WEBVTT - Ep. 075: Cloning Mammoths 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.320 This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:18.360 bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:27.160 can't predict anything. Okay, we're recording in the you see 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:31.680 Santa Cruz, which is which I found I've been. I've 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:33.040 been in a lot of campuses in my life. I 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:34.319 guess I was gonna say I haven't been on many, 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:35.720 but I've been on a ton of them. This is 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.400 the most gorgeous campus I've ever been to. It's pretty amazing. 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:40.080 Did you happen to see any e walks on your 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:41.839 way out? No, but I was. It was like, It's 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:46.040 funny because driving in here, I was thinking I was 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:48.919 about to form the sentence to Janice that this is 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.560 like a Star Wars set, and then yeah, like interrupted 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.560 my thought to comment about a Star Wars set quality. 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:57.920 My youngest child calls it the e walk for us. 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:02.040 We come up and he goes, it's the book forest. Yeah, 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.039 it's like it's got to be good for your brain 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:08.959 to be around these trees. I feel like I could 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:11.840 be hopeful about that. Yeah, all right, No, I think 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:14.200 it is. Next time students come up here saying if 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:15.760 this is a good place for them to come to school, 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.119 and I'll try to give him that line. These trees 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.280 are good for your brain. And you're hearing the voice 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:28.960 of Dr Beth Shapiro. Who is who deal? Okay, I 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.200 don't let her tell you what she is who. I 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.040 know her from the fact that she deals with what's 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:42.000 called ancient d n A. And if you follow wildlife 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:46.160 conservation and wildlife politics, I think that you will in 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.360 your lifetime here a lot you'll hear that term ancient 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:53.600 d n A, And in surrounding conversations around it, you'll 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.720 hear that progressively more and more, to the point where 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:01.440 when you grow old and die, it might just be 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.760 like a fact of life that it may be transformed 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:09.840 our understanding of That's really great. I'm really intrigued to 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.799 hear you say that you know ancient DNA isn't isn't 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.400 something that most people have heard of. And while my 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:18.639 motivation for doing this is to be able to learn 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.040 something that's useful for conservation by a diversity conservation, I 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.160 think a lot of times people think of it as 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.600 a way to learn about history, particularly human history. I'm 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.480 most interested in animals, but I'm pleased to hear you 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:32.440 say that you think there's a place for this, and yeah, 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:34.320 well maybe let me let me let me all to that. 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.240 Because let's say that that you have a technology, and 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.200 you have a technology like the internal combustion engine. Now 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.240 no one talks about the internal combustion engine, but they 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:49.000 most definitely talk about the creations built around that, right, Okay, 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:53.400 So um, instead of building it all up and talking 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:55.200 about how important it's going to wind up being, we 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.000 should talk about what it is and can you you're 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.680 probably good at this by now, can you like sketch 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:07.680 out what ancient DNA is the fields where it's being applied, okay, 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.280 particular to wildlife, and what are some things that's taught us, 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.040 What are some things, what are some areas where the 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:22.600 work done around ancient DNA has has challenged or added 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:27.480 to our assumptions about our world? All right, there's a 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:29.239 there's a lot there, and even me a lot of room. 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.000 But I think what I'll start with is probably something 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:33.960 that we can come back to later on. So I'm 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:36.320 going to start with a teaser about what I hope 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.680 ancient DNA can do for wildlife conservations, and then we 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:41.680 can turn back around and go to the beginning and 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:43.840 talk more about ancient DNA and the origins of the 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:45.560 field and how it came about and what else has 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.680 been applied to. So imagine that you are trying to 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:53.640 protect the last of a particular species um and this 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.240 species is not doing well because the habitat that it 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.720 lives in is disappearing. The climate is changing. Maybe it's 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:00.840 a bit too warm for it, or maybe it's getting 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.800 a bit cold. Maybe there's just something different about today's 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.920 climate that is affecting this animal and the animals in 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.720 particular trouble because its population has been small for a 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.880 long time, and because it's been small for a long time, 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.239 it's lost a lot of genetic diversity. A good example 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:19.920 of this right now is the black footed ferret. So, 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.240 the black footed ferret is a species that we thought 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:26.760 was extinct, but then a population, the surviving population was discovered. 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:32.520 It turned up on a rancher's doorstep and Matit Wyoming, Wyoming. Good. 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:34.159 You know more about this than I do I know 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.960 about the DNA. A guy, Yeah, guy in in Martz. 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:41.200 A guy in Matitz, Wyoming. Um, As I understand it. 