of just about everything North America had--until the placentals showed up.

All we got out of the deal was 'possums.

Ick

In today's phys.org there was speculation that some of those transplants--South American Dogs-- had a role in Dire Wolf evolution...so it wasn't just folks with the Gucci test tubes that used dogs as a base--go figure.

Venter's ideas of minimal cells could be interesting. We have been bitten stung and slimed by so many life forms that our DNA is likely not like what we started with.

A think a "minimal human" would wind up being like the hapless Eloi. We are already Morlocks as it stands.

 

[Flyaway]

Have scientists really resurrected the Dire Wolf?

Short answer no.

View: https://youtu.be/HuyFFAumbIQ?si=O_OrOxVX1YeU5fTw

 

[Justo Miranda]

Have scientists really resurrected the Dire Wolf?

Short answer no.

View: https://youtu.be/HuyFFAumbIQ?si=O_OrOxVX1YeU5fTw

It is a mistake to consider an animal isolated from its environment, its instincts and its social life. If you resurrect a Rex, lock him in an armored cage, and give him a cow to eat every day, what you have is not a Rex, but a circus monkey.

A real giant wolf has the obligation to try to eat our cows, our elderly and our children, otherwise it will be frustrated and it will be necessary to hire a dog psychologist... so you can grab a bite to eat and brighten your day.

Swords, dragons, inquisition, superstition, witchcraft... they are well dead despite R.R. Martin's evil intentions.

 

[Orionblamblam]

A real giant wolf has the obligation to try to eat our cows, our elderly and our children, otherwise it will be frustrated and it will be necessary to hire a dog psychologist... so you can grab a bite to eat and brighten your day.

Dire wolves were not giants. They were only marginally larger than the gray wolf.

 

[Justo Miranda]

OK

 

[southwestforests]

Isn't there a song about dire wolves' hunting habits which goes something like "you get your bunnies for nothin and your chickens for free"?

 

[Justo Miranda]

Isn't there a song about dire wolves' hunting habits which goes something like "you get your bunnies for nothin and your chickens for free"?

There is no free food, look what happened to the wolf in the story for eating Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother

 

[Flyaway]

In that video it made me laugh when he said that GRR Martin will literally do anything other than finish the next book in the series.

 

[publiusr]

If you want monsters, just put any old animal in a giant lunar lava cave filled with atmosphere and wait for the Komodo effect.

You’ll get real kaijus

 

[Orionblamblam]

If you want monsters, just put any old animal in a giant lunar lava cave filled with atmosphere and wait for the Komodo effect.

You’ll get real kaijus

They will be giants developed in a low gravity environment, in fragile easily-popped lunar bubbles. They will pose no threat to us.

 

[Dilandu]

Every time we thaw a mammoth, dig up a mummy, or dig into the permafrost, we play the lottery to reactivate unknown viruses for which there are no defenses today.

The fact thst those viruses went extinct kinda indicates that they weren't exactly good in their job.

 

[Justo Miranda]

The fact thst those viruses went extinct kinda indicates that they weren't exactly good in their job.

Or that they were not good in the conditions that existed then but can reproduce at great speed in the current conditions.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Global travel leads to more than mamals moving vast distances quickly as we have seen. When we fly, so does ALL of our baggage.....

 

[Nicknick]

Smaller dinos like Drinker and others might outcompetes some mammals.

Of course, we saw that when the America's were linked by volcanism.

I think South America had a marsupial version of just about everything North America had--until the placentals showed up.

All we got out of the deal was 'possums.

Ick

In today's phys.org there was speculation that some of those transplants--South American Dogs-- had a role in Dire Wolf evolution...so it wasn't just folks with the Gucci test tubes that used dogs as a base--go figure.

Venter's ideas of minimal cells could be interesting. We have been bitten stung and slimed by so many life forms that our DNA is likely not like what we started with.

A think a "minimal human" would wind up being like the hapless Eloi. We are already Morlocks as it stands.

I have to think on breaking bad (did they find out they Irish ), but Opossums are very far from beeing closly related to Possums. These are about as close like Elephants and Humans and theis similarity is a result of convergent evoloution.

