WEBVTT - Part One: Dire Wolves, Dr. George Church & The De-Extinction Grift 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:06.760 Media. Oh, wow, Sophie, I don't know. I don't know 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:08.800 if we can put that on the air. I mean, 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:11.240 that's actionable threats against a sitting. 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:12.879 Wow. 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.000 I mean, just Sophie, that's it's just dangerous to be 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.800 saying stuff like that in this day and age. I know, 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.360 let's distract the audience and the federal agents listening in 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.760 by bringing on our guests today who definitely doesn't say 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:32.720 stuff like that. Langston Kerman, Langston, do you condemn Sophie's statements, 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.000 assuming they ever get out in unedited form? 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:37.960 I was. I was tempted to hang up the zone 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:42.600 right away. It was so inflammatory that I said, I 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:43.519 can't be a part of this. 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.760 No. No, it's time to bring peace to the country. 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:47.040 You know. 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:49.360 That's that's what we all need to be focusing on. 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.480 Is peace. We got to get back to what we were, 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:54.360 which was normal and peace. 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:56.680 Was normal and good. Everyone knows things used to be 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:02.360 good in this country for everybody, right, that's chilling for all. Yeah, 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:05.600 things were so great, And I think what'll get us 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.000 back to that is talking about puppies. Right. Everybody loves 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.920 a good puppy, right, puppies. Puppies are wonderful, and there's 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:18.360 been some really what is he talking about? God, we're 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:20.880 gonna talk about puppy mills. No, don't worry, this is 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:22.960 a fun one, everybody. We're gonna have a good time 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:24.800 this week. Like it is a guy I think is 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:26.440 a piece of shit, but it's gonna be fun. 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:26.920 YEA. 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:29.880 I will say before you even go, one of the 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.880 only taboos that exists in film and television is murdering dogs. Yes, 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.040 and I'm getting so scared before we even start. 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:41.480 I know nothing, No dogs are provably harmed yet and 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:43.840 in the making of this story, although I do have 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.880 to specify yet, but there is like a dog like 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.880 creature involved. Because if you if you spend any time online, 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:52.639 have you been on social media or just been watching 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:54.640 the news. I think probably close to one hundred percent 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:57.120 of our audience caught this. There was a big story 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:59.480 a couple of weeks back about how this company brought 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.880 back the dire wolf, right, which is an extinct kind 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.720 of wolf, and they did it using some I think 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:09.280 we can call it Jurassic Park style machinations, right, Like 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.799 that's what everyone thought of, And this is all the 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:16.520 work of a of an actual like science like bioscience 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:20.880 startup called Colossal Biosciences, which is just by name, a 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.840 company that could not sound more like it belonged than 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.919 a Michael Crichton novel if they just called it engine right, 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:28.480 like it's it's amazing. 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.600 It really feels like a fourth grader was, like. 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.560 I got it, like when I was in fourth grade 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:37.120 trying to rewrite Jurassic Park. 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.639 Yes, okay, okay, we'll get sue. 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.360 That's fine, it's fine, it's fine. Michael Crichton's not going 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:50.239 to sue a four year old Colossal Science original. Yeah, 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:58.960 so it'll publish this. So most news coverage of this 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:04.000 whole Dire Wolf thing kinda casually accepted the pr claims 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.799 being made by Colossal and it's co founder, slash Scientific spokesman, 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:12.560 doctor George Church. Time published an article with the title 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.680 the Return of the Dire Wolf, and it's it's as 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:18.680 hype an article as it could possibly be, And on 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:20.959 the front of it, there's a photo of a very 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.920 charismatic looking wolf as that I mean, that's a beautiful wolf, right, 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:30.080 that charm that that is a screen ready wolf. 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.520 You can tell you can tell that wolf knows how 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.360 the business works. That's not a wolf that you gotta like, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:38.520 uh put a caretaker on, you. 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.080 Know, you gotta. They said that they put some dire 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:43.240 wolf jeans into this wolf. I think they might have 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:45.320 stuck one or two Tom Cruise jeans in there, because 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.240 that wolf knows where the camera is, right. 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:49.960 That wolf, That wolf does its own stunts. 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:54.600 Wolf does its own stunts, right. Obviously it's a good 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.640 looking wolf. No one's throwing shade against these animals here. 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:02.000 They're gorgeous, but they're not wolves, right. That's kind of 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:04.440 where we're starting here. It gets much more fucked up 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.800 than that. Dire Wolves were a very real species of 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.480 wolf which roamed the Americas. They were found in parts 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.440 of both North and South America from the late police 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:16.600 Decene to the early Holocene period, which is a span 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:20.760 of somewhere over one hundred thousand years. It's bite force like. 