@futurebird weren't lichen also basically the foundation of plant life on earth? Terraforming, baby!

@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!”

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.

@arjankroonen

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?)

@arjankroonen

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?

@dedicto @arjankroonen

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 like the hippo and its gut bacteria

@futurebird @arjankroonen I think my favorite choice for an animal to bring back, if they really could, would be Leptictidium:

Leptictidium - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

@kw217

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?

@futurebird @kw217

Absolutely this!

@dedicto @arjankroonen

Excuse me. What the heck is THIS.

@futurebird @dedicto @arjankroonen Creature that definitely goes "ehehehe hoo hoo" as it steals small items from your kitchen

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

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

@funkula @futurebird

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.

@dedicto @arjankroonen

Excuse me. What the heck is THIS.

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.