WEBVTT - How Close Are We to Resurrecting a Woolly Mammoth? 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:06.200 Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:14.120 I guess, well, well, what's that mango? So did you 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.000 know the world's largest be isn't as extinct as we thought, 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.880 not as extinct as we thought. I gotta feel like 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.760 that's too bad. No, it's actually a good thing. How 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:27.000 our giant monster be is a good thing. So for 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:29.680 for starters, the vs aren't exactly monsters. There are only 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:31.600 about an inch and a half long, and they've got 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.120 a two and a half inch wingspan, so it's about 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:36.720 the size of a thumb or I guess three times 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:39.720 the size of the average honeybee, not the size of 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:43.040 matras like you might be imagining. I mean maybe not. 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:45.000 But actually just pulled up a picture one of these 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:46.640 things while you were talking, and I have to say, 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.400 this is the most terrifying be I have seen in 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.599 my life. Like, why do they have such massive pincuers 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.080 on their faces? They almost look like these stag beetles, 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:57.640 but just creepier. Yeah, So I was trying not to 0:00:57.680 --> 0:00:59.560 mention that because it makes them look so much scarier. 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:03.000 But they're actually just used to scrape resin off trees 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:05.680 to build their homes. So it's not that scary. But 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:09.680 here's what's really interesting. The species was first discovered in Indonesia, 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:12.119 and this was back in eighteen fifty nine, and then 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:14.679 nobody could find it again after that, so it was 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:18.560 just presumed to have gone extinct. And then in this 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.959 entomologists stumbled across the bees alive and well in Indonesia 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.240 and he collected the specimen. He wrote about discovery, but 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.400 he didn't get any video or photos, and then the 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.920 bees trail went cold again. But it sounds like now 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.000 somebody has found them again. Is that right? Yeah, so 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.160 they thought they were extinct, but it's totally right. In 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.840 January this year, this photographer named Clay Bolt actually made 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.120 history by finding the giant bees in the wild for 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:45.800 the very first time. And it sounds like it was 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.720 a pretty surreal experience because apparently the female bees make 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.520 this really deep thrumming sound with their wings, so he 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:55.680 could not only hear them, he could actually feel the 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.200 air being displaced as they flew by. And it was 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:03.600 amazing because it's this creature that he'd only ever imagined about, right, 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:07.560 and suddenly he has this super tangible and memorable experience 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:10.440 with them. Anyway, Clay's account got me thinking that this 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:12.800 week it would be really fun to look into creatures 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:14.720 that had come back to life. And so that's what 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.040 we're going to talk about, all these weird cases out 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:20.880 there where creatures seemingly died and then returned. So let's 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:45.040 dive in day their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.160 I'm Will Pearson and it's always I'm joined by my 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.560 good friend man Guess Ticketer on the other side of 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.799 that soundproof class bringing a dead fern back to life. 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:54.640 At least I think that's what he's doing. That's our 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:58.000 friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Oh, is that what he's doing. 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.280 I thought Tristan just brought in his neglect did the 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.600 house plant? Actually, Tristan's trick only works with one kind 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.520 of plant, what's called a resurrection fern, which is not 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:08.560 the fern that he's got over there. But you know, 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.040 during a drought or a heat spell, the ferns will 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.480 turn brown and they shrivel up, and if you look 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:16.080 at them, they look completely dead. But then you just 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.200 splash a little water on them and press though it 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.119 takes like twenty four hours and the leaves unfurled, turn 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:23.919 green again, and the whole thing is good is new. 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:25.880 I mean, it's kind of like magic. Yeah, it does 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.720 sound like something you'd study at Hogwarts in the homology 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.400 class or whatever. It's pretty cool. And even though it 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.080 does seem like magic, there is of course a scientific 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.440 explanation on how these ferns come back to life. These 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.200 resurrection ferns never actually die during this dying out process. 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.440 In fact, these plants can lose up to of their 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:47.760 water content and once they're exposed to water again, they'll 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.520 still spring right back. So you know, as long as 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:52.920 the fern can hold onto at least three percent of 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.200 its water, it actually won't die. That's pretty incredible. So 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:58.920 those numbers can't hold up for most plants right now, 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.400 with most plants, if they lose more than ten percent 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.040 of their water, they are completely done. And so the 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.760 saving grace for resurrection ferns is, you know, it's their 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:11.120 ability to synthesize these special proteins called dehydrants, and so 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:13.800 these allow the cell walls of the plant to kind 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.560 of fold and unfold is needed rather than just cracking 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.120 and crumbling like other plants do when they dry out. 