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:23.520 When these animals lived, they had a stronger bite force 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.440 than any known modern wolves, so they were pretty formidable. 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.320 But the reputation for them being like the size of 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.880 horses is something they largely accrued via Game of Thrones 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.440 because dire wolves were around the same size as the 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.359 largest modern wolves, a little bigger but we're talking like 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.240 ten or twenty pounds heavier than like a Yukon wolf 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:44.080 on average. 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:49.640 And there was a sub Right, there's a pretty extensive 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:54.400 collection of dire wolf bones in the Librea Tarpits Museum. 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:57.960 Oh right, and boy was I disappointed when I saw 0:04:58.000 --> 0:04:59.120 how little those. 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.000 Bones were, right, he gave a throat shit. 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:04.240 Yeah, man, I walked in there and I said, I'm 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.000 gonna see the biggest wolf that's that ever was. And 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:11.920 those wolves look like snauzers. They're tiny little dogs as 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:13.159 far as I'm concerned. 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:15.720 Yeah, because you I mean, like, the average size of 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:17.520 a dire wolf was like one hundred and fifty pounds, 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:20.559 which is like a good sized caneid. But like, I've 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.479 known dogs bigger than that. I've known some two hundred 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:28.000 pound mastiffs, right like, and they're not that big on average. Yeah. No, 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.800 so yeah, again, these are they're bite in terms of 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.360 bite force, very formidable animals, but they're not huge. 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:34.600 Like. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:36.760 That's stuff that George R. Martin put in his book, 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:38.599 because George R. And Martin knows how to make a 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.599 book cool. Right, Yeah, you gotta judge up reality a 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.800 little bit, you know, especially if it's a fantasy novel. 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:46.880 He knows how to make a book cool, and he 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.920 knows how to make a hat cool. He's got cool hats, 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.280 cool books and scarves. 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.440 Cool hats, cool books, and he's he's achieved. I've have 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.320 a lot of respect for George. He's achieved every writer's dream, 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.400 which is to never have to write again, right like that, 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.160 that's what we're all shooting for. So just live in 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.480 all lighthouse that never finished your series, I say, as 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:12.920 I'm two years overdue with my novel. But the name 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.679 of the species is presumably the major thing that inspired 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:16.120 George R. 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:16.360 Martin. 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:18.840 It's just a cool name, dire Wolf, Like there's it's 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.240 dire wolves have been in D and D before George 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:23.200 put him in his books, right because it's just a 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.039 cool thing to call a wolf. It's like, yeah, that 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:30.360 sounds like a scarier wolf to me. And Colossal Biosciences 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:34.320 knowing and being primarily this is a company that describes 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:37.120 themselves as being in gene sciences. They're in the pr 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:39.800 business as much as anything else, and they made the 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:43.159 wise decision to rely heavily on the popularity of the 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.240 Game of Thrones books and TV shows to act as 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:50.680 advertising for their quote unquote dire wolf right. And in 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.000 fact this is even written into that Fawning Time coverage. 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.240 And here's a quote from that article. Relying on deft 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:02.120 genetic engineering an ancient preserved DNA, colossal scientists deciphered the 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.200 dire wolf genome, rewrote the genetic code of the common 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:07.960 gray wolf to match it, and, using domestic dogs as 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.560 surrogate mothers, brought Romulus, Remus and their sister, two month 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:15.160 old Kalisi into the world during three separate births last 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:17.960 fall in this winter, effectively for the first time, de 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:21.679 extincting a line of beasts whose live geenpool vanished long ago. 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:24.920 Ti met the mates. Kalisi was not present due to 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.040 her young age, at a fenced field in a US 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.920 wildlife facility on March twenty fourth, on the condition that 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:32.600 their location remain a secret to protect the animals from 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:37.320 prying eyes. Now, naming a dire wolf after a character 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:39.120 in the books who had nothing to do with dire 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.080 wolves was by far the fringiest possible. 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:43.920 Choice here opportunity. 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:45.880 There were dire wolves with names. 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:48.760 There were a lot of Starks. They could have just 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.520 gone down the Stark lineage they didn't have to go 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:52.000 to Kali. 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:54.640 Literally, she had nothing to do with the wolves. Did 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:56.080 she even meet any of those? 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:58.440 A dragon lady? 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.880 She met the Yes, that. 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:05.440 She met Okay, she met jobs maybe okay, ghost right, Okay, 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:07.360 so maybe one we. 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:08.600 Don't talk about that. 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.200 Last season, we don't talk about that. I got really 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:12.200 sad for a second. 