Fishin' in the stream of consciousness (all-purpose, no topic chat thread)

Hey everyone! I feel like there are some people here who haven't heard from me in years so I wanted to give an update to y'all:
I am currently (since September) living in London with my wonderful girlfriend Julia, who you may know as Blackhole! :3

Anyway, I'm (still) studying physics, hoping to start a Ph.D next year, and having a really nice time. I'm making some local friends, and obviously hanging out in Discord groups with several online friends, most of whom are from either here or Tumblr.
I'm probably not gonna hang around much but, it feels really good to finally give you all this update <3

 

I'm so happy to hear things are going well for you! This update made my night! I don't know if you or Julia remember me, but tell her I said hi if you like!

 

Hey! I don't know if we chatted much but I do remember you were the one who gave me the Zelda notebook for Secret Santa! I still have it btw!
I told Julie you said hi, and that everyone else is apparently really happy to hear, judging from all the Winner reacts lol
Good to see you again!

 

That's wonderful news! I wish you super well on the PhD!

 

Scientists aiming to bring back woolly mammoth create woolly mice

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/mar/04/genetically-modified-woolly-mice-mammoth

 

I see scientists are setting up to find out whether woolly mammoths were afraid of mice...

 

I'm not sure that bringing back the whole mammoth is ethical, is the thing. Like, we've been doing a very thorough job of destroying what is left of their habitat, and even beyond that, is it ecologically responsible to bring back something whose ecological niche has been filled by something else? Would releasing them into the wild cause problems for the animals we have in that area already, which are already struggling? Why not focus that technology on animals which are more recently extinct, or even critically endangered, and whose return we know would benefit the environment?

It is very cool though.

 

Yeah, I agree with all of this as an ecologist and environmental scientist. It's just not a good use of funds. Cool idea! Not a priority. Could have a lot of unforeseen impacts.

 

I very much doubt introduction to the wild is in anyone's mind as a possibility, I can't imagine if successful that they'd be anything but research subjects and zoo exhibits. The article does talk about people's concerns as to whether it's a worthwhile use of fund. The title is a little misleading; they're specifically looking into gene modifying asian elephants to more closely resemble their extinct cousins through comparing what they have of mammoth genomes. Agreed that it is probably a sillier way to look into more extensive gene editing but I'm too far removed from the world to know if it's a waste of funds. I am the type of layperson who would find the ability to see recently extinct animals in the flesh, or at least approximations of them, extremely cool though

 

Part of the reason they're focusing on the wooly mammoth is because if they can pull it off, they'll have a better understanding of how to revive animals without readily available high-quality samples. These guys seem to be approaching it with the idea of finding which genes 'distinguish' wooly mammoths and asian elephants, then creating a synthesis of the aggregate difference. Which, yeah, that's kinda what they did in Jurassic Park, but that aside it means you don't need a whole, intact genome, but rather can take different samples and 'compile' them into one. They're verifying this approach actually results in the expected phenotype, with moderate success. (Also, it works across significant taxonomic gaps - inserting 'wooly' genes from a mammoth into a mouse results in a wooly mouse. That's actually rather interesting, towards a 'universal gene library'.)

It does seem like something that's potential quite useful, even if no mammoths are actually revived. Maybe especially.

 

I feel like, often, research has both an immediate obvious purpose and a subtle long-term purpose, and everyone focuses on the former and ends up ignoring the latter, even if the researchers are aiming for the latter

 

i’m going to pop in here to note they very specifically did not insert wooly mammoth genes into mice, as stated in the article. they modified existing mouse genes in ways they believed would produce more cold tolerant mice, and two of those genes just happened to also be found in mammoths. there is no insertion of mammoth genes into mice happening here.

 

sorry, backreading, doubleposting

colossal fully intends to release these animals into the wild. they have launched massive publicity campaigns for mammoths, the thylacine, and the dodo, all of which they fully intend to “revive” and release into the wild. it is their mission statement. they also specify they are not bringing back the actual extinct animals, but are creating versions of extant animals intensed to occupy a similar ecological niche. from their website, bolding mine:

 

Yeah, no, I've heard of these guys before, and like artistformerlyknownasdave pointed out, they're specifically trying to release these animals into the wild and create stable wild populations. The dodo and thylacine make more sense to me than the woolly mammoth, tbh, they're much more recent extinctions, and we are more likely to be able to reconstruct their environment, or get something close to it.

