Latest news with #extinctspecies
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Extinct giant bird being brought back to life
(NewsNation) — The group that resurrected the dire wolf species is looking to reestablish a giant bird, native to New Zealand, with the backing of legendary filmmaker Peter Jackson. The moa bird, which has been extinct for 600 years, could make a return to the world. The herbivore weighed 500 pounds and stood about 12 to 13 feet tall. The flightless bird was sacred to the Maori people, the native populace of New Zealand. According to their oral traditions, they were a largely docile bird. According to a study in Quaternary Science Reviews, they became extinct due to overhunting by humans. 'Peter Jackson was really excited about the work that we're doing. He knew we were working on the mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, and then the dodo, and he was very upset that we were not working on the moa,' Ben Lamm, who founded The Colossal Foundation, told 'Elizabeth Vargas Reports.' Ghislaine Maxwell should testify before Congress: Dershowitz 'If we can ever bring back species that we as mankind had a role in their extinction, while also building technologies to help conservation, (we can) help to return something that's sacred, back to the Maori people, the indigenous people of New Zealand, all while kind of inspiring kids. It kind of checked all of the boxes,' he added. Lamm noted that Jackson 'offered to accelerate the efforts with funding.' The moa birds will be reintroduced into areas on the South Island of New Zealand allocated by the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre. Lamm added that the moa birds will have the capacity to reproduce with themselves thanks to engineered additional genetic diversity that allows previously extinct animal populations to reproduce. 'Our goal is to build sustainable populations with enough genetic diversity that they can thrive on their own.' The foundation 'doesn't have to make more for New Zealand, they can actually just build up their own flock over time,' he said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Two Dallas-Based Businesses Earn Spot On Coveted ‘TIME100 Most Influential Companies'
Two Dallas-based businesses have earned a spot on the 'TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2025' list. Colossal Biosciences and LTK were both included on the coveted list, but for very different reasons. This year's TIME100 marks the fifth year the publication has highlighted companies across six categories: Leaders, Innovators, Disrupters, Titans, Pioneers, and Impact Award recipients. Earlier this year, The Dallas Express reported that Colossal Biosciences wowed the world when it announced it brought back the dire wolf from extinction using state-of-the-art technology. The groundbreaking biotechnology firm also holds the distinction of being the first company based in Texas to be valued at more than $10 billion. TIME Magazine noted that animals long thought lost to history 'are getting a second chance, thanks to Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences.' And it is not just extinct animals that Colossal Biosciences is aiming to revive. 'Just as important, the company is using similar technology to help protect the red wolf, the Asian elephant, and other species currently clinging to life,' the profile said. LTK, a tech platform focused on helping creators and brands monetize content via shoppable links, was also recognized on the prestigious list. The app, co-founded by Amber Venz Box, is considered the largest influencer marketing platform in the world when measured by revenue. 'LTK's bread and butter is its own shopping app, revamped this year to be more video-focused. It connects 40 million plus shoppers—including 38% of U.S. Gen Z and millennial women—each month to more than 8,000 retailers, who rake in more than $5 billion in annual sales through the platform,' read the profile on the Dallas-based phenomenon. According to the company, hundreds of creators have earned $1 million or more through LTK. While it is no longer based in Dallas, another company with roots in the city was also included on TIME's 100 Most Influential Companies of 2025. Poppi, now based in Austin, is the low-sugar soda that skyrocketed to popularity in recent years. In fact, the Dallas-born soda brand was sold to beverage behemoth PepsiCo, Inc. earlier this year for nearly $2 billion.
The Guardian
11-07-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
It's 12ft tall, covered in feathers and has been extinct for 600 years – can the giant moa bird really be resurrected?
