Tag: gmo

De-Extinct Dire Wolves Ready To Breed; Bioscience Company Pushes Forward Multiple Projects

Colossal Biosciences has announced that its de-extinct dire wolves—Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi—are now breeding-aged and the firm plans to expand the pack later this year. The development marks a significant step for the Texas-based company in its mission to restore extinct species through genetic engineering.

The dire wolf pups, born in late 2024 and early 2025, represent the world’s first de-extinct animals. They have thrived in a secure 2,000-acre preserve, reaching milestones like learning to process whole deer carcasses and now showing readiness for natural breeding behaviors.

“The dire wolf pack is actually breeding-aged at this point,” Matt James, Colossal’s chief animal officer, said, adding “But we will initially grow the pack through assisted reproduction while we create new, genetically diverse individuals.”

The company intends to engineer two to four additional pups to boost genetic diversity before allowing full natural breeding. “The plan is to create an inter-breedable population of dire wolves in which they would eventually breed naturally to create a sustainable population of the world’s first de-extinct species,” James continued.

He further added, “We will grow the population through assisted reproduction initially and then eventually only rely on natural breeding.”

“The dire wolves are doing great,” Ben Lamm, Colossal’s CEO and co-founder, stated., adding “The three dire wolves live on a 2,000-acre secure, expansive ecological preserve that allows us to monitor and manage them while providing them a semi-wild habitat to thrive in. We hope to have more dire wolf pups by the end of the year.”

Colossal reconstructed the dire wolf genome from ancient DNA fragments in bone samples, including a 72,000-year-old skull. Scientists then edited gray wolf embryos to incorporate key traits: a white coat, larger teeth, more muscular build, and distinctive howl. Embryos were implanted in surrogate dogs, with births by caesarean section.

Keep reading

Bio-Engineered Venom in our Food, Veggie Seeds, Common Drugs

The Shocking Truth About Venom Genetically-Engineered Vegetable Seeds

Imagine biting into a fresh tomato or serving up a bowl of rice, unaware that deep within the plant’s DNA lies a venom protein borrowed from a snake, scorpion, or spider. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s not.

According to a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Venoms (November 2021), scientists have been exploring ways to incorporate venom proteins into vegetable seeds as a new line of defense against insects… and those developments may already be far more widespread than the public has been told.

Venom for Dinner? The Study That Started the Alarm

The journal article, titled Applications of Venom Biodiversity in Agriculture, outlines a growing body of research in which venom peptides… proteins derived from creatures like snakes, spiders, and scorpions… are used to engineer pest-resistant plants.

The rationale?

According to the study’s authors, venom-based biotechnology holds promise for creating what they call “bioinsecticides.” The idea is that plants, through genetic-engineering, can internally produce venom proteins that repel or kill attacking pests. It’s been offered by marketers as a more “natural” solution than synthetic pesticides.

But some researchers aren’t convinced… and the backlash is growing.

Keep reading

Scientists Engineered a Plant to Produce 5 Different Psychedelics at Once

What do plants, toads, and mushrooms have in common? They can all produce psychedelic substances – and now their powers have been combined in one plant, like a trippier Captain Planet.

In a wild first, scientists have taken the genes these organisms use to make five natural psychedelics and introduced them into a tobacco plant (Nicotiana benthamiana), which then produced all five compounds simultaneously.

As interest grows in psychedelics as potential treatments for illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD, the newly developed system could offer scientists a new way to produce these compounds for research purposes.

“[Our] strategy established a heterologous plant system for the production of five prominent therapeutically valuable compounds, their derivatives, and nonnatural plant analogs, providing a starting point for their production in plants,” writes a team led by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Tryptamine psychedelics are a class of compounds that includes psilocin, psilocybin, and a number of dimethyltryptamine (DMT) compounds. The ability to produce these substances has emerged in diverse organisms across the tree of life – plants, fungi, and animals.

In recent years, a number of studies have shown that tryptamine psychedelics may represent an untapped resource when it comes to mental health treatments.

However, progress in this field remains limited, in part due to regulatory restrictions, underscoring the need for more research. This creates practical challenges for scientists.

“Traditionally, the supply of psychedelics relies on natural producers, mainly plants, fungi, and the Sonoran Desert toad,” the researchers write.

“Harvesting these organisms for their psychoactive compounds raises ecological and ethical concerns, being increasingly threatened by habitat loss and overexploitation.”

In an effort to tackle this, plant scientists Paula Berman and Janka Höfer and their team set out to map and rebuild the biochemical pathways behind these compounds.

They identified the key genes used by two plants – Psychotria viridis and Acacia acuminata – to make DMT, and the step-by-step chemical pathways involved in producing the compound.

Keep reading

Chinese scientists have turned mosquitoes into flying vaccines — that can still bite humans

Researchers from the nation that likely unleashed COVID-19 unto the world have transformed mosquitoes into flying syringes.

Some researchers, including a group at the Bill Gates Foundation-backed Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, have already attempted in recent years to fashion mosquitoes into flying vaccine delivery systems with human targets in mind.

