&w=3840&q=100)
'Lord of the Rings' director backs long shot de-extinction plan, starring New Zealand's lost moa
Filmmaker Peter Jackson owns one of the largest private collections of bones of an extinct New Zealand bird called the moa. His fascination with the flightless ostrich-like bird has led to an unusual partnership with a biotech company known for its grand and controversial plans to bring back lost species.
On Tuesday, Colossal Biosciences announced an effort to genetically engineer living birds to resemble the extinct South Island giant moa – which once stood 12 feet (3.6 meters) tall – with $15 million in funding from Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh. The collaboration also includes the New Zealand-based Ngāi Tahu Research Centre.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
'The movies are my day job, and the moa are my fun thing I do,' said Jackson. 'Every New Zealand schoolchild has a fascination with the moa.'
Outside scientists say the idea of bringing back extinct species onto the modern landscape is likely impossible, although it may be feasible to tweak the genes of living animals to have similar physical traits. Scientists have mixed feelings on whether that will be helpful, and some worry that focusing on lost creatures could distract from protecting species that still exist.
The moa had roamed New Zealand for 4,000 years until they became extinct around 600 years ago, mainly because of overhunting. A large skeleton brought to England in the 19th century, now on display at the Yorkshire Museum, prompted international interest in the long-necked bird.
Unlike Colossal's work with dire wolves, the moa project is in very early stages. It started with a phone call about two years ago after Jackson heard about the company's efforts to 'de-extinct' – or create genetically similar animals to – species like the woolly mammoth and the dire wolf.
Then Jackson put Colossal in touch with experts he'd met through his own moa bone-collecting. At that point, he'd amassed between 300 and 400 bones, he said.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
In New Zealand, it's legal to buy and sell moa bones found on private lands, but not on public conservation areas – nor to export them.
The first stage of the moa project will be to identify well-preserved bones from which it may be possible to extract DNA, said Colossal's chief scientist Beth Shapiro.
Those DNA sequences will be compared to genomes of living bird species, including the ground-dwelling tinamou and emu, 'to figure out what it is that made the moa unique compared to other birds,' she said.
Colossal used a similar process of comparing ancient DNA of extinct dire wolves to determine the genetic differences with gray wolves. Then scientists took blood cells from a living gray wolf and used CRISPR to genetically modify them in 20 different sites. Pups with long white hair and muscular jaws were born late last year.
Working with birds presents different challenges, said Shapiro.
Unlike mammals, bird embryos develop inside eggs, so the process of transferring an embryo to a surrogate will not look like mammalian IVF.
'There's lots of different scientific hurdles that need to be overcome with any species that we pick as a candidate for de-extinction,' said Shapiro. 'We are in the very early stages.'
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
If the Colossal team succeeds in creating a tall bird with huge feet and thick pointed claws resembling the moa, there's also the pressing question of where to put it, said Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who is not involved in the project.
'Can you put a species back into the wild once you've exterminated it there?' he said. 'I think it's exceedingly unlikely that they could do this in any meaningful way.'
'This will be an extremely dangerous animal,' Pimm added.
The direction of the project will be shaped by Māori scholars at the University of Canterbury's Ngāi Tahu Research Centre. Ngāi Tahu archaeologist Kyle Davis, an expert in moa bones, said the work has 'really reinvigorated the interest in examining our own traditions and mythology.'
At one of the archaeological sites that Jackson and Davis visited to study moa remains, called Pyramid Valley, there are also antique rock art done by Māori people – some depicting moa before their extinction.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Paul Scofield, a project adviser and senior curator of natural history at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, said he first met the 'Lord of the Rings' director when he went to his house to help him identity which of the nine known species of moa the various bones represented.