Standing more than three metres (10ft) high, the giant moa is the tallest bird known to have walked on Earth. For thousands of years, the wingless herbivore patrolled New Zealand, feasting on trees and shrubs, until the arrival of humans. Today, records of the enormous animal survive only in Māori oral histories, as well as thousands of discoveries of bone, mummified flesh and the odd feather. But this week, the US start-up Colossal Biosciences has announced that the giant moa has joined the woolly mammoth, dodo and thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, on its list of animals that it is trying to bring back from the dead. The announcement has provoked public excitement – and deep scepticism from many experts about whether it is possible to resurrect the bird, which disappeared a century after the arrival of early Polynesian settlers in New Zealand about 600 years ago. The Texas company says it is aiming to resurrect the extinct bird within five to 10 years, in partnership with the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre at New Zealand's University of Canterbury. Reportedly backed by US$15m (£11m) of funding from the Lord of the Rings film-maker Sir Peter Jackson, who is an investor in Colossal Biosciences and an avid moa bone collector, the project will try to 'de-extinct' the giant bird by harvesting DNA from fossils, then editing genes of its nearest surviving relatives, such as the emu. The genetically modified birds will be hatched out and released into enclosed 'rewilding sites', the company says. 'The hope that within a few years, we'll get to see a moa back again – that gives me more enjoyment and satisfaction that any film ever has,' says Jackson. As part of Colossal's announcement, the Māori archaeologist Kyle Davis says: 'Our earliest ancestors in this place lived alongside moa and our records, both archaeological and oral, contain knowledge about these birds and their environs. We relish the prospect of bringing that into dialogue with Colossal's cutting-edge science as part of a bold vision for ecological restoration.' This is the latest in a string of headline-grabbing claims by Colossal, which raised $200m in January on a $10bn valuation of the company. In April, Colossal claimed it had resurrected the dire wolf, a North American predator which has been extinct for about 13,000 years, with the birth of two grey wolves that had been genetically modified to have dire wolf characteristics. Weeks earlier, the company released photos of 'woolly mice', which had been genetically altered to have woolly mammoth traits as part of efforts to 'de-extinct' the giant herbivore by genetically modifying Asian elephants. The firm has also set its sights on bringing back the dodo, the Mauritian bird that was hunted to extinction by sailors in the 17th century. But Colossal's announcements are attracting growing scorn and concern from many researchers, who argue that claims of 'de-extinction' are false and a distraction from the ongoing rampant loss of biodiversity, with a million existing species at risk of disappearing. There are also concerns that these 'resurrected' hybrid species are designed for habitats and ecological niches that may no longer exist. Research published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution concluded that spending the limited resources available for saving nature on de-extinction could lead to net biodiversity loss. Aroha Te Pareake Mead, a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Policy Development Working Group on the use of Synthetic Biology in Conservation, says: 'De-extinction is a misnomer, a false promise, that is rooted more in ego than a genuine effort to conserve species. These are exercises in the egotistical delight in the theatrical production of 'discovery' devoid of ethical, environmental and cultural considerations. Bring the moa back? To where? To what quality of life? To roam freely?' Dr Tori Herridge, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sheffield, who turned down an offer of joining Colossal Biosciences' advisory board, says the company's initiatives are best thought of as scientific experiments – rather than genuinely bringing back extinct species from thousands of years ago. 'Is de-extinction possible? No, it is not possible. What you could potentially do – we'll see – is create a genetically modified organism that may contain some appearance traits that are linked to a previously extinct species based on what we think they were like. Using the term 'de-extinction' allows us to skip over the hard questions. This is not bringing back the mammoth or the moa or the dodo, this is creating something new to create a change in an ecosystem,' she says. Herridge questions the deterministic view of genetics – highlighting that learned culture is a crucial part of a wild species. 'I don't think you're going to be able to create a something that is behaviourally a woolly mammoth just based on its genome. A lot of elephant behaviour is learned. We know there are problems with elephant behaviour once you remove a matriarch from a group,' she says. Colossal Biosciences says its work is helping to slow the rampant ongoing loss of biodiversity by returning functions lost to ecosystems when animals such as mammoth, moa and dodo go extinct. They point to excitement about how its techniques could help restore genetic diversity in endangered wildlife, helping species such as the American red wolf to avoid an extinction doom loop. A representative for the company said they strongly reject claims that de-extinction is not possible. Prof Andrew Pask, who is working on the moa project for Colossal, says the critics are wrong. 'For many of our living species on the brink of extinction, the damage has been done. They are in an extinction vortex where the population spirals to extinction. The single, only way out of this is by bringing back lost diversity into those species genome. This is what de-extinction technology can do,' he says. 'To say it is not possible is just not true. It is hard. It is complex. But we have all the tools to do it. If we re-engineer a genome that is 99.9% identical to a thylacine, a moa, a mammoth then that animal would be as similar to a moa and any two moas would be in that population.' But moa expert Nic Rawlence, an associate professor in ancient DNA at the University of Otago, says there is little chance of bringing the giant birds back from the dead. 'This is Jurassic Park with very low chance of success,' he says. 'If we think of the dire wolf, the genome is 2.5bn individual letters long. It's 99% identical to the grey wolf, so that's still significantly over a million differences, and they made only 20 changes to 14 genes. So, to say they've created a dire wolf is farcical. They've created a designer grey wolf. And that'll be the same with whatever they do with the moa.' Find more Age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage