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.920 One day, his dog is standing there with a black 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.960 footed ferret that's amazing, and he went out to try 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.960 to find what the animal was and it turned out 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:57.080 that um, they were not in fact gone, They were 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.960 not gone, so but they are in trouble. And this 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.120 is a problem with black footed farets. So they were 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:05.320 very small population for quite a long time, and they 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.520 have almost no genetic diversity, and they're threatened in the 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.960 wild today because while they can breathe them, there are 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.320 nice captive breeding facilities that can produce lots of black 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:16.360 footed farets. As soon as they've released them into the wild, 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:19.880 they get sick and they die. Can can you just 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.120 a whole because when you hear I think people often say, 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:23.880 like no genetic diversity, But is there a way to 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:25.919 put it? Is there a way to put it in 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:29.840 human terms where you imagine is it as bad as 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:33.080 if you only had one family? Yes, like you had 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:39.159 a mother, father, two daughters, two sons, and they needed 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.719 to recolonize and that was it. And then the daughters 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:44.880 had to breed with their brothers or with their fathers 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:49.279 literally like literally literally siblings breeding with siblings or extreme inbreeding, 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.360 extreme inbreeding, and it's bad for the population. And and 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.560 you know this population is doing okay, and that it 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.240 can survive in captive environments where it's not exposed to 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:01.559 any sort of allunges. But as soon as they're released 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.640 into the wild, this inbreeding shows up as something that 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.080 causes them to not be able to survive. It shows 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:13.359 up behaviorally, it shows up behaviorally probably, but in the 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.560 case of the blackfooted ferrets, it shows up because they 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.320 have no resistance to the diseases that are actually circulating 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.000 in a wild, so they're they're not able to survive 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.679 as they get infected. So one of the most diverse 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:26.440 parts of our genome of any species genome, is what's 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:31.600 called the major histamine complex NHC. It creates the proteins 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.000 and enzymes in our body that allow us to fight diseases. 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.400 And we're very different. Everybody is very different. We have 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:40.200 lots of different circulating alleles or variants in our population, 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.320 and this is so that you know, the more diversity 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.400 we have, the more um diversity of diseases that we 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.239 are potentially able to fight off. And so it's good 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.719 for a population and for an individual to have lots 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.320 of diversity at these alleles, and these black footed ferrets 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.599 and other species that go through these what's called population 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:02.279 bottle X, where you have a very small population size 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:03.680 for a long time and you lose a lot of 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.680 your diversity, become um completely lacking in diversity at this 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.480 really important part of the genome. So here's where I'm 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:14.800 going with ancient DNA. Imagine that you could find a 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:19.560 bone or some tissue from blackfooted ferrets that lived before 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.480 they went through this population bottleneck. So these would have 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.400 been individuals that are no longer alive. Maybe they lived 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.000 a hundred years ago, maybe they lived thousands of years ago, 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.680 but they have diversity in their genome that used to 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:33.880 be there, that used to be able to help this 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:38.360 population to fight disease. If we could get that information 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.480 sequence their DNA, grind up a bit of that bone 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:45.000 and extract the DNA sequences that are preserved in that bone, 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:47.520 or in the case of blackfooted ferrets, that are actually 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:51.360 preserved tissue specimens from individuals that lived a couple of 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:53.840 decades ago that are in what's called the frozen Zoo 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:56.400 in San Diego. So we can a couple of decades. 0:07:57.280 --> 0:07:59.000 A couple of decades ago in this case is enough. 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.120 In other species, it depend some when your bottleneck was 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.760 So for blackfooted ferrets, the bottleneck was relatively recently. For 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.920 American buffalo the bottleneck was thirteen thousand years ago. So 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.160 you would need older individuals to be able to see 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:15.280 what the diversity in the past look like, because that's 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:19.440 that's surprising to hear. But I know you're interested in bison. 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.520 But so we can go back and we can sequence 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.000 the DNA from these older individuals that have this diversity, 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.000 learn what that diversity used to look like, and then 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:35.600 use genome engineering technologies to cut and paste the no 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.520 diversity region of individuals genomes today living individuals and paste 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:44.160 in its place, uh synthetic version of the sequences that 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:46.839 used to exist in that population. And in doing so, 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.120 you have modified the genomes of a living organism in 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.360 a way that gives them a fighting chance to survive. Today. 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.640 You haven't brought back the extinct thing. You have used 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.200 gene sequences that are extinct from the same species to 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:05.480 bolster the immunity or potentially help this species to survive. 