'He doesn't just collect some moa bones – he has a comprehensive collection,' said Scofield.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Wire
2 hours ago
- The Wire
With Limited Research and Understanding, Doctors Struggle to Treat Long Covid Patients
Banjot Kaur 2 minutes ago Several Long Covid patients say their problems have been ignored completely by clinicians. But even sympathetic doctors say the path forward is unclear. here. New Delhi: As we mark five years of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, 'Long Covid' remains the most challenging issue to deal with. Though our understanding of the Sars-Cov-2 virus has evolved quite a bit by this time, the phenomenon of Long Covid remains an enigma, by and large. Dr Ameet Dravid is an infectious diseases expert who practices in Pune. He has been treating Long Covid patients ever since the first wave of the pandemic started in 2020. Dr Dhruva Chaudhry is the head of the pulmonary and critical care department at Pt BDS Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS), Rohtak. Like Dravid, he, too, has been working with Long Covid patients. Working in two different parts of India, unknown to and independent of each other, both are grappling with one common question: Has Sars-Cov-2 fundamentally changed anything in our bodies, especially in our immune systems? Speaking to The Wire, both these clinicians said that they are launching studies with the help of other institutions to try and answer this question. Chaudhry said he was in touch with a renowned private university in Delhi-NCR to investigate whether something has "gone wrong with the functioning of our T-cells and B-cells that form our immunity'. These are the cells which are main components of the human immune system and allow it to do what it does. Dravid is working with the Pune-based National Institute of Virology (NIV). 'We want to check the blood samples of those who tell us that their capacity to carry out daily deeds has dramatically gone down which has seriously affected their lives [with those who haven't reported this problem]. And we want to know whether their B cells, their T cells, their antibodies, their gut bacteria, their nose viruses — whether they are any different from others. So we are in the process of doing a biorepository,' he said. Dravid says the initial tests are already providing some hints. The T cells are in smaller numbers than those who don't suffer from Long Covid Issues. In simple terms, if these 'very initial results' hold true, it would mean the long haulers have weakened immune systems now. This, in turn, may explain a number of problems these people are grappling with – from heart issues to gut diseases and many more in between. Dravid says the remnants of the dead virus have remained inside the bodies of those suffering from Long Covid for quite some time, even after they got a Covid-negative test report. Dr B.V. Murali Mohan, a pulmonologist who headed a Long Covid clinic in a private Bengaluru hospital, shares this opinion. Since the remnants of the virus were dead, they did not make the patient sick, per se. But they remained inside the body, and therefore kept triggering the immune system to mount a battle despite them being dead, simply because they are foreign elements. This, according to Dravid, might have resulted in the exhaustion of immunity – known as immunosense. Due to this exhaustion, the system could not adequately do its job when a new infection happened, thus making long haulers more sick. Range of diseases Long Covid is an umbrella term for a host of medical conditions. According to World Health Organisation's definition of Long Covid: 'Post COVID-19 condition occurs in individuals with a history of probable or confirmed SARSCoV-2 infection, usually 3 months from the onset of COVID-19 with symptoms that last for at least 2 months and cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis.' According to the WHO, 6% of all COVID-19 patients suffer from Long Covid. In absolute numbers, this can be extremely high. The US-CDC estimated this number to be 6.9% in 2022 in the country. In India, an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) study published in 2023 reported 6.6-11.9% prevalence of three specific Long Covid conditions – fatigue, dyspnoea (breathing difficulty) and mental health. The Wire wrote an email to ICMR on March 24 asking if it has conducted a study to know the broader prevalence rate in India, after this one. The ICMR did not reply despite repeated reminders. In the first part of this series, The Wire spoke to people suffering from Long Covid about their symptoms and difficulties. Doctors The Wire spoke to also listed a range of issues – most of them overlapping with what the patients had said. Murali Mohan of Bengaluru Hospital found most Long Covid patients to be recovering in the long term, but Pune's Dravid said many of his patients are suffering even now. All the doctors that The Wire spoke to made it clear that five years down the line, the number of new Long Covid patients has declined dramatically. According to the World Health Organisation, Long Covid conditions can develop a maximum of three months after infection. Like all other viruses, Sars-Cov-2 is still around, but with its intensity significantly reduced. People are still getting COVID-19 – and so the possibility of Long Covid in new patients isn't zero just yet. One of the most common issues is cognitive decline, commonly known as 'brain fog'. 