Dallas-based genetics and biotech startup Colossal has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from venture capitalists, the CIA, and Peter Thiel, among others. Its buzzy “de-extinction” projects aim to “bring back” lost animals like the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, and the dire wolf — although it isn’t creating copies of extinct creatures from ancient DNA, as the “de-extinction” tagline may suggest. In the case of the “dire wolves” presented to the world in 2025,…
Is this ‘de-extinction’ project actually onto something?
