WEBVTT - Woolly Mammoths For Sale 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:14.040 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.360 My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Julie Douglas. And 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:21.759 you know what's making a comeback, Julie m m Jean shorts. Well, yes, 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.360 but what else? Asid washed geen shorts. Yes, asid washed 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.640 gean shorts. But what else? The wooly mammoth? Possibly? Okay, 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:32.120 all right, that's good. That's good news. Well is it? 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:34.640 I don't know. Well, I just have this menagerae of 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:36.800 animals in my backyard and that would be great to 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.000 add the wooly mammoth too, Oh yes, yeah, with the 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.120 Dodo bird two would be pretty great too, yeah. Or 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.519 the Neandertal, our old friend, Oh yeah, Neider Tall of 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.440 the awesome Roman around. Yeah. It seems like if you, 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:53.280 if you pay any attention to the science news, there 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.680 are all these stories coming down the pike pretty regularly, 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.360 and it's always, let's bring We're bringing back the Neandertal. 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:02.120 Wooly mammoth's coming. We're going to clone them, clone them up, 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.360 fill our backyards with them, put them on display, study 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:07.920 of them, and everyone gets really excited about it because 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:12.080 it is a fantastic idea. Here's this extinct creature that 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:16.200 we all grew up looking at in picture books and 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:20.319 uh and suddenly it might actually be around us very 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.959 own Jurassic Park, so to speak, exactly the Jurassic Park 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:26.240 factor without the dinosaurs. Yeah, and people get pretty up 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.000 in arms about it. Actually, Yes, so we're gonna talk 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:32.240 about that today. Um, but also talking about like maybe 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:34.440 how they shouldn't get so up in arms, but that 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.280 there is a possibility that the wooly mammoth could be 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:42.760 coming to a backyard near you pretty soon. Yes, yeah, um, 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.679 and we have the Genome Project to thank for that. Yeah. 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:50.600 And this is all about just just just meticulously mapping, um, 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.840 the genomic structure behind basically the recipe for the mammoth 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:57.440 in the same way that we've we've taken the human 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.080 genome and and looked at that, in the same that 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.160 we the way that we event analyze the Neanderthal genome 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.520 and uh and in various either there's like the canine 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:11.160 Genome project, there's a uh, there's also the that the 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:15.160 one related to two chimps. I mean that it's all 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.160 about taking these species and just understanding them at very 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:21.560 small levels and very detailed levels, right, and just to 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.079 get you know, a little bit more specific about it, 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:27.160 where he has a handle on the Human Genome Project, 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.480 which really helped to drive a lot of what astrobiology 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.600 is doing these days. So the Genome Project, what it 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.320 meant to do is to basically take the complete string 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:40.799 of nucleotide letters that make up the DNA sequence in ourselves, um, 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.519 which is referred to as the genome. And this DNA 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.360 sequence contained in a genome contains the complete code that 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.600 determines which genes and proteins will be present in human cells. 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.200 Basically what sort of attributes we have that are going 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.400 to turn on and off, right. Um. So that project 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:59.440 started in the nineties and it ended about two thousand 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:01.520 and one. And so you do see this field of 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:06.800 astrobiology really benefiting from this, and paleontologists in particular really 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.720 saying okay, now now we can take all these different 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.840 cells that we have, you know, we've thought this trilobyte sample, 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.120 and we can try to map this on other organisms, 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.920 you know, just from really simple life forms to like 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.840 you said that the humans, um, the human humans and 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.359 the inner tools um. So it's brought us to this 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:31.160 present point where we have this Jurassic Park like possibility 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.720 looming ahead of us. Yeah, the Jurassic Park factor is 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.000 pretty big here. Um. And on one hand, I do 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.000 have to point out Jurassic Park, the movie, the book, 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.840 both of those. The big draw there was was the 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:45.480 fact that people were going through this park and seeing 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.760 these animals. Then the chaos happens by necessity, since it's 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:50.720 you know, it's a fiction, it's a novel, it's a thriller. 