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:21.880 And believe it or not, that's not the resurrection ferns 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:26.800 only claim to feign because back in astronauts actually took 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:28.760 a bunch of these ferns with them on the Space 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.279 Shuttle Discovery, and this was a feat that earned the 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.440 plant the title of first fern in space and that 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.960 special I like it, But what sort of experiments where 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:40.640 they running on these plants since this, Well, basically we 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:42.840 wanted to see if the plants could still resurrect themselves 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:46.560 in zero gravity, and apparently they could with no problem, 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.880 And as later explained, the resurrection fern quote proved to 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:54.360 be a hearty space traveler and exhibited regeneration patterns unaltered 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.760 by its orbital adventure. So not only can they cheat death, 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.599 they can do it while rocketing through space at thousands 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.080 of miles an hour. I do like that, but to 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:05.839 be fair, resurrection ferns aren't the only ones to master 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.200 the old back from the dead routine. And it's not 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.760 just flowers and trees getting into the act either. The 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:13.720 animal kingdom has its own resurrection like events, including some 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.000 insects and amphibians that can freeze themselves during winter and 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.240 then thaw out in the spring totally alive and healthy. 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.440 But again, like with the ferns, those animals don't technically 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:27.159 die though, right, right, but they come pretty close. Like 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:29.600 you can take the wood frogs, which we've talked about 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.560 forever ago on the show. But when temperatures dropped, the 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.480 wood frogs go into what's basically the state of suspended 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:39.400 animation and all of their processes shut down. So there's 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:43.120 no heartbeat, there's no breathing, nothing, but their cells stay 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:46.440 alive regardless, and it thanks to this handy adaptation they've 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:49.520 evolved that lets them survive for long periods without oxygen. 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.360 So I remember talking about them, but remind me how 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.440 long they can actually stay like that, so it can vary. 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.599 I mean, most wood frogs do this extreme hibernation for 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:00.719 a few days at a time is to cope with 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.000 like a cold snap or something like that. But they 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.600 can stay frozen for longer, even for weeks if they 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.160 need to, which is pretty amazing. And you mentioned their 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.240 cells still receive oxygen during this big sleep, and that 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.000 makes sense. But what I'm wondering is how those cells 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.000 survive the freezing process at all. I mean, there's water 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.880 inside those cells, and water expands as it freezes to ice. 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:23.560 And so it seems like those newly formed ice crystals 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.640 would just break the cells apart from within. Yeah, that's 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:28.280 exactly right, and it's a big part of why a 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:31.680 cryopreservation isn't really an option for humans. Our cells just 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:34.359 aren't equipped to handle a deep freeze. And it's actually 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.520 the same for wood frogs. If they're cells froze, they 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.440 would die too. But that's why whenever there's this sub 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:44.320 zero temperature that sets in the frog's central organ starts 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:48.040 expelling moisture, and this way the water surrounding their organs 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.919 freezes into ice, but their organs themselves and their cells don't. 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:54.760 And that's not the only trick either. Before a wood 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.680 frog fully freezes, its body floods the veins with a 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.160 special glucose molecule that works like an anti freeze. So 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.440 when the glucose reaches the frog cells, it will dissolve 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:06.840 in the water and bond with the water molecules, and 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.320 this means that water molecules in the cell won't be 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.200 able to bind with other water molecules to form ice. 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:16.520 So even if the water in a cell reaches subzero temperatures, 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.600 it still won't freeze. Okay, I think I got it. So, 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.320 so they really use the same strategy on a cellular 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:26.440 level as they do for like their central organs, right exactly. 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.360 But the more researchers learned about the frog's approach, the 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:32.520 better we get it perfecting things like freezing human organs 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.119 for transport, and that technique might help us perfect cry 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.000 of preservation in the future, you know, getting humans into 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.200 this act of resurrecting themselves, which is a little bit creepy, 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.040 and also, if you think about it, some humans have 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.960 already jumped the gun on the whole resurrection thing. I 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.800 was actually reading about this rare phenomenon called auto resuscitation, 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:54.480 which is when a person who has declared dead spontaneously 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.680 comes back to life spontaneously. So this isn't like a 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:01.520 patient who's flatline that doctors used the clients on and 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:03.720 jolt them back to life. It's someone who comes back 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:05.720 to life on their own, that's right. So according to 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.360 a two thousand seven medical review I believe this was 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.520 the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, they've actually 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.840 been over thirty cases of auto resuscitation since the initial 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:19.120 report on this condition back in two so on average, 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.040 these patients returned to life did so about seven minutes 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:26.600 after doctors stopped administering CPR. One patient made it all 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.240 the way to the hospital morgue before suddenly returning to life. 