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.200 But it's the bummer, folks, should you should do that 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:18.520 season as one of the bestards from Yeah, that's. 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:21.960 What we're working on a sixth parter, but having the animals. 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.440 They also had the animals pose with George R. Martin 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:26.400 as part of like the press tour, and that was 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:28.760 a particular choice. First off, look at this which again 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:31.000 no shade on George. I want to hold a wolf 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:36.160 pup right, absolutely, yeah, Like it looks cuddly as hell. 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.280 But that's also kind of part of the problem because 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.520 like that wolf is actively yawning, right, Like, it seems 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.520 pretty chill to be there. And it's interesting to me 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.840 because if the information given to the team at time 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:53.160 by Colossal Biosciences was accurate, there's no way this photo 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.920 should exist. Here's what Time claimed right at the start 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.240 of their article. The angelic Exuberance puppies exhibit in the 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.000 presence of humans, trotting up for hugs, belly Rob's kisses 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.000 is completely absent. They keep their distance, retreating if a 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.760 person approaches, even if one of the handlers who raised 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:10.120 them from birth can only get so close before Romulus 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.360 and Remas flinch and retreat. This isn't domestic canine behavior. 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.400 This is wild lupine behavior. The pups are wolves. Not 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:19.040 only that they're dire wolves, which means they have cause 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:23.000 to be lonely, and again just genetically they're not dire wolves. 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.199 But also, why is George cuddling that animal? Then if 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:28.800 you can't, are you you're either forcing the animal into 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:32.400 a situation that makes it distinctly uncomfortable. But the animal 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:34.520 looks like it's yawning, so maybe they're just not as 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:36.000 wolfy as you're pretending. 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:38.480 Yeah, you're really trying to weave a story here. And 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.920 that's that's a nice dog. That seems like a really polite, 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:43.000 U sweet dog. 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.120 Shill it looks like a husky. Yeah, I don't know man. 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.439 And frankly, George, why are you not finishing the books? 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:51.000 Well, he's got a lot of looks. 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:53.080 I'm not going to give him shit for that. Again, 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.400 I also haven't, And if I have the chance to 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:58.680 cuddle a wolf rather than spend another day working on 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:00.800 my novel, I would be a added to that wolf. 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:02.640 So fucking fast. 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:05.960 The man owns a lighthouse, how you expect him to 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:09.640 finish a book? He's finished other books. I'll give him 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:11.720 shit for his involvement in this company, though. 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:13.880 That's cool to make that much money and be like, 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:15.000 I'm a buy a lighthouse. 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:16.120 I'm gonna get a lighthouse. 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.400 Yeah, of course I'm not sleeping where normal people sleep anymore. 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:21.080 I've got a different thing going on. 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:27.600 No, I'm going to recreate that great Robert Pattinson movie. 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:31.600 Where everybody was fine at the end everyone No. 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:36.040 No, really good movie with a good ending. So the 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:38.679 fact that there's this photo of George R. R. Martin with 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.040 one of these dire wolves makes a lot more sense 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.319 when you learn a few things about both the company 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.360 behind these animals and the actual science behind the project itself. 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.280 For one thing, George R. R. Martin is an investor in 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:53.800 Colossal Biosciences and also an advisor to the company, which 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.800 advisor and what George R. Martin's a number of things 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.640 he's not a scientist, he's not a geneticist. He's not 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:03.640 an expert in real dire. 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:05.120 Wolves because of sunglasses. 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:11.000 He sunglasses, like he invented fake dire wolves for his novels. 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:14.200 I don't understand, Like, under what circumstances would he be 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.920 an advisor to this company doing genetics work. That's like 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.520 if they hired the guy who played doctor Alan Grant 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.320 to advise a company cloning dinosaurs. It's like, well, but 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:29.079 he doesn't really know anything about dinosaurs. 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:34.240 Ye, he's actually he doesn't even speak with that accent. 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:35.480 He's pretending. 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.920 Yeah, Like it's like bringing Jeff Goldblum onto the project. Well, 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.200 you know, if you if you're trying to like, I 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.199 just don't think he has the expertise. Nothing against Jeff. 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:46.560 If you want to flirt with the dinosaur. 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:48.600 People, yes, bring Jeff in. 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:52.400 Yeah you want them dinosaurs horny a al get Jeff. 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:54.800 But otherwise you gotta yeah, he could do that ship 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:56.960 you gotta talk to a scientist you might. 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.160 Want to bring in, like Robert Backer or someone if 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:03.400 he's still alive. But anyway, An article by Michael hills 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.880 It for the Los Angeles Times explains how Martin is 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:08.560 being credited as an advisor. 