WEBVTT - Did Colossal bring back the dire wolf? 

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<v Speaker 1>According to some scientists, we are in the middle of

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<v Speaker 1>the sixth mass extinction, well past extinctions with the result

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<v Speaker 1>of things like giant asteroids. This one's probably on us.

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<v Speaker 1>Species go extinct on their own in the wild, but

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<v Speaker 1>scientists estimate the extinction rates are about one hundred times

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<v Speaker 1>greater than baseline extinction rates due to human impacts, and

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<v Speaker 1>this rate is increasing over time. When I was a kid,

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<v Speaker 1>I remember hearing the phrase extinction is forever? But is it?

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<v Speaker 1>With current and future technologies, can we undo the damage

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<v Speaker 1>we've done and bring back the species whose demise is

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<v Speaker 1>our causing. Today we're going to talk about the science

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<v Speaker 1>of d extinction. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I think I've

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<v Speaker 2>tasted eight different kinds of animals.

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<v Speaker 1>Hello. I'm Kelly Wiener Smith. I study space and parasites,

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<v Speaker 1>and I didn't expect you to start with that, so

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<v Speaker 1>I don't know that I have a good count. Give

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<v Speaker 1>me your list. What are the eight kinds of animals

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<v Speaker 1>you've eaten?

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<v Speaker 2>Let's see, of course, pork, I've eaten cows, I've eaten deer,

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<v Speaker 2>I've eaten snake, I've eaten alligator, chicken, turkey, duck, goose.

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<v Speaker 1>All right, that's nine?

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<v Speaker 2>Oh is that nine? Oh my gosh, I already beat

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<v Speaker 2>my record.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's a good job, Daniel, You're a winner. Let's

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<v Speaker 1>say I've done chickens and ducks and turkey and.

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<v Speaker 2>Moose, deer, pigs and cows.

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<v Speaker 1>Alligator, pigs and cows. We currently have deer in our

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<v Speaker 1>freezer from our property.

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<v Speaker 2>Really sheep?

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<v Speaker 1>Right, Yeah, that's right. And you've had sheep too, right, Yeah, so.

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<v Speaker 2>That's ten for me, and I've had goats. What's the

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<v Speaker 2>weirdest thing you've eaten?

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<v Speaker 3>Then?

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<v Speaker 1>Moose hearts?

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<v Speaker 2>Ooh yeah, it was dried oh, moose heart jerky.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was like moose heart jerky. And it was

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<v Speaker 1>in a paper bag and the host that I was

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<v Speaker 1>visiting pulled it out of the paper bag and there

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<v Speaker 1>was still fat on top of it and it looked,

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<v Speaker 1>you know, like a heart, and it got sliced and

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<v Speaker 1>then put on a cracker with some butter and if

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<v Speaker 1>I shut my eyes, it was delicious, but I kind

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<v Speaker 1>of had to like not make eye contact with the food.

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<v Speaker 2>Well that's my question for you today, is which extinct

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<v Speaker 2>animal do you think is the tastiest? Oh, what in

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<v Speaker 2>the past did humans really savor that we will never experience. Gosh,

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<v Speaker 2>I wonder how wooly mammoth tasted.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well we might know soon, according to Colossal, in

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<v Speaker 1>five years we might be able to find out.

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<v Speaker 2>Do you think this is the real motivation for bringing

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<v Speaker 2>back species?

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<v Speaker 1>I don't know. But there's an interesting movement called invasive war.

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<v Speaker 1>I think it's what it's called. And the idea is

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<v Speaker 1>that if you have an invasive species, you try to

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<v Speaker 1>kick up a market around eating it. Some people will

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<v Speaker 1>help you bring those numbers down. I can't think of

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<v Speaker 1>any particularly delicious animal we drove to extinction.

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<v Speaker 2>I always wondered about that with Australia, because don't they

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<v Speaker 2>have a bunny infestation? And I thought a lot of

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<v Speaker 2>people eat rabbits. Yeah, don't they just eat the rabbits.

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<v Speaker 1>I mean, at some point there's a lot more rabbits

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<v Speaker 1>than people. I know some people who can't eat bunnies

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<v Speaker 1>because they're cute and they have like a cute filter

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<v Speaker 1>for what they'll eat, and so I think there are

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<v Speaker 1>some people who just can't have bunnies for that reason.

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<v Speaker 1>And maybe there's just not enough people. I don't know

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<v Speaker 1>I've eaten rabbit. There's another one, Have you eaten rabbit?

