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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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.
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@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.
excuse me WHAT that sounds amazing please be true