It is true that we'll probably get unforeseen benefits, primarily in the genetics and genemodding departments. I still think that, for environmental and conservation research and purposes, there are better uses of our money. It's a very "sexy" idea, but it's not the most practical. I like the stuff they're doing with black rhinos using the gametes of long dead rhinos as an effort to keep the species from extinction far more.

 

i also find their “de-extinction” projects to be a little…dubious

-they claim they’re going to have a viable mammoth hybrid by 2028. it is 2025 and they have thus far achieved editing genes known to affect fur and fat development in mice
-this is an unpublished preprint that hasn’t passed peer review. further, afaict they haven’t even claimed in this preprint that they actually made the mice more cold tolerant. i think speculation and promotion should be withheld until it passes peer review
-i find the confident assertion that mammoth hybrids will be key in slowing climate change extremely bold and for something so key to their mission, it’s on pretty shaky ground. they make a lot of big claims like this
-much of their marketing specifically for the de-extinction projects involves making aforementioned massive claims in pop science media blitzes on facebook, instagram, and tiktok
-forrest galante, one of their advisory board members and key spokesperson for the project, is a straight-up hack who has fraudulently claimed to have rediscovered multiple species, taking the credit from others. he also thinks that thylacines are still running around in the wild.
-it’s a four year old tech startup. they have a lot of more impressive people on their team than forrest here, but they’re still a company and their investors are going to want to start seeing some mammoth-sized ROI pretty soon

there is legitimately cool science being done by colossal. if i understand it right and it passes peer review, the number of changes made in multiple different genes simultaneously for the wooly mice is very impressive! however. maybe i’ll be proven wrong, but my current viewpoint is that the most charitable read is that the mammoths, thylacines, and dodos are charismatic and “sexy” draws to fund their other conservation research. a less charitable read is that it’s mammoth theranos

 

Oh man, I hadn't even noticed it wasn't even peer reviewed yet!

I do have to say, that using "sexier" species as a draw for conservation work is a tried and true technique. They're called flagship species, and they're used in pretty much any fundraising effort for conservation of species. But the idea is that in the process of protecting those flagship species, we also protect the less popular, less "sexy" species. I think it's a valid technique.

The news about this Forrest Galante is making me HMMMM a lot in doubt though. Bad look, that, for the entire endeavour.

 

oh yeah, to be clear, i'm not criticizing flagship species at all! that's why my most charitable interpretation would be that they're trying to use mammoths/thylacines/dodos as their flagships to fund the other research. my main issue is that i find the statements they make and the way they advertise those species to be misleading/overconfident in specific ways that ping me as suspect

 

Fair enough! I do agree with that. Their claims are... hmmmm..... a bit out there and unrealistic. I can easily see it being used as a cashgrab of sorts based on unrealistic expectations

 

Well... if the encoding is the same as genes found in mammoths, is getting there by alteration of mouse DNA rather than splicing mammoth DNA into the mouth actually different? My first impression would be 'no', genes are fungible and it doesn't matter where you get the actual DNA from.
That's an interesting question, there already may be an answer, but I don't know.

Their ecoengineering intentions are also... interesting. I'm not sure if these guys should be raring off on their own to undertake such a vast and consquential project, though. Having that sort of capability, to both 'de-extinct' keystone species, and potentially create novel ones, would be incredibly useful though. Also dangerous, which is why I'm leery of, specifically, going off and doing it on their own.

 

yes, it is different, largely because they don’t understand the elephant or mammoth genomes nearly as well as mice; they know those specific genes affect fur texture and length in mice. two of the seven genes they edited have overlap with mammoths. those genes are suspected—not known!—to possibly have played a role in fur development in mammoths.

the encoding being the same as for mammoths is in no way a given. they were not edited in order to make them more similar genetically. this experiment only produced a more similar phenotype. elephants are less studied than mice and are used less often as surrogates. there is currently no proof they can actually correctly identify all of the genes necessary to affect hair and fat, make changes that will actually have the desired effect, and then produce a viable embryo. that’s a large part of the criticism this paper is facing from the scientific community

from cnn:

in short, no, not fungible