Sometimes Twitter ramblings are just ramblings, regardless of the company you co-founded with a somewhat eccentric billionaire.
People on the internet recently took a random tweet by Neuralink co-founder Max Hodak as concrete evidence that the brain-machine interface company is considering bringing dinosaurs back to life. Which means Elon Musk is obviously involved, too.
we could probably build jurassic park if we wanted to. wouldn’t be genetically authentic dinosaurs but 🤷♂️. maybe 15 years of breeding + engineering to get super exotic novel species
— Max Hodak (@max_hodak) April 4, 2021
Apparently, the confusion is down to his use of the word “we”. Hodak was probably talking about humanity in general, not Neuralink specifically. Although he hasn’t clarified…
He’s also not wrong, we probably could bring back extinct animals if we really wanted to. The gene manipulation science is there. However, numerous documentaries, featuring renowned chaos theorist Jeff Goldblum, would suggest we shouldn’t, not dinosaurs anyway. Also, dino DNA also isn’t quite as easy to come by as Jurassic Park suggested, even if you spare no expense. The little we have found is generally too degraded to use.
More recently-extinct mammals, though? Why not. In many cases, it’s our fault they’re all dead anyway (humans are exceptionally good at murdering all the things). Some scientists have even suggested bringing back woolly mammoths in an attempt to combat climate change and improve biodiversity in the Arctic region. What if dodos hold the key to carbon capture? You don’t know.
Bringing back the Tasmanian tiger would definitely make me feel better.
Via CNET.