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:09.160 And this this is one example, but this is where 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.760 I really see the power and the potential of this 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.840 sort of technology. The idea that we can look at 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:18.000 DNA sequences in the past. Let's say we want to 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.840 create an animal that's more able to survive somewhere cold 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.800 or somewhere hot if we can identify an extinct species 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.000 or a close relative that used to be alive, that 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.040 has a gene sequence that might be able to cause, 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:33.280 for example, the idea of bringing mammoths back to life. 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:35.160 And you and you, I'll point out, you have a 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:37.400 book how to Clone a Mammoth. Yes, so this is 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.080 something that I've been thinking about a lot, and a 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.000 sub doesn't A subtitle could be how to clone a mammoth? 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:48.080 Um all the reasons why you might want to and 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:52.520 might might not want to. I think the subtitle is 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.200 actually this science of de extinction or something. But I 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:59.440 have been suggested several several better subtitles. I think my 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:05.400 favorite was, um, why cloning a mammoth? Or why how 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.040 cloning a mammoth? Might be? No, I'm trying to think 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:09.480 of what the best one was that was suggested with 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:11.320 my friend of mine. It was like, if you have 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:18.680 limited ethics, a billion dollars and a mammoth, that that 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:20.560 opens it up. That always what I was trying to 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.319 what I was trying to suggest about it. But but anyway, 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:25.560 they I mean, we can talk about this later, but 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:27.719 I'm going to use it as an example because I mean, 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:29.760 it's very easy to think through. So if you have 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:31.920 an elephant, this is something that's adapted to living in 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.959 the tropics. Um. The tropics is not a place that's 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.400 really conducive to elephants living right now. Let's say we 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.440 wanted to create an elephant that is able to survive 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:44.720 somewhere colder, not conducive for human reasons, for human reasons, 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:49.880 because of because of rampant poaching development, yeah, influx of 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:54.440 a like pastoral agriculturalists. Right. And and I should say 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.800 right up front that I am not advocating creating mammoths 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.880 that can live in the cold as an alternative to 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.839 trying to fix the terrible situation that Asian elephants and 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.439 African elephants are in right now. I think that this 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.800 is just an alternate pathway that potentially should be followed 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.360 at the same time as existing conservation efforts. UM, But 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:16.920 it is something that I think we should consider. It's 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.400 not possible to do it yet, but there's no reason 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.680 to turn to say no to a technology before we 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.280 know what's actually feasible because we're a little bit scared 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.640 about the ecological and ethical consequences of of doing it. 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.320 These are things that we need to think through very clearly. However, 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:37.280 stepping away from the ethics and of and morality of 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:39.120 this right now, and we will come back to this, 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:41.760 but I'm just trying to explain the technology here. Let's 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.360 say we can go and sequence the genome of a mammoth. 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.760 Mammoths and Asian elephants are very closely related to each other. 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.480 They shared a common ancestors sometime in the last five 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:52.959 million years, so that really closely related to each other. 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:57.559 You pointed out that there's, uh, there's a the difference 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:01.080 between an Asian elephant in a wooly man ammoth is 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:05.640 about are similar to the difference between humans and chimps. 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:08.880 That's right, About one percent of the genome sequence is different. 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:12.360 I told that to your friend and he said, uh, yeah, 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.079 but that's the that's the percent that gave us Mozart. 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.840 It's probably true, and that's the one percent that we're 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:24.000 thinking about the difference between mammoths and elephants. If what 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:25.640 we want to do is figure out what it is 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:29.439 that made mammoths which is an elephant able to survive 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:31.640 in the cold, and we want to be able to 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:33.880 create an elephant that that is able to survive in 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.240 a colder environment. If we could identify those important parts 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:39.880 of mammoth that are different and then cut and paste 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.760 those into an elephant genome, could we create not a mammoth, 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.360 but an elephant that can live somewhere that's colder, that 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.560 can eat this same diet, that can somehow protect itself 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.560 from these cold winters, so that we can potentially find 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.960 a place to put elephants while we are trying to 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:59.560 solve the problems that are that are ongoing in there 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:01.560 exists environment. Can I pause you there to have you 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:06.360 explained a couple of things real quick. Um, you're saying, though, 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:11.320 like just based on even with some future projecting, you're saying, 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:15.720 we will not no matter how journalist frame news that 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.520 comes from your world, we will not make a mammoth. 