Is this ‘de-extinction’ project actually onto something?

Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Colossal isn’t ‘bringing back’ lost species. But it might be working on something ‘useful.’ Colossal isn’t ‘bringing back’ lost species. But it might be working on something ‘useful.’ Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Dallas-based genetics and biotech startup Colossal has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from venture capitalists, the CIA, and Peter Thiel, among others. Its buzzy “de-extinction” projects aim to “bring back” lost animals like the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, and the dire wolf — although it isn’t creating copies of extinct creatures from ancient DNA, as the “de-extinction” tagline may suggest. In the case of the “dire wolves” presented to the world in 2025, the pups were gray wolves spliced with a few genetic traits to somewhat resemble the dire wolves. This ambitious branding opened the company up to questions about its conservation efforts and criticism for apparently not really “de-extincting” anything at all. Colossal’s late