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:08.800 Here. 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.600 He's named as a co author on a technical paper 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.720 the company published as a non peer reviewed preprint describing 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.280 its de extinction effort. The text credits him with the 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.960 review and editing of the paper's text, among thirty six 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:23.400 other credited co authors in that category. So he's one 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.320 of thirty six people who helped copy edit an article. 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:31.240 Yeah, this is okay to your point, this is just pr. 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:35.200 This is just PR. First off, there's everything else thirty 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:37.360 six people to edit an article. 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.160 And they didn't let those other thirty five people hold 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.880 that dog. And that's no fucked up, no, no, just George. 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:46.360 They just pressed George in there for that. Yeah, anyway, 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:48.920 to kind of enforce the point I made earlier, these wolves, 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.200 well very cute, are not dire wolves. There's some genes 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.800 that they found while sequencing direwolf genetics that have been 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.240 put into a normal wolf. But that doesn't It's kind 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:03.000 of like how like some people have some Neanderthal DNA 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:07.800 in there, but they're not themselves Neanderthals, right, They're just 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:08.440 they're people. 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.400 You know, that's gotta be a tough thing to figure 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.520 out for yourself. Though that I got a little bit 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:16.000 of that in there, because yeah. 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.400 You get some DNA from a species we wiped out. 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:20.960 Yeah you can kind of see it. And then then 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:22.679 that bumps you out where you're like. 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:32.480 Oh sure, like John Hamm, I assume right. Yeah, So 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:36.559 Colossal Biosciences is not actually in the de extinction business. 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.559 They are in the modifying animals genetically in ways that 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.360 in some cases hadn't been done before business, and that 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:48.000 is interesting, but it's not the extinction. And so they 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:51.600 are doing stuff. They are doing something new and something 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.440 that is in some ways very interesting, but it's not 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.200 what they're claiming they're doing. So I can't call this 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:00.840 a straight up con right, because they did make an 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.760 animal that didn't exist before, but it's also not a 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.160 dire wolf, and they're not de extincting anything. And I 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.120 think the evidence shows they are massively inflating what they 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.560 and their technology can do in order to win VC funding. 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.000 The whole explanation as to why we'll take a while, 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.280 but I'm going to start by talking about the claims 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.320 that first brought the company public attention back in September 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.119 of twenty twenty one. A whole spate of almost identical 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:30.320 articles dropped announcing the creation of Colossal Biosciences, and they're 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.360 planned to clone a wooly mammoth by twenty twenty seven, 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:36.880 so we got two more years before to be mammoths, right. 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.720 Megan, Wooly mammos back, y'all, this is exciting. 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:42.200 Very soon, like probably right around the same time we 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:44.840 get Severn season three. You know, we're lucky. 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.760 You know what its about the same year talks about 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:52.239 wooly mammos two is they also are not bigger than elephants. 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:53.160 No. 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:55.400 No, I thought this whole time that wooly mammoths were 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.560 like these giant beasts that we would never be able 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.280 to see again. And they're like smaller than the average 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:02.560 no African elephant. 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:02.960 No. 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.760 And again, it's one of those things whatever people start 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:07.440 to think about, Oh, it's it's a bum. We've missed 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:10.760 all the cool, coolest animals that existed. The largest thing 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.480 to ever exist on Earth is still around swims in 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:15.360 the sea and we're currently killing them. 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.840 Okay, something something you missed in this story now that 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.880 you've brought up the wooly mammoth is uh. Part of 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:26.760 the investors for this company are like a I'm. 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:29.600 Getting to it. I'm getting to that, So don't show 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:31.240 where I was, Like it was a guy know this? 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:32.560 Why do I know this? 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:32.920 Shit? 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.280 We're getting to the other investors in this fucking company. 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:40.680 Don't worry God. But here's a here's a representative example 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:44.800 from like the press that explosion around this wooly mammoth claim. 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:48.120 So this is a CNBC article lab grown wooly mammoths 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.040 could walk the earth in six years of geneticists, new 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.000 startup succeeds. This is published in twenty twenty one. And 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:57.280 the geneticist that they're discussing, and the guy the article 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:01.000 is based around interviewing is co founder of Claw Biosciences, 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.160 doctor George Church, who claimed that he'd had the idea 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.640 kicking around for years and research supports this fact. He's 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:09.920 been pushing this idea in one form or another for 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:12.320 like a decade or more, but that he'd just been 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.440 given fifteen million dollars in seed funding and a company 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.400 had been established with serial entrepreneur Ben Lamb as CEO. 