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<v Speaker 2>I don't think I've knowingly eaten rabbit, but I've eaten

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<v Speaker 2>at some French restaurants where I didn't understand the menu,

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<v Speaker 2>and so there's always a question there. Oh wait, snails,

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<v Speaker 2>I've had snails. Oh so boo, I'm up to eleven.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, snails get infected by lots of trema toad species,

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<v Speaker 1>and you can't get sick by eating the snails. But

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<v Speaker 1>that knowledge, I won't be able to ever eat a snail.

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<v Speaker 1>I don't think I also have a texture thing. I

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<v Speaker 1>don't think snails are for me.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's not sort of second serving kind of a

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<v Speaker 2>thing either.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm also not an oyster person, and I know loads

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<v Speaker 1>of people love oysters.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, oh wait, we didn't even count the kinds

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<v Speaker 2>of fish. Oh, the whole other category of animals. Wow,

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<v Speaker 2>we've eaten a lot more than we imagine. Yeah, we

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<v Speaker 2>should do a thorough accounting.

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<v Speaker 1>We should. We should. I guess if you include plants

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<v Speaker 1>and herbs and stuff, I'm sure we've conde many many

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<v Speaker 1>species in our lives.

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<v Speaker 2>Katrina tries to eat thirty different kinds of plants every day.

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<v Speaker 1>Wow? Why why not? Okay, yeah, sure, sure.

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<v Speaker 2>I think the diversity is good for your gut, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>keep all those little microbes.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah yeah, Oh wow. I would get on a Katrina

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<v Speaker 1>diet if she were like a fitness instructor, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>I think it would be science informed.

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<v Speaker 2>You know, she's working on a recipe book, Science Informed

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<v Speaker 2>Recipes for your Health.

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<v Speaker 1>Sign me up. I want that book.

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<v Speaker 3>You know.

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<v Speaker 1>Ever since we had her on the show, I do

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<v Speaker 1>make sure that I have a cup of beans every day.

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<v Speaker 2>There you go, all right to your health.

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<v Speaker 1>Zach does not say thank you, but I feel better.

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<v Speaker 2>All right. Well, we're not here to talk about what's

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<v Speaker 2>coming out of Kelly. We're here to talk about what's

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<v Speaker 2>coming out of a really interesting research project that's made

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<v Speaker 2>the news recently.

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<v Speaker 1>I love your transitions.

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<v Speaker 2>Sometimes it's a big step to get us back on track.

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<v Speaker 1>But do you always find the cleverest path between them.

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<v Speaker 1>So today we're talking about a company called Colossal, and

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<v Speaker 1>Colossal is all about de extinction. So they're trying to

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<v Speaker 1>bring back animals that have been driven to extinction in

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<v Speaker 1>every case by humans, and they made the news recently

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<v Speaker 1>because they are claiming to have brought back the dire wolf,

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<v Speaker 1>And so we asked our listeners did Colossal bring back

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<v Speaker 1>the dire wolf? And here's what they had to say.

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<v Speaker 2>I have no idea that you got me on that one.

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<v Speaker 4>No, they created something that will resemble the dire wolf

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<v Speaker 4>but is not actually a dire wolf.

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<v Speaker 5>Did Colossal bring back the dire wolf in the sense

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<v Speaker 5>of that a being is the product of using a

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<v Speaker 5>specific DNA recipe in an Earth environment to recreate a

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<v Speaker 5>member of the species.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes.

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<v Speaker 5>On the other hand, did they bring back the dire

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<v Speaker 5>wolf to be a staple resident of this planet? We're

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<v Speaker 5>far a cry from that.

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<v Speaker 2>Did what bring back?

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<v Speaker 3>The what philosof falling into a parallel universe is that

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<v Speaker 3>the gene.

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<v Speaker 2>Editing thing probably not clickbait. I'm not buying it.

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<v Speaker 4>It's a genetically modified gray wolf that happens to have

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<v Speaker 4>some traits of a dire wolf. So I did see

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<v Speaker 4>the headlines on this, and I guess it depends on

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<v Speaker 4>the quality of the sequence. If they didn't have a

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<v Speaker 4>complete sequence and had to splice in like regular wolf genes,

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<v Speaker 4>then maybe not. I saw a direwolf skeleton at the

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<v Speaker 4>Libret Tarpitz and on Game of Thrones, but I don't

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<v Speaker 4>know anything about Colossal. Seems to be like a rock

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<v Speaker 4>band touring, but with only one of the original band members.

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<v Speaker 6>They really only brought back certain traits of a dire wolf,

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<v Speaker 6>but not necessarily every single trait.

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<v Speaker 2>So it looks like a dire wolf, but we don't

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<v Speaker 2>really know if it has all the other traits of

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<v Speaker 2>a dire wolf.

