I think if anyone wants to "bring back extinct organisms" they should start with an extinct lichen as proof of concept.
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I think if anyone wants to "bring back extinct organisms" they should start with an extinct lichen as proof of concept.
What's that? You say you don't know of any extinct lichen? Well, that seems like a problem don't you think?
What's that? You say you aren't even certain how many genomes you'd need to have the whole organism? Hmm. Maybe we should ponder this.
Show me you can bring back a lichen first. Show me that you even *understand* the lichen.
@futurebird Yep, start with the basis… and in parallel maybe try to let species not go extinct? That’s much easier to do than “let’s bring back a wooly mamoth because that would be so cool!”
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@futurebird weren't lichen also basically the foundation of plant life on earth? Terraforming, baby!
Not exactly. Lichen are clearly several organisms each with their own DNA living in perfect interdependence. Among them are at least fungi and algae, but possibly also bacteria and others. Lichen challenge our concept of "species" to some extent.
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F myrmepropagandist shared this topic
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@futurebird Yep, start with the basis… and in parallel maybe try to let species not go extinct? That’s much easier to do than “let’s bring back a wooly mamoth because that would be so cool!”
I mean it *would* be cool. I can't deny that part. It's "cool."
I don't think I could say "no" to even a totally fake, cos-play speculative Arthropleura. I really think we need giant millipede creatures. Don't you? And... why be constricted by the past? Let us just get on with it and do what we are all thinking of: make giant ants.
(Really apple-size ants would be a great improvement from where I stand. Or even two-ounce ants. Why not?)
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In lichen the interplay between genomes of distinct families of organisms is more obvious, and you can't just have the algae or the fungi and say you have the whole organism.
But this interplay exists at various levels for all living things.
@futurebird like the hippo and its gut bacteria
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I mean it *would* be cool. I can't deny that part. It's "cool."
I don't think I could say "no" to even a totally fake, cos-play speculative Arthropleura. I really think we need giant millipede creatures. Don't you? And... why be constricted by the past? Let us just get on with it and do what we are all thinking of: make giant ants.
(Really apple-size ants would be a great improvement from where I stand. Or even two-ounce ants. Why not?)
Could this be like "grabbing the snoot of the god of chaos again" ? That idea was also irresistible and seemed like a "cool" thing to do... but yeah.
It didn't work out so well.
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I mean it *would* be cool. I can't deny that part. It's "cool."
I don't think I could say "no" to even a totally fake, cos-play speculative Arthropleura. I really think we need giant millipede creatures. Don't you? And... why be constricted by the past? Let us just get on with it and do what we are all thinking of: make giant ants.
(Really apple-size ants would be a great improvement from where I stand. Or even two-ounce ants. Why not?)
@futurebird @arjankroonen Maybe revive trilobites?
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@futurebird @arjankroonen Maybe revive trilobites?
Every now and then I have a fit of depression because I know I'll never see a real living trilobite. It makes my heart ache.
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Every now and then I have a fit of depression because I know I'll never see a real living trilobite. It makes my heart ache.
@futurebird @arjankroonen I think my favorite choice for an animal to bring back, if they really could, would be Leptictidium:
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@futurebird like the hippo and its gut bacteria
Exactly. And to be more serious about this? It scares me that people might think that just saving DNA is anything close to preserving creatures in context, preserving the fragile beautiful ecosystems that we are destroying before we even look at them closely enough to know them.
I'm concerned that the *language* of necromancy we are using around this technology is leaving people with the incorrect impression. Enabling more environmental destruction. Could that even be the goal?
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@futurebird @arjankroonen I think my favorite choice for an animal to bring back, if they really could, would be Leptictidium:
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Exactly. And to be more serious about this? It scares me that people might think that just saving DNA is anything close to preserving creatures in context, preserving the fragile beautiful ecosystems that we are destroying before we even look at them closely enough to know them.