Now, scientists at the state-controlled Chinese Academy of Sciences — an institution that has a strategic partnership with the People’s Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences — have targeted bats, purportedly designing mosquitoes to instead deliver recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus-based rabies and Nipah vaccines to the flying mammals.

Like rabies, Nipah virus is a potentially deadly virus found in animals. Whereas rabies has nearly a 100% fatality rate in humans once symptoms manifest, the estimated case fatality rate for Nipah virus ranges from 40% to 75%.

Keep reading

GMO Wheat Sprayed With Chemical 166 Times More Toxic Than Glyphosate

A new report from Friends of the Earth raises alarm over the U.S. government’s recent approval of HB4 genetically engineered or GMO wheat, warning that it could pose serious risks to public health, the environment and U.S. farmers’ livelihoods, while offering no proven benefit.

The approval of HB4 wheat marks a critical turning point: after decades of public opposition and trade concerns that kept GMO wheat off U.S. fields, consumers now face the prospect of herbicide-tolerant wheat entering the food system.

However, it is not currently being grown commercially in the U.S.

Friends of the Earth is calling on companies and consumers to reject HB4 GMO wheat before it enters the market.

Developed by the Argentine biotechnology firm Bioceres Crop Solutions, HB4 wheat is engineered to tolerate the toxic herbicide glufosinate ammonium.

Glufosinate is banned in the European Union because it poses risks to human health. It is also linked to negative impacts on soil and ecosystem health.

“GMO wheat poses high risks with no clear benefits. It threatens farmers, consumers, and ecosystems,” said Dana Perls, senior program manager at Friends of the Earth.

“Companies and consumers should reject genetically engineered wheat and support proven, sustainable solutions. Organic farming and traditional breeding protect climate, biodiversity, and food security — without toxic trade-offs.”

The report unpacks the regulatory gaps, health implications, environmental concerns and trade risks at stake.

Key findings include:

We’ve been here before — and it failed

HB4 wheat is not innovation; it is a repetition of a well-documented failure — the chemical-dependent model introduced with Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” crops in the 1990s.

GMO crops have driven massive increases in herbicide use, spawned herbicide-resistant superweeds and trapped farmers on a costly pesticide treadmill.

Glufosinate-tolerant corn and soy are already following the same path. HB4 wheat would extend this failed, toxic system to a global staple food — deepening chemical dependence, increasing costs for farmers and compounding environmental damage.

Keep reading

Bay Area scientist launches new company with sights on gene-edited babies

Last month, as he announced the launch, he said that Preventive has raised almost $30 million from private funding.

The funding is reportedly coming from some heavy hitters in the tech world, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his husband Oliver Mulherin.

Harrington also said his team included leading experts in the fields of reproductive technology, reproductive medicine and genome-editing.

“Our goal is straightforward,” he wrote, “to determine through rigorous preclinical work whether preventive gene editing can be developed safely to spare families from severe disease.”

Harrington acknowledged the major ethical concerns around the science and the gray areas in the regulatory process, which he said, have opened the field to potentially detrimental outcomes. 

“The combination of limited expert involvement and lack of a clear regulatory pathway has created conditions for fringe groups to take dangerous shortcuts that could harm patients and stifle responsible investigation,” the researchers said, adding, “Given that this technology has the potential to save millions of lives, we do not want this to happen.”

Gene editing can only be used in in vitro fertilization to allow for the first step of genetic testing on an embryo.

“It requires IVF because you have to have the embryo in a dish,” explained Stanford law professor Henry (Hank) Greely, a leading expert on ethical, legal, and social implications in bioscience technologies.

Once a test determines an embryo has the DNA makeup of a genetic disease, for example, like Huntington’s or cystic fibrosis, scientists would then use the DNA editing technique known as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, or CRISPR, to make alterations to the DNA.

Keep reading

Tech billionaires back startup probing gene-edited ‘designer babies’ despite US ban: report

A Silicon Valley startup backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong is pursuing research that some fear could lead to the birth of a genetically engineered baby — a step that’s illegal under US law and banned in most countries, a report said.

The company, Preventive, says its goal is to end hereditary disease by editing human embryos before birth, a claim that has ignited fierce debate over safety, ethics and the specter of designer children, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Preventive, founded earlier this year by gene-editing scientist Lucas Harrington, has raised $30 million and set up headquarters in San Francisco, where it is conducting research on modifying embryos to prevent hereditary disease.

The company says its mission is to prove the technology can be made safe and transparent before any attempt to create a baby is made.

Altman and Armstrong are among the firm’s early investors, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Altman’s husband, Oliver Mulherin, said he led their investment, calling it an effort to help families avoid genetic illness.

Armstrong, who has publicly promoted embryo editing, posted that he was “excited” to back Preventive and argued it is far easier to correct a genetic defect in an embryo than to treat disease later in life.