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:53.320 But with both of them, like when I watched them 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:55.400 and read them as a as a kid, I didn't 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.200 want anything bad to go wrong. I was like, let's 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.520 let's just continue this ride. This sounds like a great place, right. Uh. 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:04.000 And they they've introduced a number of of scientific ideas, 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.480 So I mean, this was not Carnossaur. This was Jurassic Park. 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.440 This was you know, Michael Crichton, So there was there. 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.120 He put a great deal of scientific thought into this. 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.480 One was looking at actual actual research. But still it 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:21.520 paints a very optimistic picture of what bringing back an 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.400 extinct animal would be like. Um. Like, basically, as I recall, 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.760 they uh, they weren't able to they were able to 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:34.240 extract DNA from blood in a mosquito that is preserved 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:38.560 in amber. Now, of course DNA degrades over time, so 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:40.400 you would have to fill in the blanks. And this 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.640 is a sixty five year old, million million old sample 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:46.960 that we're talking ancient, ancient, and so it's pretty incomplete 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.080 in terms of having a good specimen to work with. Yeah, 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:54.000 it's like having like, imagine the most waterlogged, raggedy um 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:58.000 copy of The Great Gatsby. Imaginable, it's been in your 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.640 grandparents basement and a waterlog Great, you get it out 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:03.520 and you go to read it. Most of the words, 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.320 most of the letters are just completely illegible. Whole chapters 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:08.880 are missing. So you fill in the gaps, right, you 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:12.040 think the characters Daisy fuentas. Yeah, and you you might 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.000 look at to look to more recent books and say, well, 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.000 here's a book that was you know, obviously this is 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.359 influenced by the Great Gatsby. Let me just fill in 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.560 the blanks with that, and uh in doing in doing 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:25.840 that with within this book. Example, Sure, you could you 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.920 could put together a book, uh and that you could 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:31.440 probably read. It would probably makes sense, but it wouldn't 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.560 really be the Great Gatsby. So that's what the whole 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:37.560 Jurrassic Park thing was. Well, let's go to amphiby ends. 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:40.880 We're gonna fill in the blanks. We're gonna somehow get 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.159 this a genetic material into an egg. I don't remember 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:46.760 the detail on how they got the eggs, because, as 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:50.360 we'll discuss, that's a big thing once you know, how 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:52.560 are you where are you going to grow this? Um? 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.000 And uh And then they were, you know, they were 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:59.800 hatching these things dinosaurs everywhere, et cetera. Yeah. Well, and 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.080 in the case of the mammoth creation project, which sort 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:05.960 of takes off that same idea. Um, you know, of 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:07.760 course we've got the mammoth which have been extinct for 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:11.000 ten years, but we do have frozen mammoths. We have 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:15.080 exactly from the Russian permafrost. So these are well preserved, 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:19.280 far far better preserved preserved than you'll find any kind 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.120 of dinosaur remains. Um, you know, much more recent, much 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.960 much better material to work with, which gives us that promise. 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:29.159 Right and Professor Akira Irtani in Japan has been working 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:31.880 on bringing back the Wooly for about thirteen years, and 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.480 once Wooly Mammoth's yesterday Yeah, he does. He does, and 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.120 he's uh, I don't really know what his exact intentions are, 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.520 it's hard to say, but he does have a sort 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:43.520 of line of logic and saying, well, you know, humans 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:47.400 might have been responsible for um, for them going extinct, 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.520 so we have to pay them back by resurrecting them, 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:53.200 which sounds just like really like a bad version of 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.960 pet cemetery to me. Yeah, indeed, I had to look 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:58.880 up pet cemetery again when we were talking about it, 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:03.160 just to mind every been Stephen King novel Pets Die 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:05.640 see Barium in the Indian burial ground news a wind 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:07.839 to go or something, and they come back to life 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.880 and they're they're not right, and they're potentially evil. And 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:13.040 this is where we have the quote sometimes dead is 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:15.760 better and another great quote that I got off good Reads. 