I'm concerned that the *language* of necromancy we are using around this technology is leaving people with the incorrect impression. Enabling more environmental destruction. Could that even be the goal?
Absolutely this!
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Absolutely this!
That mysterious temperate rainforest? The one with all the mosses, and strange detritivores in the leaf litter? Don't worry about it! I saved it on this here zip disk!
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@futurebird @dedicto @arjankroonen Creature that definitely goes "ehehehe hoo hoo" as it steals small items from your kitchen
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@futurebird @dedicto @arjankroonen Creature that definitely goes "ehehehe hoo hoo" as it steals small items from your kitchen
@neckspike @dedicto @arjankroonen
Then? You cry "HEY!"
And to your surprise it freezes, perched on the open window holding your breakfast muffin, looking over a shoulder with small dark eyes.
There are no thoughts in those eyes, but they are deep, they perceive you for a moment.
Then? It twitches the whiskers, bounds from the window, gone in a rustle of foliage, the delicious muffin you'd just warmed and buttered with it.
On your plate, only a few cold crumbs.
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I think if anyone wants to "bring back extinct organisms" they should start with an extinct lichen as proof of concept.
What's that? You say you don't know of any extinct lichen? Well, that seems like a problem don't you think?
What's that? You say you aren't even certain how many genomes you'd need to have the whole organism? Hmm. Maybe we should ponder this.
Show me you can bring back a lichen first. Show me that you even *understand* the lichen.
Geneticists reading through what the Colossal group has done report that they have not even reconstructed the actual dire wolf genome. The technique they used give a sequence that is artificially close to a grey wolf reference: https://bsky.app/profile/jfmclaughlin92.bsky.social/post/3lmlezrhsls2y .
Things like "how many chromosomes did they have?" remain unknown.
All they have is done is genetically engineered cloned dogs, with ~99% loss in the process.
Quite the scam.
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Geneticists reading through what the Colossal group has done report that they have not even reconstructed the actual dire wolf genome. The technique they used give a sequence that is artificially close to a grey wolf reference: https://bsky.app/profile/jfmclaughlin92.bsky.social/post/3lmlezrhsls2y .
Things like "how many chromosomes did they have?" remain unknown.
All they have is done is genetically engineered cloned dogs, with ~99% loss in the process.
Quite the scam.
@michael_w_busch @futurebird depressing, but not surprising, that in a moment when the biggest grift going is pretending that llms are the long-anticipated arrival of artificial intelligence, it would turn out that the realization of another scientific dream is a similar scam
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@michael_w_busch @futurebird depressing, but not surprising, that in a moment when the biggest grift going is pretending that llms are the long-anticipated arrival of artificial intelligence, it would turn out that the realization of another scientific dream is a similar scam
Colossal also engineered white coats; while dire wolves apparently were normally reddish brown.
Because these animals owe more to G.R.R. Martin than to anything else.
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Colossal also engineered white coats; while dire wolves apparently were normally reddish brown.
Because these animals owe more to G.R.R. Martin than to anything else.
@michael_w_busch @futurebird so I guess maybe it's less like llms than elon's ongoing grifts: rip off the visuals of a piece of fiction and get praised for realizing that vision even if the tech behind it is no more real than it was when the fiction was made
Thinking specifically of the robots that have the I Robot aesthetic but are at best teleoperated and at worst literally a guy in a suit
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@futurebird @dedicto @arjankroonen OMG she's REAL
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I think if anyone wants to "bring back extinct organisms" they should start with an extinct lichen as proof of concept.
What's that? You say you don't know of any extinct lichen? Well, that seems like a problem don't you think?
What's that? You say you aren't even certain how many genomes you'd need to have the whole organism? Hmm. Maybe we should ponder this.
Show me you can bring back a lichen first. Show me that you even *understand* the lichen.
@futurebird Didn't Beatrice Potter write a screenplay for "The Lichen that Digested the Earth" before she wrote Peter Rabbit? Maybe I'm remembering that wrong.