But federal law prohibits the Food and Drug Administration from considering applications for human trials involving genetically edited embryos used to start pregnancies.

Keep reading

Frankenbeef: Liberals Cloned Meat Policy Lets “Freak Meat” Hit Shelves Unlabelled

Health Canada just approved cloned cattle and pork—and their offspring—for Canadian grocery shelves, no labels, no warnings, and no pre-market safety review.

Under a quietly updated policy, cloned meat is no longer considered a “novel food.” That means it bypasses the scientific review once required for new or genetically manipulated foods. There’s no rule requiring companies to tell consumers if their steak came from a cloned animal or its progeny. You’ll never know—unless you ask your farmer directly.

Health Canada insists the change is safe, saying cloned animals and their offspring are “no different” from naturally bred livestock. But Canadians have heard that line before—“safe and effective,” “trust the science,” and all the other slogans used to silence dissent during the COVID years.

So here we go again—a massive, uncontrolled experiment where the only test subjects are the people doing the eating. People should be able to make informed decisions about what goes into their bodies, from medicine to meat. 

They’re calling it innovation. We’re calling it Frankenbeef.

Health Canada’s move mirrors the pre–RFK Jr. era FDA stance.

All of this doesn’t make food cheaper. It makes it weirder.

And it makes us all unwitting versions of Laika, the Soviet space dog—strapped in, eyes wide, blasted into a brave new frontier against our will.

If you want out of this latest “trust the science” experiment, there’s only one way:
Get to know your local farmer personally. Buy from people you trust, and distrust bureaucrats who think your dinner plate should double as a science project.

Keep reading

Researchers consider infecting Americans with ticks to make them allergic to red meat

There have been countless examples of liberalism being a mental disorder.

Here is another one:

Two researchers from Western Michigan University have written a paper titled “Beneficial Bloodsucking,” which was published by the journal Bioethics this past July. (No, it isn’t about vampires.)

The paper argues that intentionally spreading alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a potentially life-threatening allergy to red meat, could be not only morally defensible, but perhaps even necessary, in order to reduce animal suffering and combat climate change.

Here are the authors, Parker Crutchfield and Blake Hereth, in their own words:

Because promoting tickborne AGS prevents something bad from happening, doesn’t violate anyone’s rights, and promotes virtuous action or character, it follows that promoting tickborne AGS is strongly pro tanto (‘to that extent’) morally obligatory.

Say what?

Enlisting genetically engineered ticks to curb the consumption of hamburgers, steaks, and other red meats violates the hell out of everyone’s rights.

It is a “bad” thing in and of itself.

Ticks can carry Lyme disease, as well, which also can be deadly.

Who do they think they are? They have no right to force others to give up red meat … or drive a Prius for that matter, whether it be via overt or covert acts.

As one might expect, there were numerous negative online comments, prompting Crutchfield to characterize the paper as “just a thought experiment and not an endorsement of spreading the allergy-causing ailment.” 

A thought experiment? The hell it was!

The authors actually wrote that promoting tickborne AGS is “morally obligatory.”

Those in the “Earth would be better off if there were nobody here but me” crowd are enough to make the rest of us sick.

Pointy-headed academic asshats who live in a lab and/or bubble have already caused far too much damage.

These two really ticked me off. In fact, I’m seeing red (meat).

Keep reading

PLANDEMIC 2.0: Is BILL GATES behind the latest outbreak of ‘Break-Bone’ Dengue Fever with his GMO mosquitoes?

Sound the Dengue alarms! Panic at the plandemic, part two. But wait, don’t “break your bones” rushing to get an mRNA blood clot, turbo cancer shot or the Dengvaxia jab. The last round of scamdemic madness is killing off millions of people. Let’s take a look at what’s really happening. Oh dang, here come the dangvaxia mandates.

Health officials across the United States are raising alarms as dengue fever, often called “break-bone fever” due to its severe joint and muscle pain, continues to surge nationwide. Hawaii has reported 12 cases so far in 2025, bringing it close to surpassing the state’s 16 cases recorded throughout 2024. The most recent infection involved a resident of Oahu who contracted the virus during international travel to a dengue-endemic region.

  • Hawaii outbreak and national surge: Hawaii has reported 12 dengue fever cases in 2025—nearly matching last year’s total—while the CDC has documented 2,725 cases nationwide across 46 states and territories, with Puerto Rico, Florida, and California hardest hit.
  • Source and spread: The most recent Hawaii case involved an Oahu resident infected during international travel. Dengue is primarily spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which thrives in tropical and subtropical regions.
  • Health risks and treatment: Symptoms include high fever, severe joint pain, rash, and in severe cases, internal bleeding or shock. While supportive care like fluid replacement reduces mortality to below 1%, untreated cases can be fatal.
  • Vaccine and prevention challenges: A WHO-approved vaccine exists but production has been halted by Sanofi Pasteur due to low demand, with remaining doses expected to run out by 2026. Health officials stress mosquito control, repellents, protective clothing, and screened housing as key preventive measures.

Keep reading