Sabrina Imbler has a good piece at Defector today, on the continuing saga of the dire wolves that never were, and will almost certainly never be.

A startup made a claim that they knew would get headlines, and some science writers and editors jumped in for the clicks rather than doing their jobs and asking some pretty obvious questions.

#DireWolf #DeExtinction #journalism

https://defector.com/colossal-biosciences-cant-have-it-both-ways

Where are my #macos #HamRadio #APRS #direwolf #digirig folks at?

So, my digirig works fine on macos if I just hamlib it. Like, I can rigctl, toggle the ptt, everything works just fine.

But, for whatever reason, direwolf _refuses_ to work.

I see it, like, flash the ptt once the first time I try to Tx, but nothing comes out, and then the ptt doesn't even trigger with subsequent attempted transmissions. The direwolf console registers that it Tx'd packets, and there are no error messages.

I've even tried running the digirig as a rigctld server locally. Same deal; other programs can trigger ptt for an arbitrary amount of time, but direwolf configured to use it still just flashes the first packet.

I don't have this issue on Linux, and I don't _think_ I have this problem when I use vox on a baofeng (I need to try again to verify).

Something spooky shall arise at #Anthrocon2025! Seek the Skull in the den at table G11 <3 

#direwolf #evolution #dna #genetics

This month saw the return of the direwolf from extinction, which reminded me of this similar article about the wooly mammoth

https://thoughts.tosay.blog/2021/07/evolution-nature-and-racism.html

A bit more on Colossal, the company who claimed to have "brought back the dire wolf". they are claiming the patents on the animals they de-extinct, so even if they actually do bring back the mammoth, they will all belong to Colossal.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/16/1115154/jurassic-patent-how-colossal-biosciences-is-attempting-to-own-the-woolly-mammoth/

#de-extinction #DireWolf

They have not resuscitated the dire wolf.

// Article in French //
- - -
Ils n’ont pas ressuscité le loup sinistre.

https://www.sciencepresse.qc.ca/actualite/detecteur-rumeurs/2025/04/10/verification-eclair-loup-prehistorique-ramene-vie-faux

I feel like being told by #indigenous Elders it would be nice if they could bring back the #bison , but then deciding dire wolves are a better choice is totally missing the point of their self-stated mission. I’d don’t think we can really call dire wolves a keystone species. https://www.thefp.com/p/is-dire-wolf-real-colossal-deextinction #direwolf #genetics #geneediting

Hey Everyone:

They didn't resurrect the dire wolf. They altered a grey wolf to look like what they thought a dire wolf looked like.

Stop spreading this bullshit story, please. Thanks.

I've found all the discourse about Colossal Biosciences "Dire wolf" announcement very annoying, because it seems like a lot of the exchanges have been between a bunch of pedantic nerds and what is probbaly Colossal's marketing/public-outreach department.

Honestly, I think both camps are wrong in their own way, and it's turning into more of a shouting match than anything.

The core problem is that there are many different definitions of species, none of which are perfect, and almost all of them cease to be meaningful in cases where horizontal gene transfer occurs.

• „Erleichterter Abschuss: Schutzstatus soll herabgestuft werden – Bundesrat befasst sich mit Jagd auf Wölfe“
• „Vor 13.000 Jahren ausgestorben: US-Genetiker bringen Schattenwolf zurück“
#biodiversity #artenschutz #direwolf #schwarwel

„Anfang März hatte Colossal verkündet, das Erbgut von Mäusen in sieben Genen so verändert zu haben, dass diese mammutartiges Fell entwickeln.“ #sz #schattenwolf #direwolf

Useless trivia I recently stumbled upon:

Gil Gerard, who played Buck Rogers circa 1980, was in a 2009 film named Dire Wolf.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Gerard

Game of #clones: Colossal’s new #wolves are cute, but are they dire?
#ColossaBiosciences claims it has revived an #extinct species, but scientists outside the company are skeptical.
It’s making a bold new claim—that it has actually “de-extincted” an animal called the #direwolf. Inside a preserve roam three striking snow-white wolves—which a startup called Colossal Biosciences says are members of a species that went extinct 13,000 years ago, now reborn via #biotechnology.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/08/1114371/game-of-clones-colossals-new-wolves-are-cute-but-are-they-dire/

From "artificial intelligence" to "de-extinction", stop automatically believing what corporate marketers try to sell you.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2475407-no-the-dire-wolf-has-not-been-brought-back-from-extinction/

The Graun article on dire wolves was correct in saying they have the dire wolf phenotype (not genotype, although they could have explained to the layman what this meant). It's basically genetic lipstick rather than anything approaching de-extinction. What a colossal waste of resources.

It's weird to talk about the ecological benefits of #DireWolf #deextinction when the ecosystem they belonged to isn't here any more. Dire wolves ate a bunch of huge animals that also aren't around any more, and the ecosystem was literally an ice age. Hank Green makes the best points I've seen so far. #science #biology #ecology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar0zgedLyTw