'Professors have come up to me saying they frequently lose their train of thought during lectures,' Dravid said. Murali Mohan has had some patients who still haven't recovered from cognitive decline. There is no consensus on the pathway of virus causing brain fog. Dr Chaudhry believes that if a virus entered the bloodstream via the lungs, it could have breached the barrier between blood and brain in some cases. The virus could have also impacted the nervous system, known scientifically as 'micro-neural damage', thus affecting the brain. He said that some of the damage in the brain is also reflected in MRIs and other scans. One of the triggers that led doctors to ask for these scans was loss of sense of smell. The virus, according to studies like this, can negatively impact the olfactory bulb – the part of the brain which is responsible for activating the sense of smell. So once a patient reported loss of smell, doctors asked for brain scans. These scans showed that some parts of the brain were affected. Whenever an infection takes place, the immune system mounts a response. At times, it goes into overdrive and affects otherwise healthy organs of the body, by mistake. The diseases caused by this act are called autoimmune diseases. Long Covid patients have reported neurological conditions like multiple sclerosis. It is an autoimmune disorder in which the spinal cord and the nerves in the brain suffer abnormalities. Chaudhry is also particularly worried about the long persistence of pneumonia in Long Covid patients or even those who don't fit under this broad umbrella term. 'In my 30 years of practice, I have never seen this big a number of patients suffering from pneumonia,' he said. Murali Mohan says interstitial lung disease, a long-term ailment which "cripples the lives of people", is something he has commonly observed after the pandemic. Past experience suggests that some viruses have also triggered this disease, and therefore, Sars-Cov-2 doing the same shouldn't surprise clinicians. 'The autoimmune phenomenon can impact the brain, the nervous system, the lungs and so on,' Murali Mohan said. The gut, which holds the key to many digestion-related functions, also seems to get affected because of the COVID-19 virus. The good bacteria in the gut does not let toxins enter the bloodstream. With the gut suffering, its 'gatekeeper' role goes for a toss. Consequently, the body's internal systems are exposed to a whole range of toxins, which can cause a number of diseases. Some Long Covid patients come to Dravid with psychiatric problems like nervousness, hopelessness and excess anxiety. 'Family members say their patient was such a calm person before COVID. Now s/he is like a cat on a hot tin roof — completely anxious, keeps shouting at us for simple things.' Apart from the issues mentioned, all these doctors spoke of seeing patients with the most common Long Covid problems like an increased heart rate, chronic fatigue, chest pain, breathlessness, palpitations, etc. which substantially affect the quality of life. Matters of the heart A group of problems related to the heart have been a key issue for Long Covid patients. The American Heart Association says the risk of heart attack and strokes following a COVID-19 infection remains increased at least up to three years later in adults. Even children's and adolescents' hearts can be adversely affected, says this study published on April 11, 2025. Dr K. Srinath Reddy, former head of the Public Health Foundation of India and former head of AIIMS' cardiology department, says COVID-19 infection can wreak havoc on the heart in multiple ways. One among them is inflammation. As a result of any infection, when the immune system rushes to do its job, it leads to inflammation. In most cases this inflammation subsides on its own, but in some it does not. This is true for infections with various pathogens; Sars-Cov-2 is no exception. Inflammation can damage the inner lining of blood vessels. Veins transport blood from the heart to different organs and arteries do the reverse. They are both vessels, and if vessels are affected, clotting, also known as thrombosis, takes place. This causes heart attacks. The second pathway to heart attack due to COVID-19 could be the autoimmune. As explained above, an autoimmune scenario destroys healthy organs of the body, in some cases the heart and blood vessels.. Deranged lipid profile (three types of cholesterol indicators and triglycerides) and abnormal sugar levels can also affect blood vessels adversely. High blood sugar is a noted post-Covid complication. Reddy says a combination of all these pathways can lead to heart attacks. To know the exact pathway, more research is needed. Link with Covid One of the biggest challenges is to establish that the patients developed these conditions because of COVID-19 and hence can be treated under the Long Covid umbrella. Doctors like Murali Mohan believe that patients may have developed some of these problems anyway, with or without Covid. The other possibility is that they existed before COVID-19 infection, in a latent manner. The infection worsened the symptoms, leading to their full-fledged manifestation. The third possibility is that the COVID-19 virus itself caused these problems. There are several reasons why a direct link is difficult to establish. One is that most investigations, including scans and bloodwork for testing biomarkers, show nothing wrong with the body. Biomarkers are molecules in the blood – if their levels are outside of the normal range, it shows that the body isn't functioning normally. But Long Covid patients, as all of those who spoke to The Wire said, continue to suffer – despite their 'clean' test results. Dravid says physicians need to think out of the box. The CD4 count is a biomarker that marks the status of immunity, especially for HIV patients as their immune system is heavily compromised. There are indications now to suggest that COVID-19 may have altered immune systems to a greater extent. Dravid says if the count is tested for Long Covid patients, and it turns out to be low, then it may give an understanding of an underfunctioning immune system. That itself can be a clue to many of the conditions that Long Covid patients grapple with. 