Colossal scientists learned about specific traits that dire wolves possessed by examining ancient DNA from fossils. The researchers studied a 13,000 year-old dire wolf tooth unearthed in Ohio and a 72,000 year-old skull fragment found in Idaho, both part of natural history museum collections.
Romulus and Remus are two genetically modified grey wolves created by Colossal Biosciences on October 1, 2024, with the goal of replicating the phenotype of the extinct dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus). Along with a female wolf named Khaleesi born later on January 30, 2025, Colossal claim the two males represent the first living examples of the species since its extinction approximately 10,000 years ago, though "no ancient dire wolf DNA was actually spliced into the gray wolf's genome."
With the dire wolves, Colossal has made 20 unique precision germline edits including 15 edits from the ancient gene variants that have not existed in over 12,000 years, setting a new bar for precision germline editing in any animal.
Dire wolves were different from other canine species such as coyotes and grey wolves – so much so that they were not able to breed with each other, according to new research published in the latest issue of Nature.
Analyses of the high quality dire wolf genome, however, revealed that the gray wolf is the closest living relative of dire wolves – with dire wolves and gray wolves sharing 99.5% of their DNA code
Another source of ecosystem variety stems from our new technologies to de-extinct lost genes, including deep ancient DNA sequencing, polyphyletic trait analyses, multiplex germline editing, and cloning. The dire wolf is an early example of this, including the largest number of precise genomic edits in a healthy vertebrate so far.
Dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus) were distributed across the American midcontinent during the Pleistocene ice ages. The oldest confirmed dire wolf fossil, from Black Hills, SD, is around 250,000 years old. Colossal’s genomic data indicate, however, that the lineage first appeared during the Late Pliocene, between 3.5 and 2.5 million years ago, as a consequence of admixture between two more ancient (and now extinct) canid lineages. Dire wolves were as much as 25% larger than gray wolves and had a slightly wider head, light thick fur and stronger jaw. As hyper-carnivores, their diet comprised at least 70% meat from mostly horses and bison. Dire wolves went extinct at the end of the most recent ice age, around 13,000 years ago.
To de-extinct the dire wolf, Colossal:
Extracted and sequenced ancient DNA from two dire wolf fossils; Assembled ancient genomes from both, and compared those to genomes from living canids including wolves, jackals, foxes, and dholes; Identified gene variants specific to dire wolves; Determined that dire wolves had a white coat color, and long thick fur – aspects of the dire wolf phenotype that were unknowable from fossils and consistent with animals that lived during cold periods of the Pleistocene ice ages; Performed multiplex gene editing to a donor genome from their closest living relative, the gray wolf, resulting in edits 20 sites in 14 genes with 15 of those edits being extinct variants; Screen edited cell lines via whole genome sequencing and karyotyping; Cloned high quality cell lines using somatic cell nuclear transfer into donor egg cells; Performed embryo transfer and managed interspecies surrogacy; and, Successfully birthed an extinct species.
Fascinating early articles here although not all our in every archive mirroring of this site so you have to go through the timeline to see some of the articles which included that the Vietnam War was fought to control the tiger oil field off the coast of Vietnam and the bombs were dropped in the ocean to do Sonic surveys of the ocean off the coast of Vietnam to determine the most productive area for oil and after the war our oil companies bid for those areas out competing the French
And that the dinosaurs died when a portion of the earth spun off to create the Moon in a great description of the fission theory of the origin of the Moon
And a complete discussion of how Rockefeller took over the oil industry by owning the patents on the rolling tank cars that the railroads had which carried the oil
And many many other fascinating original articles as well as a live indicator showing whether or not the original harp antenna in Alaska was on or off.
The internet used to be full of fantastic information sites like this. Many of them were lost when the geocities domain was taken down hundreds of thousands of people had posted their personal knowledge of interesting facts onto their own website for the first time in history.
Other amazing things were found in Yahoo groups which was suddenly and without warning just taken down and destroyed by Yahoo even though it was a mostly non-image-oriented site and really cost nothing to host the text.
Vasily Blokhin was born on 7 January 1895 into a poor peasant family in the village of Gavrilovskoye, then part of the Russian Empire. Blokhin actively participated in the first major Stalinist purge known as the Great Terror or the Great Purge, which lasted from 1936 to 1938 During this time, the NKVD, the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union, targeted and eliminated perceived enemies of the state, including political dissidents, military leaders, and intellectuals, often through fabricated charges and forced confessions. As the purge intensified, Stalin broadened his repression to include specific ethnic groups within the Soviet Union. This led to Order 485, issued by Stalin to the NKVD, authorizing the mass arrest, interrogation, and execution of ethnic groups, with a primary focus on the mass elimination of the Polish minority living in the Soviet Union.The Second World War began on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Blokhin's most infamous act came in April 1940, when he personally executed thousands of Polish prisoners held at the Ostashkov camp, located near the Katyn forest in western Russia. Setting an ambitious goal of 300 executions per night, he implemented a system for processing the prisoners efficiently. Each prisoner was led alone to a small antechamber, painted red and known as the 'Leninist room,' for a brief identification. Afterward, they were handcuffed and escorted into the neighbouring execution room. This room was designed specifically for the task, with padded walls for soundproofing, a sloped concrete floor with a drain and hose for cleaning, and a log wall where prisoners stood. On 27 April 1940, Blokhin secretly received the Order of the Red Banner, one of the Soviet Union's highest military honors, for his, what they called 'service' in the operation. His tally of 7,000 executions in 28 days remains the most organized and systematic mass murder by a single individual on record, earning him a place in the Guinness World Records. In total, approximately 22,000 Polish prisoners were killed during the Katyn Massacre—a tragedy that continues to cast a long shadow over Polish-Russian relations to this day.