 

[Nicknick]

Here is why the dire wulf isnt back:

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HuyFFAumbIQ

 

[Dilandu]

Or that they were not good in the conditions that existed then but can reproduce at great speed in the current conditions.

Hardly. Geological & climate changes took far more time then viral evolution. If mammoth virus went extinct with the mammoths, not being able to change the host, then it's likely this virus evolved toward specialization on mammoths, and simply became too specialized to represent any threat.

A simple example was smallpox. This virus was so specialized on humans and only humans, than when USA and USSR hit it with a MASSIVE wave of total vaccination all around the goobe, it went extinct. It was specialized to parasite on humans, and when humans all around the world sudden became invulnerabe - the ancient bane of mankind went extinct in few years.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Hardly. Geological & climate changes took far more time then viral evolution. If mammoth virus went extinct with the mammoths, not being able to change the host, then it's likely this virus evolved toward specialization on mammoths, and simply became too specialized to represent any threat.

A simple example was smallpox. This virus was so specialized on humans and only humans, than when USA and USSR hit it with a MASSIVE wave of total vaccination all around the goobe, it went extinct. It was specialized to parasite on humans, and when humans all around the world sudden became invulnerabe - the ancient bane of mankind went extinct in few years.

And there are also other viruses specialized in birds, apes or reptiles that mutate to infect humans and others that apparently do nothing and, in a few weeks, become something that kills so quickly that the disease does not give time to spread.

With viruses nothing is certain.

 

[Dilandu]

And there are also other viruses specialized in birds, apes or reptiles that mutate to infect humans and others that apparently do nothing and, in a few weeks, become something that kills so quickly that the disease does not give time to spread.

With viruses nothing is certain.

Nothing, true. But the probability of ancient virus that come extinct with mammoth being able to infect modern humans is reasonably insignificant.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Nothing, true. But the probability of ancient virus that come extinct with mammoth being able to infect modern humans is reasonably insignificant.

With just one you just need

 

[Dilandu]

With just one you just need

To cause something like light form of flu or some itching behind ears? Yeah, the horror, the horror. Look, chances of ancient virus from frozen mammoth even be complete enough to actually work in mammoth (let's disregard the lack of mammoth hosts) is pretty slim. Chances that those virus SOMEHOW already mutating in the way that it could infect humans are abysmal.

 

[1635yankee]

´It's not a dire wolf; it's a gray wilf with dire wolf genes. Chances are high, if your ancestry is from Europe or the Near or Middle East, you hav Neaderthal genes. You're not a Neanderthal

 

[Justo Miranda]

To cause something like light form of flu or some itching behind ears? Yeah, the horror, the horror. Look, chances of ancient virus from frozen mammoth even be complete enough to actually work in mammoth (let's disregard the lack of mammoth hosts) is pretty slim. Chances that those virus SOMEHOW already mutating in the way that it could infect humans are abysmal.

It's not just about thawing mammoths or woolly rhinos, no one knows how many biological horrors lie hibernated under permafrost, under glaciers, or in Lake Vostok under miles of ice.

 

[Dilandu]

It's not just about thawing mammoths or woolly rhinos, no one knows how many biological horrors lie hibernated under permafrost, under glaciers, or in Lake Vostok under miles of ice.

Let's elaborate overf situation. Okay, we have a ancient virus in mammoth that for some reason have no close relatives now. The only reason why it might happen is if the virus was over-specialized to mammoth host, and died out with them, being unable to infect anything else.

Now, let's thaw the virus out. It's now active, it can infect... ops, it can infect only mammoth cells, because it was specialized on mammoths. And mammoths aren't exactly around anymore. The result? After some time without the preserving cold or without the mammoth host to reproduce, virus would simply degrade & fell apart.

To mutate into anything capable of infecting humans, virus need to be able to reproduce. Due to lack of mammoths, it can't reproduce, which means it can't efficiently mutate. So no chances of "suddenly mutating ancient virus".