'If patients are coming with allergies following a COVID-19 infection, how about checking the IgG, IgA, IgM levels — that is, immunoglobulin levels — which we otherwise use to check for allergy patients. This is something that many of us may not be doing now for Long Covid patients,' he said. 'Maybe biomarkers for Long Covid conditions are different, which we have not been able to find out yet. We are only trying to test those biomarkers which are commonly associated with a particular disease,' he said. The medical community worldwide is grappling to fill the gaps of biomarkers. This study, a 'global expert consensus' published on April 20, 2025, lists a whole range of biomarkers that doctors must look into for Long Covid patients. It indicates investigations for every system of the body. The other difficulty is to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between these conditions and COVID-19 infection. Because the pathway isn't usually clear, doctors are hesitant to come to such conclusions. Sometimes, doctors have found that nutrient deficiency also causes similar conditions – thus delinking 'Long Covid' symptoms from a COVID-19 infection. 'The significant deficiency of Vitamin D as well as Vitamin B12 can have specific and nonspecific effects causing a number of diseases,' Chaudhry said. These deficiencies are examples of the 'confounders' which render doctors unsure what caused the diseases – Long Covid or other reasons. Confounders are findings that may not align with the conclusions one would normally have drawn. Delhi-based Dr Hitakshi Sharma, a community medicine specialist, stresses on checking minerals levels to rule out their deficiency, because that can also lead to some of these conditions. Despite the existence of these confounders, Sars-Cov-2 is not an anomaly as far as post viral and bacterial illness are concerned. Other viruses too have been known to cause complications when patients have recovered from infections caused by them. Long-term joint and muscle pain in patients post a chikungunya infection is a common occurrence. Even after fully recovering from a tuberculosis infection, some people continue to have impaired lung functioning. Ditto for swine flu. Doctors say since COVID-19 affected so many patients in a span of just a few years, they see more patients suffering with post-viral illness and the word 'long' got prefixed to these diseases – which is not the case with other infections. Clinicians' dilemma With these uncertainties, doctors are hesitant on two counts as far as Long Covid patients are concerned. First, they aren't sure if all the problems that Long Covid patients face indeed happened following a Covid infection, and so, how to treat the issues. Second, and more importantly, investigations don't reveal anything for a lot of these patients, and so doctors end up rejecting the possibility that illness exists. 'I agree it is very difficult to decide whether COVID-19 is the cause or something else is. But if the patient is saying there is a temporal association with COVID-19, we should give those symptoms credence – at least hear them out – and not just dismiss their conditions,' Dravid said. Murali Mohan says doctors are being 'close-minded' when they refuse to recognise Long Covid patients' symptoms just because they can't see anything obviously wrong. "The most hurtful thing for any patient is rejection with contempt,' he said. Both Dravid and Murali Mohan stressed on doctors giving adequate time to Long Covid patients in their OPDs. They said that these patients may need to be heard for half an hour or even more to understand what they are saying. This is made even more important by the fact that investigations don't always reveal the issue. Asking the right questions and taking down a detailed history is vital for these patients, they believe. "Look at their physical issues. Rule out any underlying cause [which could have been present before COVID-19 infection]...that can be the first step,' Murali Mohan advises. It is definitely a difficult thing to do, though, he said. Dravid came across Long Covid patients who had already seen multiple consultants before visiting him. They were, therefore, exhausted by repeating their history again and again. 'That is when we doctors need to be sympathetic,' he said. This Pune-based physician added that it is impossible to quantify many of their conditions, say fatigue, cognitive decline or breathlessness. The absence of quantification makes clinicians sceptical about the problems of Long Covid patients. The road ahead When doctors themselves have not yet understood Long Covid and the issues it presents, treatment protocol becomes complicated. For example, autoimmune diseases, in general, are treated with steroids. However, when the autoimmune pathways to Long Covid conditions are not undeniably proven, it is difficult for doctors to prescribe steroids to patients, says Murali Mohan. Dravid says occupational therapy could be a graded way to help Long Covid patients suffering from chronic fatigue. 'And, then of course, psychological support to them can go a long way in helping them,' he said. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach that includes the services of a rheumatologist (for autoimmune conditions), immunologist, physical medicine specialist, cardiologist and physiotherapist can be the key, he feels. A Long Covid patient The Wire spoke to said she received such a treatment when she was in the US. But the road ahead can be bumpy for Long Covid patients despite the best of intentions of a section of doctors. They say while these patients can recover to some extent, their quality of life may not recover to levels they were at before. Dravid, though, adds a rider to this thought: ongoing research on Long Covid may potentially throw up solutions that could reverse the problem completely. Until then, a sympathetic clinician could help manage the symptoms. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
