Colossal Labs’ work on resurrecting the long-extinct dire wolf is looking incredibly cool. With it, one of the most amazing species ever to have existed on our planet has been absent for more than 10,000 years. Billionaire Ben Lamm co-founded the company that’s had the most success bringing the dire wolf species back from extinction. Today, the world has its first two wolf pups, Romulus and Remus, six-month-old twins frolicking around their habitat. These developments were highlighted during a panel discussion at SXSW’s inaugural London outpost, where actress Sophie Turner engaged with Lamm about the company’s groundbreaking efforts.
Dire wolves have long fascinated the public’s imagination. Soon, they’ll be joined by a recently-born female wolf named Khalessi, who is about three months old. This first step marks the beginning of a thrilling new chapter for Colossal Labs’ ambitious project. This team’s goal is to learn about how these big prehistoric animals behaved and communicated.
Lamm’s ambitious vision includes utilizing artificial intelligence to monitor and analyze the wolves’ behavior. The firm dares to go especially deep into the territory of emotional pattern identification and odiousness detection, or what they call wolf linguistics. According to Lamm, each dire wolf has a unique pitch and inflection in their howls, which suggests a complex system of communication.
“We’re going to release that later this year,” Lamm stated regarding their bio-acoustic project aimed at mapping out the different types of dire wolf howls. The goal of the project is to give us all an unprecedented glimpse into how these fascinating creatures speak their minds.
Curiously, the infamous dire wolves didn’t howl until they were three weeks old. They were surprisingly receptive to both human song and owl hoot sounds. This instinct to communicate, even from birth, harkens back and connects them directly to their ancient ancestors.
Last week, Colossal Labs announced a Series C funding round of $200 million, skyrocketing its valuation to $10.2 billion this year. This exciting investment will lead to a new wave of pioneering research projects. These projects will help us understand how dire wolves lived and behaved.
In fact, during the SXSW panel, Lamm was clearly as excited about what’s coming next at his own company.
I hope so, at least, and I’m hoping that this summer there is a particularly cool dodo update in the making. We heard him say that, suggesting even more ambitious plans were afoot past the dire wolves.
Whether you support their cause or not, as Colossal Labs moves forward with de-extinction and genetic engineering, we’re all going to be paying attention. The reincarnation of the dire wolf is a historic scientific achievement. It also raises some key issues regarding conservation and the morality of de-extinction.
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