• NONE@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Making a reskin of a gray wolf and calling it de-extinction is like putting on a Piramid Head skin in Fortnite and calling it Silent Hill 5.

    • aubertlone@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I wouldn’t call a functional genomic equivalent a reskin.

      But yeah I mean you’re totally on point with the not equivalent to de-extinction part.

      • fishos@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        It’s not equivalent though. It’s a grey wolf made to look like a direwolf. If they’d crispered a grey wolf into a dire wolf, that would be one thing. This is not that. This is basically a designer breed at best.

        • aubertlone@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Bro That’s basically what they did

          Please read the science article. First they fully sequenced the direwolf genome.

          Then they specifically edited the genes for the Gre Wolf to exactly match the genome of the direwolf. The reason they didn’t specifically insert cloned DNA ( CRISPR like you mentioned) is due to certain problems I’m not educated enough in molecular biology to better explain.

          I am not just hand waving away why they didn’t insert actual direwolf DNA or the cloned equivalent. I would assume it has to do with feasibility and perhaps avoids possible legal issues?.

          Anyway the conversation we’re having now is useless. There’s only one test to see if a particular animal is a species or not. Can it interbreed and propagate?

          For example a liger is a real animal but cannot create offspring. Same with a mule I think.

          So I think they do have a female direwolf. They have introduced her to the parent but if they do and there’s successful reproduction…

          I just don’t know what you mean by this is a designer breed… Can you be more specific?

          • fishos@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Yes, I would agree that the conversation were having is useless but you sure wrote a lot of words…