Hindustan Times
7 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
China bans surgical treatment of Alzheimer's
China has banned surgical treatment of Alzheimer's disease after it was performed in about 400 hospitals over four years, saying there is a lack of high-quality medical evidence to support its safety and effectiveness. Alzheimer's disease – the leading cause of dementia - is a brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills.(Pixabay) The procedure, known as lymphatic-venous anastomosis (LVA), involves connecting the patient's lymph vessels to veins near the neck to speed up the flow and drainage of lymph fluid. The aim is to boost the removal of harmful brain proteins and slow the disease's progression. The National Health Commission said it has recently learned that some medical institutions are conducting lymphaticovenous anastomosis, also known as LVA surgery, on patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Following the commission's discovery, it conducted assessments on the procedure's safety and efficacy, the Commission said in a notice. "Our evaluation concludes that there is a lack of evidence from preclinical studies in the use of LVA surgery for Alzheimer's disease treatment," it said, state-run China Daily reported on Friday. "The procedure remains at an early stage of clinical research with its indications and contraindications yet to be clarified, and there is insufficient medical or health economic evidence attesting to its safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness," the commission added. Local health authorities are advised to instruct medical institutions to halt treating Alzheimer's disease with LVA surgery and guarantee proper follow-up care for affected patients. "When sufficient preclinical evidence is collected, qualified medical institutions can carry out clinical studies under the full deliberation of ethics committees," it added. The surgery has grown in popularity, particularly over the past year, since it was first performed in 2021 by a microsurgery expert from a private hospital in Hangzhou, in the eastern province of Zhejiang. Based on publicly available information, an estimated 382 hospitals across almost all Chinese provinces had performed the procedure by the end of June, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported. Alzheimer's disease – the leading cause of dementia - is a brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, and eventually the ability to carry out the simplest tasks. When the surgery first came to public attention, some Chinese doctors promoted it enthusiastically on social media, claiming it was 'effective for 60 to 80 per cent of patients', according to the Post report. But it has also been met with scepticism, with some medical experts questioning its fundamental mechanism and long-term effectiveness. Dr Fan Dongsheng, a professor in the neurology department at Peking University Third Hospital, warned that the scientific mechanism behind the treatment had not been well studied and was not convincing at present. He told the Post that the reported improvements in patient symptoms were qualitative and not based on the accepted evaluation system. Fan welcomed the government's decision to halt the treatment, calling it 'apparently problematic' that many hospitals, even small ones, performed the surgery extensively without solid evidence and had charged patients for it. Users on the Chinese social media platforms, however, expressed their anxiety that diagnosed family members would no longer be able to receive the treatment. 'If the patient's family agrees, I think it's worth trying because some patients are in a really serious condition and their families are exhausted and desperate,' a person from northeastern Liaoning wrote. One man said that his father, who was treated in March, had recovered well and could now recognise people and look after himself. If surgery had the potential to improve patients' conditions, 'most families would choose to give it a try', he told the Post.
Time of India
8 hours ago
- Time of India
Sonu Nigam collaborates with internet sensation Raju Kalakar on Dil Pe Chalai Churiya: ‘Something special is dropping this Monday!'
Dil Pe Chalai Churiya, the iconic heartbreak track from Bewafa Sanam, has made a roaring comeback, not on a music chart, but through a viral reel by Surat-based puppeteer Raju Bhat, popularly known as Raju Kalakar. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The video, in which Raju sings the song while tapping two broken stones as makeshift instruments, captured the internet's attention with over 146 million views and counting. Now, the man behind the original vocals, , has officially teamed up with the viral star, and fans can't keep calm. 'You've been humming it... now hear it like never before' In a video shared on Sonu Nigam's official Instagram handle, in collaboration with T-Series and Raju Kalakar, the celebrated singer is seen singing Dil Pe Chalai Churiya alongside the internet star himself. Announcing the big news in the caption, Sonu wrote, 'You've been humming it... now get ready to hear it like never before. Something special is dropping this Monday!' Fans call it the 'biggest collab of 2025' The video set off a wave of excitement online, with fans flooding the comments section. Yashraj Mukhate commented, 'I absolutely love the internet,' praising how digital virality brought two contrasting artists together. Another user wrote, 'Biggest collab of this year. 2025 is an unexpected year.' A third fan quipped, 'We got Raju bhai and Sonu Nigam collaboration before GTA 6,' while someone else hailed it as the 'premium side of Instagram.' One viral comment read: 'When the trend meets the trendsetter.' With this unexpected collaboration, Sonu Nigam appears to be steering the narrative back to what he does best — music.