And the situation when virus mutated to infect humans just before this particular mammoth died and got frozen is... well, so statistically improbable, that an alien invasion threat is significantly more likely.

or in Lake Vostok under miles of ice.

There is no humans in lake Vostok, and never were any. Whatever is living here would have absolutely zero idea what human is (as well as what modern mammals is in general), and most likely would be uber-specialized to live in this particular cold ecosystem. In human body, it would likely immediately die from overheating, poisoning, inability to recognize any human body proteins as edible, ect.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Let's elaborate overf situation. Okay, we have a ancient virus in mammoth that for some reason have no close relatives now. The only reason why it might happen is if the virus was over-specialized to mammoth host, and died out with them, being unable to infect anything else.

Now, let's thaw the virus out. It's now active, it can infect... ops, it can infect only mammoth cells, because it was specialized on mammoths. And mammoths aren't exactly around anymore. The result? After some time without the preserving cold or without the mammoth host to reproduce, virus would simply degrade & fell apart.

To mutate into anything capable of infecting humans, virus need to be able to reproduce. Due to lack of mammoths, it can't reproduce, which means it can't efficiently mutate. So no chances of "suddenly mutating ancient virus".

And the situation when virus mutated to infect humans just before this particular mammoth died and got frozen is... well, so statistically improbable, that an alien invasion threat is significantly more likely.


There is no humans in lake Vostok, and never were any. Whatever is living here would have absolutely zero idea what human is (as well as what modern mammals is in general), and most likely would be uber-specialized to live in this particular cold ecosystem. In human body, it would likely immediately die from overheating, poisoning, inability to recognize any human body proteins as edible, ect.

Although it is not a theory widely recognized by official science, gradual evolution over millions of years is not the only procedure used by nature to adapt to changes, there are also mutations that for some reason occur at a time when they are beneficial to a species and their reproduction is literally exponential until resources are exhausted or predators intervene. The intelligence of humans is a good example that no one wants to discuss because it is uncomfortable.

The Mule (Foundation) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Dilandu]

Although it is not a theory widely recognized by official science, gradual evolution over millions of years is not the only procedure used by nature to adapt to changes, there are also mutations that for some reason occur at a time when they are beneficial to a species and their reproduction is literally exponential until resources are exhausted or predators intervene.

You REALLY need to study biology more. Mutations did not "occur at a time when they are beneficial to a species"; mutations just occur randomly and (unless they are lethal one, and eliminated completely) hide in population gene pool in recessive form, spontaneously emerging from time to time through recombination. The change of environment - climate change, move to new habitation area, ect. - could make some mutations more beneficial, so the speciement with those mutation would thrive, and without it would suffer.

For example, let's imagine a population of short-fur savannah sheburshunchik, amongst which happened a mutation for long thick fur. In usual savannah environment, the few mutants born with long fur would suffer, but the mutation would still be presented in population, emerging from time to time. But if climate changes to colder - or simply population expand to colder regions - then the long-fur mutants would suddenly got a massive advantage, while the short-fur "normals" would suffer. In relatively short time, the "normal" variety (which is basically now a lethal, since it could not survive winters) would be completely eliminated, and only long-fur sheburshunchik would remain. That's (roughly) how it works.

 

[Arjen]

dire wolf genes

Actually, with some gray wolf genes modified to produce the appearance of some presumed properties of dire wolves. So, yet another step removed from true dire wolf resurrection.

 

[Justo Miranda]

You REALLY need to study biology more. Mutations did not "occur at a time when they are beneficial to a species"; mutations just occur randomly and (unless they are lethal one, and eliminated completely) hide in population gene pool in recessive form, spontaneously emerging from time to time through recombination. The change of environment - climate change, move to new habitation area, ect. - could make some mutations more beneficial, so the speciement with those mutation would thrive, and without it would suffer.