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:23.400 And we will talk about Ben Lambs Moore in part two. Church, 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.560 though doctor George Church is a real doctor and his 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.720 credentials are impeccable on paper. And just to state, this 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.200 guy's kind of a weird case where he's exaggerating a 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:35.560 lot and I think you could even argue lying about 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.680 some things. But he's a real scientist with some very 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:41.440 impressive achievements behind him. 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.760 And I think it's important for us to say that 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:50.480 scientists can be both legitimate and liars. Oh with shit, right, yeah, yes, 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.040 we often I think conflate it somehow, where scientists are 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.240 like these moral beings that exist above us all and no, 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.440 they can be liars and also really smart and capable people. 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:00.760 Right. 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:03.160 It's like you could be a great science fiction author 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:07.440 and racist as fuck, right, like those two things have existed, 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.240 or like Isaac Asimov where you're like, wow, what a 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:14.080 genius and also sex pest, right, like those things do 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.760 not conflict whatsoever. You know, it might have helped him, 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:23.520 I have helped him. Who knows. So George Church's credentious. 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:25.879 I'm not calling Church's sex pest. Although he has some 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.480 shady involvement with people that we'll talk about, none of 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.800 it involves the accusations of his specific behavior, just his 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:36.280 choice of company anyway, his academic credentials anyway, He is 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.879 the oh we're this this episode ends. Uh, you know, 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:41.840 I'm not going to give you a hint, but you're 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:43.639 you're going to be psyched. You're not gonna be psyched, 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:47.520 You're gonna be bummed. He is the Robert Winthrop Professor 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.560 of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and a faculty member 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.800 at the Weiss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, also at Harvard. 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:59.040 So you know that alone pretty bigical achievement. 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:00.760 Right, and he still holds those positions. 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.600 Yes, yes, as far as I'm aware. Yes, Church has 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.520 his name on more than one hundred patents. And you know, 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:09.720 some of those are things where like maybe he got 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:11.760 on there because he helped someone else, but a lot 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.600 of them are because he contributed really significant work to 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:19.439 those patents. He started the Personal Genome project. And he 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:23.239 has also helped found more than twenty companies. Now, that 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:25.080 last claim was the first thing I read about him 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:26.919 that made me wonder, like, Okay, is there something like 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.600 shady here, because twenty companies is too many? No, honest, 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.520 man has found more than twenty companies. You're doing some 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:33.760 fucked up shit, right. 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.120 You gotta focus, big man. That's a few too many companies. 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.680 That's too many companies. And then what I read about 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.320 the actual claims colossal through Church was making about why 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.200 cloning mammoths was not just like a cool thing to do, 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.520 but like necessary for conservation. I went fully over the edge. 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:54.000 This is when I was like, Okay, I got to 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:55.760 dig more into this guy. There's gotta be something fucked 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:58.080 up here. And he has made claims like this quote. 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.600 This is a quote from the article proponents of the project, 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.680 and they're talking about Church say rewilding the Arctic with 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.639 wooly mammoths could slow global warming by slowing the melting 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:12.320 of the permafrost where methane is currently trapped. That's not true. 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.200 How it has something to do with them stomping down 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:18.840 the ground to stop like trees from growing up so 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.760 the permafrost days. But like that's if theoretically there were 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:26.240 a massive, healthy mammoth population, it might do that. We're 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.600 not talking about number one, they're not talking about making mammoths. 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:32.359 They're talking about modifying African elephants as a spoiler for 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.480 what will be in part two. But also, like that's 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.119 just not a feasible place for this project to end with, 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:41.560 like massive herds of mammoths clumbing across the top say 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.600 to fix. Also, no amount of mammoths is going to 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.040 fix global warming, and it's current, Like, the problem is 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:51.000 not just there's too many trees in Siberia. There's other 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:51.840 shit going off. 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.680 If that's the approach you're taking, you're missing the mark 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.320 quite a bit. Yeah, I think mammoth mammoths can't be 0:19:57.359 --> 0:19:59.800 our first start at fixing the problem, for sure. 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.679 I think a lack of mammoth says the primary reason 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:08.040 this is a problem. Yeah. Further shady factoids about the 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:12.120 business include the fact that it is a for profit enterprise. Now. 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:14.399