bitstitchbitch

To anyone who follows me, I don't care about nor trust Colossal Biosciences anymore (The people behind the "Wooly Mice"). They have proven themselves to be headline-chasing grifters after this latest stunt. They are claiming to have de-extincted *Aenocyon dirus*, aka the Dire Wolf, by editing just 20 genes from the the DNA of a Grey Wolf (*Canis lupus*) to make this thing:

If it wasn't clear from their scientific names, Grey Wolves and Dire Wolves aren't remotely related to one another aside from being Canids, despite what pop culture like Game of Thrones would have you believe. If they did look like each other, it would have had to be via convergent evolution, as they only shared a common ancestor over 5 million years ago.

This distinction, however, isn't found in the publicized articles about this so-called resurrected Dire Wolf and makes their claim that they brought the Dire Wolf back by simply editing *20* genes from the genome of a Grey Wolf laughable. A Dire Wolf would have shared more in common genetically with a Maned Wolf (*Chrysocyon brachyurus*) or Bush Dog (*Speothos venaticus*) than it would with a Grey Wolf.

Bottom line, don't fall for whatever this company is trying to tell you. If the Dire Wolf were to be brought back, it wouldn't be via something like this, and certainly wouldn't *look* like this. If you want an idea as to how a real Dire Wolf would look like in life, here is some fantastic paleoart by artist Mauricio Antón:

Addendum: I seem to have partially miscalculated Dire Wolf genetics. They were not closer to Maned Wolves or Bush Dogs, but they were still not closely related to Grey Wolves. They were basal members of Canini, related to canids like Jackals (genus Lupulella) but distinct from them. I am sorry for this misinformation in my attempt to correct other misinformation. My main point, however, is still correct.

Yeah, I saw this and my immediate thought was "these people don't know what they're doing". My second thought was, "these people know what they're doing is a scam". Either way, I've always been very suspicious of Colossal's, well, colossal claims, and now it's clear they're full of shit

Books just shouldn't be banned. Fullstop.

"But you hate-" so?

"But it sends terrible messages-" yes. That's why media criticism is important. It doesn't mean a book should be banned.

"But this classic contains truly despicable things" correct! Now use your brain to consider whether it is condoning, encouraging, or commenting upon them, and then use those skills in your day to day interactions with people! Is it outdated? Could that be why your grandparent has some Truly Weird Ideas that you might have more context to understand and/or discuss? Or are the ideas of your family member not even Of Their Time and they're just bigots? You now have some tools to figure it out.

Bad books are bad, but sometimes they are important to learn from. And sometimes they're outdated, but it gives you food for thought. And sometimes somebody else gets something important from a book that you don't need, hut you never know the difference.

But also and probably most importantly, as utah learned by fucking around and finding out, if you ban one kind of media it becomes incredibly easy to ban another.

ooh! I have some good examples of why we shouldn’t ban “bad” books

my local library gets a lot of book challenges, where people try to get books banned, and they are usually targeted at queer books and books challenging racism, but some liberal soul put in a challenge for a book that promotes gay conversion therapy.

now at first glance this is reasonable. The information in the book is demonstrably false and even dangerous. Someone could take that book and use it to inflict real harm.

but the library didn’t ban it. Because what if you were a survivor of conversion therapy trying to understand what happened to you? What if you are an advocate against conversion therapy and you need to know what counter arguments people are going to throw at you? What if you are a high school student and your teacher requires you to put counter arguments with sources in your essay against conversion therapy? What if you are a therapist trying to better help your patients by understanding what they went through?

okay, now what about books like Mein Kampf? Surely that book is so obviously reprehensible that it should be banned. But then how would history students know what arguments / rhetoric were used to justify Hitler’s actions? How would a political philosopher be able to point out the flaws and dangers in nazi reasoning? How would a university professor be able to teach about these things? we would be doomed to forget and repeat some of the worst parts of history.

There are no “safe” books to ban. And you have to be really careful because once you ban something for being false, or overly sexual, or dangerous you give other people motive to classify other texts as being false, overly sexual, and dangerous. And you won’t always agree with their classifications

Honestly, I think The Bone People deserves more space in the discussion of classic queer literature. Published in February 1984, it won The Booker Prize the following year and has an asexual, aromantic main character. Written by Keri Hulme, it is in part based on her experiences as someone who self-identified as asexual and aromantic. I had only heard of it recently, and wow, I'm shocked it's not brought up more as the queer classic it is.

Can we talk about how the idea that STEM and the humanities are mortal enemies with no overlap is actually incredibly harmful and is not only preventing people from pursuing their passions but also part of the reason why the humanities aren’t given their proper respect? No, artists are not all snobby pretentious assholes who think they’re more cultured than everyone else and no scientists are not all emotionless robots who think they’re smarter than everyone else and it’s possible to be an artist and a scientist at the same time. By acting like you have to choose between STEM and humanities we are eliminating thousands of potential careers and causing unnecessary divisions in a time where nothing is more crucial than unity. I’m so tired of people acting like STEM majors are incapable of understanding art and humanities majors are incapable of understanding math when the two fields are crucial to one another. Who would design our architecture if it weren’t for artful engineers? Who would discover the rules of composition? At the end of the day we are all just people trying to learn and make a living, and all of these careers are important to humanity. People can’t say that STEM is more important than humanities if there’s no such thing as STEM vs humanities.

classic scifi novels by men r always like. page 1 here’s a cool scifi idea i had. page 2 i hate women so much it’s unreal

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guys if one more person leaves a tag like this on my post im gonna lose my mind. There Are Science Fiction Authors Who Are Not Misogynistic Men

ok i’ve gotten one too many ‘this is why i don’t read sci-fi’ comments so here’s a rec list for the people convinced all science fiction is bad and misogynistic (with something for everyone, hopefully!):

(also, btw, the book links are to the Storygraph, which includes content warnings for each one!)

this list is long enough, but have some more authors (who are not cis men) also worth checking out: rivers solomon, yoon ha lee, charlie jane anders, aliette de bodard, xiran jay zhao, mary robinette kowal, corinne duyvis

and finally, not all older/classic scifi is written by crusty old white guys who hate women!!! some iconic authors i’d particularly recommend looking into are ursula k. le guin, octavia e. butler, samuel r. delany and vonda n. mcintyre 🥰

*inhales* MADE IT OUT ALIVE BUT I THINK I LOST IT SAID THAT I WAS FINE SAID IT FROM THE COFFIN REMEMBER HOW I DIED WHEN YOU STARTED WALKING THAT'S MY LIFE THAT'S MY LIFE I'LL PUT UP A FIGHT TAKING OUT MY EARRINGS DON'T YOU KNOW THE VIBE DON'T YOU KNOW THE FEELING YOU SHOULD SPEND THE NIGHT CATCH ME ON YOUR CEILING THAT'S YOUR PRIZE THAT'S YOUR PRIZE *exhales*

𝔣𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔥 𝔠𝔬𝔣𝔣𝔢𝔢 + 𝔣𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔥 𝔣𝔩𝔬𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔰 + 𝔣𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔥 𝔞𝔦𝔯