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<v Speaker 6>Colossal brought back the dire wolf like Jurassic Hark brought

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<v Speaker 6>back to velociraptor.

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<v Speaker 2>I always thought dire wolves were fictions, so I didn't

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<v Speaker 2>know they could come back. I thought they were just

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<v Speaker 2>from like Game of Thrones and things. I'm going to say,

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<v Speaker 2>I don't know.

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<v Speaker 3>No, I didn't think so three individuals are not a population,

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<v Speaker 3>let alone any species. That doesn't mean that it's not interesting.

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<v Speaker 3>I'm sure they learn a lot about the phenotypical features

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<v Speaker 3>that make wolf differentiate extinct wolves from current wolves, so

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<v Speaker 3>I'm sure it's a very interesting work.

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<v Speaker 6>I think that they brought it mostly back, but I

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<v Speaker 6>think that because it had to be an animal from

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<v Speaker 6>today and DNA from a dire wolf, then technically it's

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<v Speaker 6>not actually the one hundred percent complete dire Wolf.

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<v Speaker 1>A lot of skepticism here, a lot of skepticism. The

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<v Speaker 1>answers either fell into I have no idea what you're

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<v Speaker 1>talking about mmmm, or no they did not. I don't

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<v Speaker 1>think anybody was like, yes they did. One person said

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<v Speaker 1>it was interesting, nonetheless, but they didn't completely bring back

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<v Speaker 1>the dire wolf.

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<v Speaker 2>So give us some background. Tell us about this project.

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<v Speaker 2>What is de extinctification and why would somebody want to

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<v Speaker 2>do it?

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<v Speaker 1>Okay, so you've added a lot of unnecessary syllables.

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<v Speaker 2>What do you mean de extinctification?

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<v Speaker 5>Is this?

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<v Speaker 1>Let's see a lot. We can get it by the

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<v Speaker 1>end of the show. I'm digging it. I think the

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<v Speaker 1>way that most people imagine the extinction is that you

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<v Speaker 1>are bringing back exactly the organism that we drove to

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<v Speaker 1>extinction at some point in the past, and so it

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<v Speaker 1>has the exact same genotype. You could PLoP it back

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<v Speaker 1>in the environment and it would be exactly the same.

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<v Speaker 1>Behave the same have the same genome, all the same.

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<v Speaker 2>All right, But if we're going to be really technical

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<v Speaker 2>and nerdy about what is and isn't de extinctificationism, then

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<v Speaker 2>you know, what does that even mean? Because when you

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<v Speaker 2>had an extent population. It's not like you had a

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<v Speaker 2>single genome that define the species, right, You had a variation,

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<v Speaker 2>you had diversity, and so what does it mean to

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<v Speaker 2>say I'm going to bring back the exact species in

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<v Speaker 2>that context anyway?

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so you're already starting to hone in on some

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<v Speaker 1>of the problems here. So, especially for long dead organisms,

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<v Speaker 1>you probably don't even have one complete genome from that organism,

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<v Speaker 1>let alone genomes from I don't know the one thousand

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<v Speaker 1>organisms that you would need to have a functioning population.

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<v Speaker 1>In the more near term, we are sort of raising

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<v Speaker 1>from the dead genotypes for for example, black ferret. So

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<v Speaker 1>the black ferret population is in decline. This is happening

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<v Speaker 1>right now. But every once in a while, some lab

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<v Speaker 1>or zoo will find a black ferret frozen in their

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<v Speaker 1>freezer and they'll extract genetic material from that black ferret

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<v Speaker 1>and bring to life of black ferret with that genome.

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<v Speaker 2>Is this something that happens to biologists? They just like

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<v Speaker 2>find black ferrets in their freezer, like, oh, what's this,

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<v Speaker 2>there's a chocolate pie from last week. Oh, here's a

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<v Speaker 2>black ferret.

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<v Speaker 1>I mean, Katrina has never found bags fecis in your

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<v Speaker 1>freezer that.

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<v Speaker 2>Got lost, yes, but never a ferris.

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<v Speaker 1>Oh okay, all right, Well she's not the right kind

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<v Speaker 1>of biologist. If you were dating the right kind of biologists,

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<v Speaker 1>there'd be ferrets in there.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, So this is something you put in your freezer.

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<v Speaker 2>It's not just something you discover. Oh my gosh, look

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<v Speaker 2>there's a ferret in my freezer.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's right, Like, you know, maybe it was part

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<v Speaker 1>of your zoo population. You thought maybe I could use

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<v Speaker 1>this for later, because that's something biologists think, and so

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<v Speaker 1>I ended up in a freezer and then it got

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<v Speaker 1>found and they're like, oh, that could help. So one

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<v Speaker 1>problem is that it's very hard to get the genetic

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<v Speaker 1>diversity that you need, especially when you're working with very

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<v Speaker 1>long dead organisms.

