A Swimming Dinosaur, a Cosmic Time-Lapse, and the Mammoth's Return?

The Point by Modern Sciences - August 6, 2025

Author

Don Smith
August 06, 2025

By The Modern Sciences Team

August 6, 2025

Welcome to August, Cultivators of Curiosity!


Welcome to the 31st volume of The Point by Modern Sciences! For this milestone issue, we’re exploring how science is a process of constant revision and reimagination—challenging what we think we know about the past, the cosmos, and even life itself. We invite you to take a closer look at three stories that perfectly capture this dynamic spirit of discovery.


First, we revisit a paleontological icon, the Spinosaurus, to see how a century of new evidence has forced us to redraw our image of this enigmatic dinosaur, shifting it from a land predator to a potential aquatic specialist. Next, we look to the skies, where the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory has begun an unprecedented decade-long survey, creating a time-lapse of the universe that will reveal cosmic changes in real time. Finally, we delve into the ambitious and controversial world of de-extinction, asking whether we can truly resurrect extinct animals like the woolly mammoth or if we are simply creating high-tech proxies. From rewriting history to engineering the future, this issue highlights science as a thrilling work in progress.

("Spinosaurus" by Ryan Somma is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)

NATURE

Spinosaurus: A Century of Shifting Paradigms in Paleontology

Spinosaurus has remained among the most debated dinosaurs for over a century, with new fossil evidence suggesting it was a slow-moving biped that hunted like a wading bird. Discoveries of paddle-like tails, dense bones, and crocodile-like snouts have fueled hypotheses of a semi-aquatic lifestyle, but disagreements about its size, motion, and diet continue to evolve.



The Point:

  • A fossil icon under constant revision: Spinosaurus remains one of the most debated dinosaurs. Views on its size, posture, and lifestyle will continue to change well into the future as new evidence reshapes its reconstruction.

  • From land predator to aquatic specialist?: Discoveries like a paddle-like tail and dense bones support a semi-aquatic lifestyle, but recent studies challenge this, proposing wading rather than diving as its primary hunting method.

  • Contested identity and classification persist: Ongoing debates over species distinctions, locomotion style, and geographic range highlight how even iconic dinosaurs like Spinosaurus remain scientific works in progress.


SPA

A new observatory is assembling the most complete time-lapse record of the night sky ever

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is already transforming astronomy. Kickstarted back in June 2025, it uses its massive 3,200-megapixel camera to create a 10-year time-lapse movie of the southern sky. This unprecedented project will track asteroids, map galaxies, and provide crucial new insights into the enduring mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.



The Point:

  • The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will create a decade-long movie of the cosmos: Using a car-sized, 3,200-megapixel camera in the Chilean Andes, it will repeatedly photograph the entire southern sky to assemble an unprecedented time-lapse record of the universe, known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).

  • Its mission is to tackle fundamental questions about the universe: The observatory will investigate dark matter and dark energy, map the large-scale structure of the cosmos, track millions of asteroids, find planets, and capture rare events, such as the collision of neutron stars.

  • The project honors a trailblazing astronomer and embraces open science: Named for Dr. Vera Rubin, who provided the first strong evidence for dark matter, the observatory is a global collaboration that will make a significant portion of its data publicly available to researchers, students, and citizen scientists worldwide.


NATURE

Can we really resurrect extinct animals, or are we just creating hi-tech lookalikes?

The dream of reviving extinct creatures is inching closer, but what is emerging are not true resurrections. With partial DNA and precision editing, scientists are creating hybrid animals that mimic lost species in appearance or function. These stand-ins may restore ecosystems but are not genetic copies—they are technological reconstructions of what once roamed the Earth.



The Point:

  • Ambitious de-extinction projects are creating proxies, not perfect resurrections: Biotech company Colossal Biosciences is gaining attention for its work to revive species like the woolly mammoth and dire wolf, but its methods involve editing a small number of genes in living relatives, resulting in functional lookalikes rather than exact genetic copies.

  • A vast genetic gap currently makes true resurrection impossible: With millions of genetic differences between species like mammoths and Asian elephants, scientists are only able to edit a small fraction of genes related to key traits, meaning the resulting creatures are genetically far closer to their modern relatives than to their extinct ancestors.

  • The technology’s actual value may be in preventing, not reversing, extinction: The article suggests that instead of focusing on "resurrection," which is more accurately a form of reimagination, the gene-editing tools could be better used for conservation efforts, such as increasing genetic diversity or disease resistance in currently endangered species like the northern white rhino.