You remember, right? They were created through gene editing. Almost immediately, the debate kicked off: is this really de-extinction? Are they really dire wolves? Of course, dire wolves are fictional creatures, while “de-extinction” is a neologism that can be interpreted more or less strictly. To avoid getting stuck in a semantic argument, let’s just say this was a case of recovering selected genetic traits from the genome of an extinct species that later inspired a sci-fi series. Setting the terminology aside, a year on from the New Yorker and Time articles, the real question is: how are these very special pups doing?