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:24.480 We will not bring back a living, breathing mammoth. Is 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.040 just a continuation of the mammoths that we're there. I 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.160 think that this is something that is really important for 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:34.240 people to understand, is that once a species is extinct, 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.760 it is gone. This is not a solution to the 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:41.040 extinction crisis. De extinction this is the term that people 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.360 are using too to refer to bringing something that's extinct 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:48.800 back to life. Is it's an idea that is shaped 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.080 more by imagination than by reality. It's very romantic to 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:54.280 think of the I think that you might be able 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:56.480 to bring something back that's been gone for a long time. 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:00.120 But there are people who the scientific reality is there 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.079 are ones that try to do it, who kick around 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:06.440 ideas it's gone, the ideas. If you dig into these 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.520 ideas though, it's it's not. It's not that. It's not 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.800 that you're going to bring something back that is identical 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.040 to something that's gone. It's that you're going to be 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.200 able to recreate components of those organisms. You could bring 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:22.000 back traits. You could move genes from a mammoth into 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.360 an elephant. Potentially, we don't know how to do that yet. 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:29.600 We can move genes from mammoth sequences that we generate 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.680 from bones into cells of elephants that are growing in 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.160 petrie dishes and labs, but we can't then turn those 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.800 cells into some hybrid between a mammoth and an elephant. 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:41.760 So what would you need if you were going to 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:45.640 create an exact replica of a species that's extinct, you 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.480 would need it's a DNA sequence. We can do that. 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:53.320 For for a mammoth, there are incredibly well preserved bones. 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.200 You mean that map its entire genome. Yeah. So the 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.000 way we do that in angel DNA kind of getting 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:00.760 back to this, is we collect these bones. The best 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:04.000 preserved bones are frozen in the Arctic soil called parmafrost, 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.800 and mostly they've been de fleshed, probably by something like 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.640 a lion or a big bear, and so the bone 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:11.480 doesn't have any tissue on it. It It gets buried in 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.520 the soil and rapidly frozen. And you spend time including 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.720 this that you spend some you spend field seasons up 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.920 actually like physically look at like actually looking for bones 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.360 sticking out of the ground. Yep, I do. It's good 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:29.200 fun too. I recommend it. Yeah. Um. But you can 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.000 take these bones and you can take a chunk out 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:33.800 of them with a drum will drill or something like that, 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:35.720 and you grind it up into a fine powder and 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.600 then you can dissolve away all the components that aren't 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:40.760 the DNA, so the tissue and the actual bone. You 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.360 dissolve it away, and then you can chemically and somatically 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.960 pull out the DNA. So the DNA that we get 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.240 out of those bones is not in good shape. This 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.040 is one of the important things to remember. If I 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.480 were to take a swab Q tip in the inside 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:55.760 of my cheek or spit in the tube like you 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:57.240 do when you send something off to one of these 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.800 companies that sends you your DNA sequence, you can get 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:04.200 really long fragments of DNA. Our genomes have about three 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.520 billion nucleotides bases, these A, C, S, G S, and 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.600 T s that make up the the sequence that has 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:12.760 the genes that make the proteins that make us look 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:14.840 and act the way we do. And we can get 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.800 millions of them, strings of millions in a row from 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.600 a living person, of living piece of tissue. But the 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.080 bones that we get out of the Arctic, the DNA 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.560 in them is chopped up into tiny fragments. And this 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.880 happens first because once an organism dies, there are enzymes 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:33.360 in their own body that chop up DNA. These exist 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:35.360 because if you eat a piece of meat, where you 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:37.200 eat a leaf of a plant, you don't want that 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:39.520 DNA to stay really big and long and powerful. In 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:41.600 your body, you've get enzymes that chew that up and 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:43.640 make it go away, and that happens to your own 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:46.880 tissue when cells burst, When cells die, and life chops 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:48.600 up your DNA so that you can get rid of it. 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.640 That happens post mortem as well. And then there are 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.920 things like bacteria and fung gui that will get into 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.200 these bones and the tissue remains when they're decaying, and 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:01.120 they will also chop up that DNA. They consume all 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:05.280 this kind of carbon material for food. And then the sun. 