For example, let's imagine a population of short-fur savannah sheburshunchik, amongst which happened a mutation for long thick fur. In usual savannah environment, the few mutants born with long fur would suffer, but the mutation would still be presented in population, emerging from time to time. But if climate changes to colder - or simply population expand to colder regions - then the long-fur mutants would suddenly got a massive advantage, while the short-fur "normals" would suffer. In relatively short time, the "normal" variety (which is basically now a lethal, since it could not survive winters) would be completely eliminated, and only long-fur sheburshunchik would remain. That's (roughly) how it works.

Mutations occur continuously, especially on the ISS. They are almost always detected and repaired by the immune system. Most are harmful and only make the species, or the individual, extinct. But what worries me are the exceptions... The devil is in the details.

 

[Dilandu]

Mutations occur continuously, especially on the ISS. They are almost always detected and repaired by the immune system. Most are harmful and only make the species, or the individual, extinct. But what worries me are the exceptions... The devil is in the details.

Your knowledge of the evolutionary biology is extremely outdated. Most mutations are neutral or slighly disadvantageous in current conditions. Evolutions works when conditions change. The elementary unit of evolution is not a specie, but population.

Really, it's basics, and you got them all wrong.

 

[martinbayer]

Although it is not a theory widely recognized by official science, gradual evolution over millions of years is not the only procedure used by nature to adapt to changes, there are also mutations that for some reason occur at a time when they are beneficial to a species and their reproduction is literally exponential until resources are exhausted or predators intervene. The intelligence of humans is a good example that no one wants to discuss because it is uncomfortable.

The Mule (Foundation) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Quoting a sci-fi novella rather than a peer reviewed scientific publication does not exactly help to make your case.

 

[Arjen]

mutations that for some reason occur at a time when they are beneficial to a species

No reason, just luck. Well, luck for that particular species anyway. Life - a human concept to help human minds come to grips with reality - has this knack for filling niches - another human concept - where no niches were apparent - to humans - in the first place.

 

[Dilandu]

No reason, just luck. Well, luck for that particular species anyway. Life - a human concept to help human minds come to grips with reality - has this knack for filling niches - another human concept - where no niches were apparent - to humans - in the first place.

Exactly. Mutations did not "suddenly appear exactly when they needed". They already were presented in population gene pool, and environmental change merely caused them to emerge.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Your knowledge of the evolutionary biology is extremely outdated. Most mutations are neutral or slighly disadvantageous in current conditions. Evolutions works when conditions change. The elementary unit of evolution is not a specie, but population.

Really, it's basics, and you got them all wrong.

It only takes one mutant, it only must happen once, to change the history of the world.

 

[Dilandu]

It only takes one mutant, it only must happen once, to change the history of the world.

No. Evolution did not work like that.

 

[Yellow Palace]

Exactly. Mutations did not "suddenly appear exactly when they needed". They already were presented in population gene pool, and environmental change merely caused them to emerge.

Most mutations, if they do anything at all before getting whacked by the immune system, just cause cancer.

 

[Justo Miranda]

No. Evolution did not work like that.

I understand that it is difficult for you to recognize it, but all humans are mutants, there is no point in discussing the meaning of definitions in biology... since Linnaeus. If we do not agree on the meaning of the word evolution, we can call it success. There is also a negative trend among some human groups: the quality of the semen of Europeans is decreasing and many young people go bald before the age of thirty... evolution or pacifism?

 

[Foo Fighter]

I believe the biological hiccup you are mentioning comes from increasing levels of eostrogen in the water.

Endocrine Disruptors in Water and Their Effects on the Reproductive System - PMC

Anthropogenic contaminants in water can impose risks to reproductive health. Most of these compounds are known to be endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). EDCs can impact the endocrine system and subsequently impair the development and fertility of ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Antonio]

Bugs from the past

Subsurface Microbial Colonization at Mineral-Filled Veins in 2-Billion-Year-Old Mafic Rock from the Bushveld Igneous Complex, South Africa - Microbial Ecology

Recent advances in subsurface microbiology have demonstrated the habitability of multi-million-year-old igneous rocks, despite the scarce energy supply from rock-water interactions. Given the minimal evolution coupled with exceedingly slow metabolic rates in subsurface ecosystems...

link.springer.com