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.640 I mean, can you imagine what that must have been 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:34.280 like for the poor folks who had to wheel that 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.040 person down there and in the morgue no less, but 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.360 it's just so like, of all places to witness someone 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:42.520 coming back from the dead, this would have been such 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.640 a weird experience. So these people sort of pop back up? 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:47.720 Did they live for a while? I mean, the sad 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:50.840 reality is that the majority of these patients die shortly 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.600 after their auto resuscitated it. But I think what's amazing though, 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:56.440 is that in a little over a third of the 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.280 reported cases, the patients make a full recovery with little 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:04.800 or no neurological damage. That is wild. So do doctors 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.280 have any idea of why this is happening? Well, I mean, 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:09.520 it's tough to say for certain, because they've only been 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.280 like we said, thirty something cases reported in the last 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.559 forty years, and that's you know, not a lot of 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.080 data to go on. But that said, the reports do 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.000 offer some clues about what might be going on here, 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.680 for instance, the use of CPR, which is something that's 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.560 in all of these reported cases. So remember I said 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.760 the patients came back a few minutes after CPR was stopped. Well, 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.600 that gap in time might actually be the key to 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.440 understanding the whole phenomenon. It's a little bit complicated. So 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.240 I pulled this good breakdown from the Smithsonian and and 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.280 here's how they explain it. One popular theory is that 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:46.240 dynamic hyperinflation which can occur during CPR if the lungs 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.720 are rapidly filled with air without adequate time to exhale. 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:54.079 In theory, when emergency doctors stop CPR, the lung pressure 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.760 caused by dynamic hyper inflation returns to normal and the 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.800 blood begins to circulate with greater e is producing an 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:05.840 auto resuscitation effect. So how can doctors guard against this 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:07.480 kind of thing? Like? Is there a set amount of 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:09.840 time they need to wait? I don't think there's like 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.400 a hard and fast rule around this, but doctors who 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.280 have studied the subject do recommend waiting at least ten 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:19.760 or fifteen minutes after CPR has seas before declaring someone dead, 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.240 just to be on the safe side here. That is 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.360 so strange, like there's this period of time when death 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:30.160 isn't necessarily final, that someone might still pop back to life. Yeah, 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:32.160 I mean it's it's you know, it's not super likely, 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:34.280 but it it does happen, it makes you wonder about 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.520 where the cut off is, Like that point past which 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.800 death is irreversible, it might be, you know, more fluid 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.800 than we had first guessed. Yeah, I think you're right. 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.280 In fact, I was reading about this concept people talk 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.640 about in the conservation world called the Lazarus taxon or 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.760 Lazarus species, and it's basically a group of plants and 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.840 animals that were believed to be extinct but we're later 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.480 rediscovered in the wild, like the giant b I mentioned 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.200 at the top of the show. It's not the same 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.200 as the biological resurrections we've been talking about, but it's 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.280 another interesting case of death not being quite as final 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:09.559 as we first looked at. I definitely want to hear 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:11.400 more about this, but before we get to that, let's 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:27.800 take a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.880 and we're talking about Lazarus species. These are the extinct 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.280 plants and animals that turned out to be not so 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.360 extinct after all. And speaking of Lazarus, I actually forgot 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.240 to mention this earlier, but auto resuscitation actually shares some 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:44.600 biblical inspiration. It's actually nicknamed the Lazarus phenomenon. Have you 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:48.000 heard of this? So in both cases the name is 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:50.680 the nod to the New Testament story where Jesus performs 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.320 a miracle by raising this man named Lazarus from the dead. 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.160 So kind of a fun, if not surprising bit of 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.679 overlap between religion and science here. Yeah, is pretty cool. 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:03.600 But the term Lazarus taxon was coined in the nineteen 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:06.320 eighties by a couple of paleontologists, and they were studying 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:09.680 the fossil record. They noticed some organisms seemed to disappear 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.679 during one of Earth's massive extinction events and then miraculously 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.120 reappear on the record later, and these species taken together, 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:21.200 form what the scientists called the Lazarus taxon. So these 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:24.720 days the term applies more broadly, not just to fossilized organisms, 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:28.000 but also to living species that have been rediscovered after 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.560 the presumed extinction. Actually, there's a slight variation on this, 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.840 called the elvis taxon, which is species that seem like 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:37.719 they re emerged, but it's actually an impostor. This is 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:40.800 a true thing. But back to the Lazarus. Like you 