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.399 You know, you go outside and you're supposed to wear 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:10.360 sun block, and that's because the ultra violet radiation will 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.520 hit your cells and break your DNA. Now, when you're alive, 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:15.880 you have proof reading enzymes that will go along and 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:19.480 fix those those bits of damage that the UVY radiation 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.200 causes so that you don't get skin cancer every time 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:26.400 you walk outside. But once you're dead, those proofitting enzymes 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.040 are not doing their job anymore, and the UV radiation 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:31.159 and other sorts of radiation will continue to hit the 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.680 cells and break down the DNA, so that the end 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.639 result there is that pretty soon after death, the DNA 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.160 is no longer in long strands. It's in really short, 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.080 chopped up strands, and after time they just getting get 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:43.800 smaller and smaller and smaller and small. And you say 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:47.040 pretty soon after death, the first pretty soon means like 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:51.399 within years. First pretty soon means within minutes, and the 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.600 second pretty soon we're talking tens of thousands of years there. 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.120 It depends on environment. So if something were to die 0:17:57.200 --> 0:17:59.520 and sit in the sun in Arizona today it's supposed 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.120 to be hunter twenty degrees in Arizona, probably we would 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:08.240 get no good recoverable DNA tomorrow, right, Um, but I 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.280 don't all that because stuff decase. Also, you'll have really 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:14.240 rapid microbial activity when it's things are rotting in the 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:16.520 sun like that. So maybe you could get DNA tomorrow 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.040 is probably an exaggeration, but certainly within a couple of days. 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.280 It would be very hard to get recover good quality 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:26.440 DNA from these things. If something dies, it's that volatile. Yeah, Well, 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:30.120 it depends on microbial activity, so and also the sun 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:34.480 and temperature. So things decay faster when it's hot, and 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.760 when the temperature fluctuates, a lot of things decay. If 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:42.080 you think about ideal temperatures for stuff to break stuff down. 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.000 I mean when you want to when you're cooking something, 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.040 you want to get it above a particular temperature, and 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:49.000 that's not the temperature of like your normal ambient temperature 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:53.280 and Phoenix, Arizona today, right, it's so you don't the 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.479 all the microbes will just multiply at some point, can 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:58.560 cause a lot of microbial life forms, and you get 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:00.280 sick when you eat stuff. So you eat I wanted 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:02.639 to stay cold and frozen, or you wanted to be 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:05.280 really hot, like cooked. And if it's really hot and cooked, 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:07.720 you're destroying all the DNA, all the living material. But 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.399 if it's cold and frozen, then you're slowing down the decay, 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.800 just like sticking your steak in the freezer so that 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:15.440 it lasts for an extra couple of In those cases, 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:19.520 like when you when you find a well preserved mammoth 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.640 coming out of the permafrost, it probably so that thing 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:30.560 probably died in sub freezing conditions. Yes, yes, uh maybe, 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:32.800 I mean when when these animals died during the summer. 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:34.719 In the summer in the Arctic, it can be you know, 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.399 sixty seventy degrees during the day, but those ones and 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.160 those ones could still potentially be preserved. Could be because 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:44.679 the the sediment, the dirt in the ground is very cold, 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.080 and if it gets buried right away in volcanic dust 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:50.960 or whatever, then these the remains of these animals will 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.919 will preserve for a long time. The oldest DNA that 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.119 we've ever recovered was from a bone that we found 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:02.680 in permafrost in the Yukon territory, and it was associated 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.440 with a volcanic ash layer that we think is around 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.280 seven hundred thousand years old. So we're estimating that that 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:10.879 is the age of this horse bone. It's also the 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:14.480 oldest frozen dirt that anyone has ever known. So that 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:18.040 horse bone, that horse lived around seven hundred thousand years ago. 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:22.159 It died, its bones were immediately buried and frozen, and 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.000 we're kept in that freezer, that dirt freezer, for the 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:27.600 last seven hundred thousand years, and that's the only reason 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:30.240 we were able to recover DNA from that bone. And 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.520 the DNA was in terrible condition. The longest fragments were 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.320 thirty or forty letters long. Remember I said, so that's 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.440 where you're going saying, we have them that are a million, millions, 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.879 millions or millions or million long millions. Yes, we can 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:50.320 do millions, but because you said three billion total. Yeah, 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:53.520 so it depends you can get very large fragments of DNA. 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.320 How large this depends on how good you are at 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.240 extracting what's called high molecular weight DNA, and there are 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.359 hits that you can purchase in different approaches you can 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:04.879 use to get larger and larger fragments. Were limited by 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.480 technology in living things rather than by the actual size 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.600 of the DNA, whereas an ancient DNA you're limited by 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.520 the actual size of the surviving fragments of DNA. Our 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.720 technology would allow us to get larger fragments if they existed, 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:20.879 they just don't. And why is this important? Why are 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:23.520 we having such a long conversation about this. It's important 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.960 because an elephant genome, a mammoth genome is about four 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:31.520 billion letters long, and if we have thirty letter fragments, 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:35.480 we it's kind of like having a trillion zillion piece 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:39.959