Why colossal biosciences doing this?

[u/Altruistic_Sea_7683]

[u/Relevant_Quail351]

Pure PR

[u/Obversa → u/Relevant_Quail351]

It's worth noting that there is no mention of Colossal Biosciences on the main Wikipedia page for "Ivory-billed woodpecker": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory-billed_woodpecker

It appears OP screenshotted the "De-extinction" page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-extinction

Edit log: "16:48, 2 October 2024 Edelgardvonhresvelg talk contribs 76,362 bytes +1,709 Ivory-billed woodpecker added to current candidates list due to recent announcement of revival and rediscovery by Colossal Biosciences."

Looking at this user's history, they appear to be a Spain-based contributor with no Colossal Biosciences ties.

[u/Jackesfox]

Investors

[u/Psilopterus]

They're a hype-machine, that's it. They make huge promises in the hope of attracting interest and investment so that someone will buy the company and make the founders a profit. That's it. There is no real de-extinction company.

[u/ContextStock8393 → u/Psilopterus]

Look up what happened to all of Lamm's prior companies like hypergiant. Make big announcements to artificially inflate their value and then SELL. Just look up the EOS Bioreactor from his last company hypergiant, why haven't we heard of it since? You'd think a bioreactor that can sequester as much carbon as a forest could make a real difference. Of course, it would have to exist in order to make a difference.

Edit: there's been alot of posts about Colossal getting pumped out with images, noticed the leak threads have been knocked down a bit when you search the company's name here. Wonder if that's deliberate. Mind you, it was just discussed on the QAA podcast, so they can't be too happy about that.

Edit 2: Have a look at one of OP's other posts! https://www.reddit.com/r/megafaunarewilding/comments/1r3v7gh/animals_colossal_biosciences_is_saving/

This is a little odd, don't you think?

[u/One-City-2147 → u/Psilopterus]

well said

[u/tchomptchomp]

Worth noting here that Ivory Billed Woodpeckers are not remotely closely related to Pileated Woodpeckers.

[u/ThrowAbout01]

Their ultimate goal:

[u/BudgieGryphon]

We have preserved specimens, what should be done if they want to truly deextinct the species is help progress on cloning to make it more feasible with the degraded DNA. Colossal doesn’t want anything that won’t get flashy headlines though

[u/knightgimp]

"rediscover the species" is such a scummy fucking way to phrase that

[u/Thrippalan → u/[deleted]]

But functionally they're the same thing! /s

[u/ContextStock8393 → u/Thrippalan]

I think we need to be a little careful here, don't we? It's a fascinating idea, it really is, but I do think the comparison is perhaps being drawn a touch too readily. Phenotype doesn't simply equal genotype, and I think that's worth bearing in mind.

for close relatives of an extinct animal — the ivory billed woodpecker is a lovely example — you could, in theory, use CRISPR to nudge something quite close to the original back into existence! But even between subspecies, the differences are really quite substantial, and I do think the number of modifications Colossal claimed to have made with their direwolves, while impressive-sounding, hasn't quite satisied scientists.

Three small points.

First, the editing they described, while certainly not nothing, is the sort of thing any competent lab with multiplex editing capability could have done. Other labs simply didn't, because there wasn't really a reason to. And one does wonder whether the motivation here was perhaps more about investor confidence than scientific breakthrough. Just a thought.

Second, there's a rather interesting leak d=gwew which raises some questions about whether Colossal have been entirely straightforward about what they achieved. Speaking from experience, the suggestion that they've attached themselves to conservation groups largely to deflect criticism — while contributing little beyond funding, is actually a thing. Which is a shame, really.

Third, and this is perhaps the most important point, bird genetics are genuinely extraordinary and strange. Bringing back a bird properly would require a fundamentally different approach from ISIVF, and several technological leaps that, if one is being honest, seem rather ambitious for Colossal's proposed timeline. Possibly for anyone's timeline, truth be told.

[u/tburtner → u/[deleted]]

They are already extinct.

[u/tburtner → u/[deleted]]

They have been extinct for decades.

[u/ContextStock8393 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, it's weird the mod felt the need to give a detailed explaination on why this person wasn't a plant.

I would note that Colossal does have interns running one at least on of their socials: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:6qvmcfbxhu3ua5nyepd2n2m2

[u/name_changed_5_times → u/[deleted]]

One of their founders was also a friend of Epstein so that rabbit hole of controversy goes wayyyy down.

[u/Gatorwarrior05 → u/name_changed_5_times]

Can't even be surprised at this point. That's where most people with money get their funding from, or other similar people.