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.720 think it's the small club of species, but they're actually 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.360 about three hundred fifty species on that list includes everything 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:51.120 from plants to insects to every kind of vertebrae. Wow, 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:53.319 so it really runs the gamut. But what are some 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:54.960 of the most famous on the list, or maybe just 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.640 a few favorites who came across. So my favorite species 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:00.439 are are the ones that turned up in the super 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.720 unexpected places, and one of the oldest and most famous 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.400 of these is definitely the Seilic himp, which is this 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.000 ancient type of fish that was believed to have gone 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.400 extinct over sixty five million years ago. It was in 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.240 the supposed to be wiped out in that same extinction 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.800 event that claimed the dinosaurs. Yeah, I actually think I've 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.120 seen these guys before. They live like way down deep, 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.800 don't they. Yeah, I mean their bottom dwellers for sure. 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:26.840 But that's part of the reason it took us so 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:30.560 long to find one alive. That said, living silicants weren't 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:34.679 discovered thanks to some technological breakthrough or or some sort 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.160 of landmark expedition and instead, it all happened by sheer chance, 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.160 and here's how it went down. So in December, this 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:46.080 Natural History Museum curator named Marjorie Courtney Latimer was strolling 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.319 the docks in East London, South Africa. Apparently she did 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:51.200 this often as part of her work for the museum. 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.079 She would just visit the local fisherman and if anyone 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:57.320 thought they had caught something interesting that day, Marjorie would 0:13:57.320 --> 0:13:59.840 take a closer look at their catch, and on that 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.760 in December, she indeed found something interesting in the hall 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:07.000 of this fisherman named Captain Hendrik Goosen. So in his 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.200 pile of fish there was this bizarre looking fin that 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:12.800 Marjorie had never seen at the docks before, and this 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.559 is how she described it. I picked away at a 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.199 layer of slime to reveal the most beautiful fish I 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:22.080 had ever seen. It was pale mauve blue with faint 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:26.280 flecks of whitish spots. It had an iridescent silver blue 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.440 green sheen all over it. It was covered in hard scales, 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.720 and it had four limb like fins and a strange 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:35.840 puppy dog tail. Wait, let me make sure I have 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:39.120 this trait. So she found what is basically a living fossil, 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.200 and this was at a South African fish market. Yeah, 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:44.560 and it was actually really big too, so the silicon 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:46.840 she found at the market weighed a hundred and twenty 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.680 seven pounds, which made it tough to transport back to 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.560 the museum. And in the end Marjorie and her assistant 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:54.560 they managed to get the fish into the backseat of 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:57.480 a taxi, but they nearly got thrown of that too, 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.560 because the fish smelled so bad. Apparently, as they pushed 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.120 it through the door and finally got in, the driver 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:08.040 was shouting, no stinking fish in my tax together. I mean, honestly, 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.440 can you really blame the guy? Yeah, I mean you can. 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:14.040 And once they explained the circumstance and probably how big 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.280 a tip they were going to give, the driver agreed 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.320 to help. Although that wasn't the only obstacle Marjorie face 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:21.440 that day. So when when she got the fish back 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.480 to the museum, she still wasn't sure what she'd found. 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.880 Her expertise was actually in birds, not fish, and when 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.080 she asked the chairman of the museum board to help 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.600 her identify the specimen, he told her it's nothing more 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:35.680 than a rock cod and then he left to go 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:37.960 on his holiday. You know, it's funny, it almost reads 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.040 like parody. But well, obviously the museum was no help. 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.560 So how did Marjorie ultimately crack this case? So the 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:46.640 first thing she did was to find some way to 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.120 preserve the fish long term. She tried the morge at 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.000 her local hospital, but they flat out refused to store fish, 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:55.160 no matter how ancient it was. And uh, in the end, 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.040 she had to settle for getting it taxidermied instead. So 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.400 she reached out to a fish curator at a different 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.560 South African museum. This guy at J. LB. Smith, and 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.240 she sent the description and sketches of what she had found. 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:08.480 Within a month or so, Smith decided to make a 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:10.680 trip to see the fish for himself, and he definitely 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.680 wasn't disappointed with what he found. In fact, listen to 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.400 how he later described the day he arrived at Marjorie's 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.200 museum quote, although I had come prepared, the first side 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.360 of the fish hit me like a white hot blast 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.760 and made me feel shaky and queer. My body tingled, 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.840 I stood as if stricken to stone. Yes, there was 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.520 not a shadow of a doubt. Scale by sale, bone 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.880 by bone, Finn by fin it was a true silican. 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.320 That must have felt like such vindication. Yeah, but plus 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:40.320 it must have made the museum chairman feel like such 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.000 a chump when he got back from his vacation. I still, 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:44.240 I mean, I know I said this a little bit. 