I have some sympathy for the idea of repopulating the Arctic tundra with big beasts to restore its natural ecosystem functions, although I'm not sure that elephants dressed up as mammoths are the most cost-efficient way to do this. By contrast, I was quite a bit annoyed by the recent hype over the claimed "de-extinction" of the dire wolf, which won the world's attention simply because there was footage of cute puppies.
So I've tried to write up a reasonably balanced account of the recent news from the de-extinction people, and I found that they are doing some collateral good work eg in elephant conservation and in funding genome research, but the bottom line is that I'm not convinced.
My feature is out now:
Can extinction be reversed?
Current Biology Volume 35, Issue 16, 18 August 2025, Pages R783-R785
Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication)
Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)
See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.
My mastodon posts are also mirrored on Bluesky (starting 22.2.2025), but for this purpose I have to post them again, outside of the thread. (I think threads only transfer if the first post was transferred, so once I start a new thread it should work.)
Last year's thread is here .
The South Island giant moa (Dinornis robustus) is among the species that the company Colossal is planning to recreate. (Photo: York Museums Trust staff/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).)
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