‘Jurassic Park': Using AI, scientists try reviving extinct Wolves, Woolly mammoths

As the goal of bringing extinct creatures back to life has shifted from movies to laboratories, Colossal Biosciences, a Texas-based biotech firm, is actively working on resurrecting dinosaurs, including dire wolves and woolly mammoths, using AI, gene editing, and DNA extraction. Colossal CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm playfully compared the situation to Jurassic Park but emphasized that they aim to bring benefits to conservation and human welfare.

However, since viable dinosaur DNA cannot survive across millions of years, they focus on more recent extinct species like the dire wolf, woolly mammoth, dodo bird, Tasmanian tiger, and giant New Zealand moa bird. The company predicts that people will see extinct species returning to Earth within the next few years.

To create the first generation of dire wolf pups, scientists extracted genetic material from a fossilized skull and tooth from thousands of years ago. Due to the nature of ancient DNA, which is naturally fragmented and degraded, Colossal utilized advanced AI models to reconstruct the entire dire wolf genome. They then mapped the computational blueprint against the genetic code of the gray wolf, its closest living relative, and edited living cells from modern gray wolves to generate embryos.

The pups, named Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi, were born on October 1, 2024, by domestic dogs acting as surrogate mothers. Lamm dismissed the criticism that the pups are technically genetically modified gray wolves and stated that they are just "gray wolves, just genetically modified dire wolves." Colossal also plans to introduce woolly mammoths into the ecosystem by inserting mammoth traits into modern Asian elephants in the 2030s, aiming to provide climate benefits like preserving Arctic permafrost and transforming heat-absorbing forests into reflective tundra grasslands.