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.560 What's been tried once has been tried once before and 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.720 before and before, so I need to read it again. 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.280 It was really disturbing book. Yeah, and it also flies 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:26.760 in the face of like Stephen Jay gold Gold, Who's 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.840 who's saying, like, you know what, all all of what 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:33.240 is happening in the genes and an evolution is by 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:37.160 chance essentially um not necessarily by chance, but survival of 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.200 the fattest um and all these different conditions. You can't 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.880 recreate this. So it's definitely flying in the face of 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:47.080 what we've thought about what evolution is. Yeah, and it's 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:49.200 all I mean, I don't know how much we want 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:51.040 to get into it at this point, but just the 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.880 idea of of bringing back wooly mammoth's in an age 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:57.680 where we don't really have room for elephants anymore. You know. 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.360 It's like the the elephants of their territory greatly reduce 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:03.680 their animals that basically need like a large portion of 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.360 a continent to roam around on, and they're even in 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.160 the best of situations, they're they're greatly confined. Their numbers 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:13.760 are often really endangered. Yeah, I mean we've seen examples 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.600 of like marauding gangs of them invading villages and it's 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:18.840 a territorial thing. They're not looking for beer as as 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.480 we might have previously thought. Yeah, and so suddenly we're like, oh, 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:24.120 let's bring some moy mamoths back to It's kind of 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.000 like you if you encounter like that family member who 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.720 who has like a perfectly good car that is that 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:32.319 needs some attention. And then then suddenly they were like, 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.679 I'm going to restore this, uh, you know, nineteen fifties. 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:36.640 What have you like pay attention to that? You don't. 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:38.000 You can't even take care of this car. Why what 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:40.480 are you gonna get this one for? You're not even 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.280 taking good care of the elephants we have, right, so 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.080 why are you bothering with the mammoth? Well, and this 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:52.160 is the problem, right because professor a cure Tommy, he is, 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:54.720 he's doing this, right, he's his His idea is to 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.160 remove the nucleus from an egg cell of an elephant 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.400 and replace it with DNA from a frozen wooly mammoth 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:03.040 like you mentioned. Huh, and so this could theoretically create 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.760 an embryo which would be implanted into an elephant uterus. Yeah. 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.520 This is another really key advantage of cloning the wooly 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:13.000 mammot is that it has a very close relative still 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.520 alive and driving today, despite our best efforts to make 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.319 an extend. Actually they're divergent species, right, yeah, yeah, so 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:23.240 much closer relative. Whereas a dinosaur. You know, good luck, 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.200 you know, getting a chicken to lay a dinosaur egg, 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.839 and you know it's there's just a lot a lot 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.280 more distance there between the the thing we're trying to 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:34.960 clone in the more recent model, right, And so I 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:38.600 mean a cur aritany is really he's making steps towards us, 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:40.120 and he feels like he'll be able to do this 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.680 in the next five years. And many people in the 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.960 science community and helieve well, no, they believe that it 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:47.680 can happen. And sort of people are on the on 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:49.839 different sides of the front. Some sometimes justs are like, Yeah, 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:51.559 that's great, that's awesome, we should do that. We should 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.959 we can study this like we've got the closest living 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:59.280 relative living right now, and if we resurrect this ancient creature, 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.360 then we can study them side by side and learn 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.040 maybe a little bit more about life, you know, back 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.640 in the day um, and other people are saying, well, 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:11.240 that's not really necessary. Um. But in the meantime, there's 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:16.080 something called Pisascene Park and there's a man named Sergey 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:20.000 Zimov who's a conservationist who runs the park, and he's 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.600 actually trying to recreate the natural habitat that existed in 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:27.080 the area ten thousand years ago by reintroducing animals that 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:31.520 were indigenous to that area, including reindeer, wild horses, and bison. 