Daily Mail
10-07-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Once-extinct dire wolf pups have doubled in size in mere months after being brought back from extinction
Dire wolves vanished over 12,000 years ago but science has brought back a genetically modified version of the once-extinct breed, and now the massive creatures - as seen in Game Of Thrones - have doubled in size in mere months. Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi are growing bigger than most gray wolves. The dire wolves were created by Colossal Biosciences, a Texas-based genetics company using cutting-edge technology to bring extinct species back to life, including the woolly mammoth, dodos, and Tasmanian tigers. In a newly released video, Colossal Biosciences revealed that male pups Romulus and Remus were over six months-old and weigh more than 90lb each. That is about 20 per cent larger than a standard gray wolf, making them the closest thing to a real-life dire wolf of more than 10,000 years. Romulus and Remus were born last October, while female Khaleesi was born in January, making her the youngest of the pack. In the video uploaded by Colossal, the male pups were seen running and playing together, chasing each other, and showing friendly behavior, which reflects healthy social bonding. They also seemed comfortable in their new outdoor surroundings after leaving the laboratory. Matt James of Colossal said: 'They're nice large wolves that are much more representative of what we saw in the ancient specimens.' The pups are now getting ready for their first full medical checkup, which will include CT scans and blood tests to study their bones, muscles, and internal growth. Scientists say these physical changes, like their unusually large size, show that the dire wolf genes engineered into their DNA before they were born is now actively shaping their development. The team also gave an update on Khaleesi, describing her as 'a little smaller, a little younger'. According to researchers, the female wolves are naturally smaller and tend to grow at a slightly slower pace compared to males. James said: '[Khaleesi] currently weighs about 35lb, but is still tracking about 10 to 15 per cent larger than what we have seen in gray wolves.' Khaleesi's being kept separate for now to ensure she's big enough to safely join her older brothers. Colossal's carefully watching her growth before moving to a gradual, staged introduction. In the footage, James described the pups' growth as impressive, noting they have hit all expected milestones for development. Currently, the pups are eating an adult diet of a high-quality kibble for dogs, game-grade ground meat and bones to help them develop hunting instincts. Paige McNichol of Colossal said: 'Remus is really taking on that alpha role, and Romulus is stepping down and being more subordinate in the pack.' Although Remus is slightly smaller than Romulus, he's proving to be more dominant and constantly watches his surroundings as he thinks before acting, a behavior McNichol described as crafty and calculated. That makes him more of a strategic leader, while Romulus, though physically larger, tends to charge ahead first but follows his brother's lead during interactions, a classic behavior among beta males. McNichol said: 'This dynamic may change as they grow, especially when their younger pack mate Khaleesi is introduced.' The team's slowly introducing her to Romulus and Remus, starting with visits through fences. James said: 'We're looking for really strong indicators that they are socially compatible.' The eventual goal is to release all three on to a private preserve where they can live as a functioning pack. Six months ago, Colossal made headlines when it first announced the births of the wolves, claiming to have 'brought back' the dire wolf. These pups are lab-made hybrid wolves, engineered to revive the ancient predators using advanced DNA-editing tools. Scientists compared the ancient dire wolf's DNA to a gray wolf's, identifying 14 distinct genes and made 20 changes to match DNA, resulting in them being larger and more resembling wolves. Nic Rawlence of the University of Otago said: 'To truly de-extinct something, you would have to clone it. 'The problem is we can't clone extinct animals because the DNA is not well enough preserved.' The process started by extracting ancient DNA from fossils and comparing it to the gray wolf's DNA. Scientists then made changes to mimic the dire wolf, and then they implanted it into a surrogate mother, giving birth to a genetically made dire pup. The three pups were born via this method, which Colossal calls part of its 'de-extinction tool kit'. The company says that the broader plan is to correct past ecological damage caused by human activity, including overhunting and habitat destruction. The company's site said: 'We're committed to rectifying the past and rehabilitating nature on a global scale.' For now, the team revealed the final size of the breed is uncertain, but they're looking for signs that the pups may continue growing toward the size of their ancient counterparts. Historically, extinct dire wolves stood about 3ft tall at the shoulder and reached lengths of up to 6ft, which makes them 30-40 per cent heavier than today's gray wolves. Fossil evidence suggests they could weigh between 130-150lb, according to the National Park Service.
CTV News
08-07-2025
- Science
- CTV News
‘Lord of the Rings' director backs long shot de-extinction plan, starring New Zealand's lost moa
Filmmaker Peter Jackson, left, and Colossal CEO Ben Lamm hold up bones from Jackson's collection of extinct moa bones in Wellington, New Zealand, 2024. (Courtesy of Colossal Biosciences via AP) WASHINGTON — 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 metres) tall – with US$15 million in funding from Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh. The collaboration also includes the New Zealand-based Ngāi Tahu Research Centre. '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. 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.' 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. 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. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Christina Larson, The Associated Press