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.440 I still can't believe she found an extinct species at 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:49.240 a fish market. It just it seems like such a 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.000 weird place to find this. Well, the craziest part is 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.440 that it wasn't even the only time that's happened. In fact, 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:56.880 there are plenty of Lazarus species that have showed up 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.640 at food markets. There's the smooth tooth black tip shark 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.040 that reappeared in this fish market in the Middle East. 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.439 There's the low astion rock rat, which was rediscovered at 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:11.159 a meat market, and and the Erican forest turtle, which 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.440 debuted at a food market in China. But the list 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:15.639 just keeps going. I'm pretty sure you made up a 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.359 couple of those. But and I'm not sure what it 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:20.000 says about us in the first place, that we find 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.639 so many supposedly extinct animals on our dinner tables. Just 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.359 it's just so weird. Yeah, it kind of makes me 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:29.480 wonder if any Lazar species have actually gone extinct for real, 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:31.960 like that way, like he was just eight too many 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:34.800 of them without scientists walking by and stopping them from eating. 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.200 But uh, I, I know we've got a few more 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:39.359 things to tackle, But first let's take a quick break. 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:55.320 Welcome back to part time Genius. So, well, I know 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.800 you wanted to talk about de extinction, which is the 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.720 ability to bring vanished species back to if uh do 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:02.440 you think that's something we'll be able to do one day? 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.640 And if so, how long until we're all riding Willy man? 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:10.160 It's to work like God intended. I mean, I think 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.880 it's gonna be a little while on that one. But yeah, 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.040 to the question of whether we'll be able to bring 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.560 an extinct species back, I mean, the truth is we 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:19.840 already have, or at least we we sort of did. 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.359 So I'm curious about this sort of you speak of. 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:25.679 Well all right, well let me back up just a 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:27.640 little bit here. So have you ever heard of Celia, 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.200 who happens to be the last Boucardo? No, it sounds 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.800 like a Tolkien character, though it's it's actually an extinct 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:38.199 species of Ibex that used to live in Spain and 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:41.600 I think in southern France, and so basically picture a 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:44.480 mountain goat or a ram and you're not far off 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.000 from this. But alright, so back in two thousand, the 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.640 last Boucardo on Earth was sadly crushed to death by 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:56.160 a falling tree. And her name was Celia, right right. 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.440 So that wasn't the end of the story there though, 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.120 because scientists tried to revive her species, and they used 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:06.400 the nucleus of a cell extracted intact from Celia. So 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.320 you're saying they cloned her, Well, it's sort of like 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:11.840 this wasn't like with Dolly the sheep, where her nucleus 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:14.040 could be implanted in the egg of a sheet from 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.359 the same species. I mean, remember, Celia was the last 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.000 one and there weren't any of her kind around to 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.840 donate an egg, so instead, scientists inserted the nucleus from 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:27.600 Celia into the unfertilized egg cell of a different kind 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:31.679 of Spanish ibex. Then they took the resulting embryo and 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.840 transferred it to the womb of a living goat. It's 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:37.840 just a lot of connections here, And almost a year later, 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:41.119 in July of two thousand three, the first baby Boucardo 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.679 since Celia was born, which is kind of amazing. It 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:48.560 sounds like some bizarre science tur Ducan like like bucardo 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:50.840 wrapped in an I vex wrapped in a living goat. 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:54.600 But is the Bucardo back for real? Now? It's it's 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:58.159 de extinct now. Unfortunately, the baby Bucardo was born with 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.040 a long defect and only survived of seven minutes, And 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.520 so that means that, depending on how you look at it, 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:06.440 the Bucardo has really gone extinct twice at this point, 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:09.639 not not the happy ending we might have looked for. 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:11.760 But of course that's only if you consider that the 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:15.159 bucardo made from Celia's cell to be a true Bucardo 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:17.399 and not some kind of hybrid, you know, like a 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:21.560 Spanish ibex with Bucardo like traits. I guess, so, I 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.560 guess any other species we tried to de extinct would 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:26.960 also be that way, right, Like like we couldn't make 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:30.160 a d percent willy mammoth. It would always be an 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.879 animal with cells that most certainly contain elephant DNA and 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.640 just a little bit of mammoth DNA like the nucleus 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.240 they took from Celia, you know, and and with the 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:42.920 long extinct creature like a wooly mammoth, you'd be even 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.600 further into hybrid territory. And that's because there aren't any 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.320 living mammoths to harvest intact nuclei from, so scientists will 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:52.439 be working with far less DNA than they had with 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.840 Celia the bucardo. So all the efforts that you hear 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:59.240