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.439 And he says, my responsibility is to prepare the mammoth 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:38.720 ecosystem a landscape typical for the mammoth. Therefore, if some 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.840 crazy people have found enough money and they revived the mammoth, 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:44.760 we will be ready. You know. He has he has 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:49.040 a letter room to throw crazy does what I thought too. 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:51.160 I was like, oh, yeah, they're they're the crazy people. 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:53.760 And and again it comes down to like, let's why 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.760 why maybe he should help focus our energy and preserving 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:01.400 existing environments that are vanishing and disappearing rather than ones 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.560 that are long gone right, right, And actually there's a 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.720 man named Adrian Lister. He's a paleontologist and in London, 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.040 I believe, and he says that it's natural habitat of 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.880 the mammoth has more or less disappeared. That's probably why 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.560 it went extinct extinct in the first place, many thousands 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.960 of years ago, because the kind of grassland habitat of 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:23.200 the far North that it formerly lived in doesn't exist anymore, 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:25.880 so you would have to keep it in captivity. Yeah. 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:27.400 It's kind of like if someone was like, we're going 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:29.880 to bring Ragtime back, and you'd be like, well, good 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:31.880 luck finding a market for that. That's why it's not 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.839 around anymore, because nobody wants it. Oh no, I'd listened 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.040 to some ragtime. A few people will listen to some ragtime, 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.080 but I don't see it. You know, shot popping up 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.200 on the top four you like me? Some tinny piano 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:49.760 ever went in a while. This presentation is brought to 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:57.640 you by Intel, sponsors of tomorrow. But again, you know, 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.720 the only mammoth has huge potential here in scientists in 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:03.800 two thousand and eight have already sequenced the wooly mammoth 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.800 genome so um. What was cool about that part of 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:09.600 it is that they were able to find out more 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:13.440 about the wooly mammoth's um with their environment might have 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.120 been like, and why they went extinct. So here's here's 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.520 the other side of the fence where people are saying, yes, 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:21.880 let's pursue this path, not necessarily resurrect them, but let's, 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.560 you know, map the genome and let's find out more 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:30.320 about the circumstances. Because ultimately, astrobiologists want to get to 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:34.079 the down to the brass tacks here of life as 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:37.760 it originated, as it survived, as it when extinct in 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.720 how that implicates our universe, not just our Earth. Are 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:44.120 there space mammoths maybe there could be, could be? Yeah, 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:46.280 they're out fair right now, little helmets on. Well, the 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.720 other thing that I like about like speaking of it 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:52.280 in terms of not necessarily putting putting the genetic material 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.120 into the living packet arm and having it to give 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.960 birth to holy math. Because our cloning technology continues to advance, 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.560 but it's not perfect yet. I mean, we're we're it 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:05.640 still has has very high percentage levels of failure. Um 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.360 The embryos are often either not suitable from planning into 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.720 the fetus or they die sometime during gestation or shortly 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:16.480 after birth. So I like elephants, and you know, I'm 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.479 not really crazy about the idea of let's let's impregnate 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:23.920 this artificially impregnate this elephant with some offspring that is 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.440 arguably doomed to die. You know, I have to say 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.880 that when I worked at the zoo, or worked at 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.920 a zoo, I should say, the zoo views you in 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.680 the world a zoo. I would have these nightmares every 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:42.040 once while, and they always involved elephants, and it was 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.600 like messages from the elephants saying like, you gotta get 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.400 us out of here, or we're going to just run 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.800 wild and uh, you know, run over all the monkeys 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.679 and the small children. Um. But it was always like that. 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.720 In fact, Steven Tyler once showed up in the dream 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:01.160 riding the horse, like the horse excuse me, and there's odds, yeah, 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.640 riding the elephant out of the zoo. So yes, I 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.160 mean I feel, you know, at least if I haven't 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:09.760 thought about it consciously, subconsciously, it does seem like there's 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.080 for me at least a problem with that scenario of 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:16.959 resurrectoring the wooly mammoth because you hate just for our pleasure. No, no, 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.600 I hear them. No, I like them. I like him. 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.600 That's how I felt that I was sort of connecting 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.200 to them in that vel. So it's like, let's create 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.640 this animal and then put in a zoo or a 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:33.440 lab or some crazy dudes recreation of his reindeer infested 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.720 recreation of prehistoric times. Yeah, I don't. I don't really 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:38.480 know how that would go down. Is what I'm saying 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:40.880 is is that these elephants were sending me messages when 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:43.360 I worked at the zoo and telling me do not 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.720 put Steven Tyler on my back, um, and do not 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:51.080 make my ancestor the wooly mammoth do the same. Yeah, 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:53.560 well they traveling and the monkeys, though the monkeys probably 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.120 had it coming. Yeah, a quick plug for an upcoming 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:01.480 Discovery show and let's Discovery BBC product. But Human Planet 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.360 about all these like amazing things that indigenous groups and 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:11.120 tribes continued to perform in the world. One of them. Uh, 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.680 one of the sequences shows this, uh, this tribesman who's 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:16.800 like taking out he's a farmer, not a farmer, he's 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.840 a hurd herdsman. He's hurting these cows and he has 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:21.760 to take him to this one watering hole otherwise they're 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:23.120 all going to die. And he gets there and the 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.720 elephants have already claimed it and he has to drive 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.200 the elephants away with like a stick. And there's a 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:30.560 huge chance he's gonna get trampled. It's it's it's great, 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:34.840 you should all right the promise of trampling. Yell. But 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:38.880 back to back to cloning. Another interesting thing about our 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:42.760 our buddy Akira here is that is that in Japan, 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:47.000 human cloning is currently severely frowned on illegally even punishable 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.080 by ten years in prison. Uh so he's just kind 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.880 of working this out of his system with Wooly Mammo. 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.280 Maybe the hand of humans maybe, Yeah, that's a whole 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:00.800 ethical quagmire in and of itself. But but but even that, 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:02.720 like human cloning, you can you can get more into 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.360 the the the idea that this is something that can 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:07.800 that can benefit humanity, that we can learn a lot 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.960 about about our ourselves, of our bodies and the treatment 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:14.280 of diseases. But that's completely off the table. So let's 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.960 clone Willie mammoths. Where it seems like the area of 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.840 of really beneficial scientific achievement is um it's maybe a 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.840 little slimmer, Yeah, definitely. In fact, there's a woman name 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.560 by the name of Patul kiss Arslan and she's a 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:35.240 postdoctoral fellow UM with NASA Astrobiology Institute Center for Reallybisomal 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.760 Origins and Evolution. And she actually gave a talk at 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.400 the Atlanta Science tavern Um a couple of days ago. 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:44.040 It was really interesting, And she works with ancient genes 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:50.200 and ancient genes as you know, exactly a super very 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.720 holy um that ancient geans, as you know, are are 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.520 in all of us, right in all life forms. Um, 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.840 there's the whole thing. Like like, the most relatable example 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:03.480 is why like a fetus early early in its development 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.880 looks the same and numerous species exactly why it might 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:09.160 have a tail, right or actually it does have a tail. 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:11.639 So if you see that in mammals right, Um, it 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:13.439 could end up being a fish or it could end 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:16.000 up being a human. So there's this the ancient genes 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:20.240 that are either going to um turn off or turn 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:22.840 on depending on what the species is. It could grow 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:24.399 up to be Richard Harris, it could grow up to 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:30.000 be a killer whale. You never know. Film reference. But 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.160 but Arslin, she was actually saying that they're basically using 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.720 these ancient genes as a genetic alphabet. It's it's a 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.000 common language for them to decode with. And so they're 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:44.000 taking ancient genes and they're taking something like a modern 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:48.160 day equal I, right, and they're putting those ancient genes 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:52.040 in with that, and they're looking to see what it does, 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.600 how it evolves, how how does it react to its environment, 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:58.840 and so, like you said, on a smaller scale or 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.480 like a less pacadermal um there they want to find 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.200 out with these ancient genes how they're going to react 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:08.400 because they feel like this can tell us something about 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:12.400 ourselves here on Earth, but also again out in the universe. 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.440 You know, if the primal life forms, UM, they're basically 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.520 evolving before our eyes. It's really interesting. Yeah, it's it 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:23.399 comes down to the whole principle of an understanding life 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:25.960 and contemplating life out of the world's the only model 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:28.280 of life that we have is the one we have here, 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.080 So we need to really understand that model and all 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:35.480 that it entails, UM and understand all the details, many 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.160 of the details as we can possibly uncover regarding its 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.119 genesis and it's uh in its development over time, and 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.879 then we can apply the same standards to contemplating what 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.680 may or may not be forming elsewhere in the universe. Yeah, 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:51.639 and Arsenin was actually um, she had a lot of 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:54.240 questions from the audience about the ethics of this because 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.040 and she basically said, look, I'm not doing the willing 0:18:57.080 --> 0:18:59.440 mammoth here. What we're doing is we're just really trying 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:05.119 to find out where life came from, how did it emerge. 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.600 Picturing them is like sort of drunken accusations of like, hey, 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:14.480 where you get off cloning the mammoth man. No, it 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:17.080 was much more like, can you explain the rabbisome will 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.720 reaction and the extremphile environment so on and so forth 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.960 and how it um? But no, there was there was 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:31.840 no no drunkard heckling or anything like that. Um. Yeah, no, 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.280 it was all very civil. But there was beer and 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.840 that was nice. Um basically, I mean she didn't field 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:39.920 a lot of those questions. And what she said is, look, 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:43.439 scientists are pretty much self regulating. And when I when 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:45.359 I heard her say that, I thought, you know, that's 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:47.159 a lot of what we're talking about right now, is 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:50.000 um the same sort of topic that came up when 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.240 cloning was first put on the table, right we were 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:54.359 all scared that we were going to have versions of 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:58.280 ourselves out there or you know, all sorts of tinkering 0:19:58.320 --> 0:19:59.880 that can go in. In fact, they are probably still 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.840 shoes surrounding that. But we have a better hold on 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.239 it now and we can see that you know, as 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.199 you said, like in Japan, it's against the law to 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.680 clone humans. So the idea is that this technology is here, 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.760 I's you used for exploration, but you know, when when 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.680 everything settles down, most likely you won't be creating these 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:24.160 Jurassic parks and you know, charging fifty dollars for admission. 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:26.400 But the hope at least, well that's yeah, that's the hope. 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:28.399 I don't know. You can you can sort of nitpick, 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:30.960 I guess, and make arguments about you know, various situations 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:34.600 where some sort of scientific achievements sort of leap frog 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:36.480 a little ahead of the common sense to keep it 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:38.520 in check, you know, like like looking back to days 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.280 when say cocaine was completely legal in the States, and 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.320 like people were drinking it and their soda water and 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:47.080 and buying it, you know before they go out and 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:49.920 work at the docks. And then eventually people are like, oh, 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.320 maybe we should out love this or granted, these are 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:57.920 very different issues, you know, very different social issues than 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.760 than cloning, but but also like got when you look 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:05.359 at at music on the internet, the pirrating of music 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:07.960 and the whole argument that well, we just we let 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:10.120 it get ahead and get ahead of ourselves and suddenly 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:13.000 everybody sharing music and we didn't even think about putting 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:16.119 the various rules in place and the various barriers in 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:18.480 place to to shape it the way we wanted to 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:21.399 shape it. So the cart before the horse Yeah, but 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:23.560 I I guess so far, I mean, with cloning, it 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:26.440 seems like we've done a good job of staying staying 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:30.439