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<v Speaker 2>So I think you're saying that the population had diversity

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<v Speaker 2>and it's not easy to pull back the whole population. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>But I'm wondering, even on a more technical level, like

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<v Speaker 2>which individual would you pull back, and would any of

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<v Speaker 2>them qualify or would some sort of mixture of them qualify.

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<v Speaker 2>Like when you say de extinctification, you mean you've resurrected

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<v Speaker 2>an individual that previously existed or a representative individual from

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<v Speaker 2>that species. Like I want to know exactly what it

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<v Speaker 2>means and what qualifies.

0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:00.000
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, all right, so let's get to that. So let's

0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:05.199
<v Speaker 1>start with Colossal's definition of de extinctificationization and they are

0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.040
<v Speaker 1>calling it functional de extinction, and they say it's the

0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:13.000
<v Speaker 1>process of generating an organism that both resembles and is

0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:17.440
<v Speaker 1>genetically similar to an extinct species by resurrecting its lost

0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:22.760
<v Speaker 1>lineage of core genes, engineering natural resistances, and enhancing adaptability

0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.240
<v Speaker 1>that will allow it to thrive into day's environment of

0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:29.640
<v Speaker 1>climate change, dwindling resources, disease, and human interference. Wow, I

0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:30.240
<v Speaker 1>know it's low.

0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:31.920
<v Speaker 2>That's not a definition, it's an essay.

0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:34.320
<v Speaker 1>They've got a lot of words on their website, but

0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:36.680
<v Speaker 1>you can see already a couple things popping up. They're

0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.160
<v Speaker 1>not saying that they are bringing back the entire genome

0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:44.000
<v Speaker 1>or a diversity of different types of genomes. They are

0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:48.480
<v Speaker 1>bringing back core genes. So they are picking which genes

0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.640
<v Speaker 1>they think are critical to making a particular extinct species

0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:54.880
<v Speaker 1>and comparing that to the nearest living relative, and they're

0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:56.320
<v Speaker 1>bringing those genes back.

0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:58.120
<v Speaker 2>Do you think that they're doing this way because this

0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.400
<v Speaker 2>is all that's possible, or do you think, as maybe

0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:02.920
<v Speaker 2>implied by their little essay, they're doing it this way

0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:04.960
<v Speaker 2>because they want to create a version which could actually

0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:08.360
<v Speaker 2>survive in today's environment rather than something which died out

0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:10.080
<v Speaker 2>and lived in a previous environment.

0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.920
<v Speaker 1>It's probably both, I see, But that limitation in what's

0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:18.520
<v Speaker 1>possible is really important. So DNA degrades pretty quickly after

0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:21.040
<v Speaker 1>an animal dies, so by the time you're looking at

0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:24.720
<v Speaker 1>something like the dire wolf or mammoths, if you find

0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.679
<v Speaker 1>a specimen maybe that was frozen very soon after death,

0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.600
<v Speaker 1>there's going to be a lot of the genetic sequence

0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:33.160
<v Speaker 1>that you can still read if you're lucky, but you're

0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.640
<v Speaker 1>not going to have the entire genetic sequence. And with

0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.439
<v Speaker 1>mammoths in particular, we're lucky because there have been more

0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.400
<v Speaker 1>than one specimen where we can get some genetic material.

0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.360
<v Speaker 1>But you can't put together an entire exact genome for

0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:48.640
<v Speaker 1>the wooly mammoth. There's not enough intact genomes for organisms

0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:49.520
<v Speaker 1>that are long dead.

0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:51.480
<v Speaker 2>All right. So then before we dig into the dire

0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.319
<v Speaker 2>wolf real project, I just want to know from a

0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.800
<v Speaker 2>philosophical perspective, Kelly, say, if I gave you infinite resources,

0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.000
<v Speaker 2>there are no technical limitations. You could create any organism

0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:05.480
<v Speaker 2>you wanted, what would you consider de extinctification OFSM It

0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.679
<v Speaker 2>would be like you create a whole population. You pull back,

0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.040
<v Speaker 2>look the last time there was a thousand living entities

0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.120
<v Speaker 2>and you created all of them, or you just picked one,

0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:15.560
<v Speaker 2>or you like average them. Like, if you could do anything,

0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.120
<v Speaker 2>what would be the most pristine version of de extinctification.

0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:22.360
<v Speaker 1>My answer is also going to include my thoughts on

0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:25.760
<v Speaker 1>motivations for de extinction. I think that if you are

0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.520
<v Speaker 1>bringing an animal back into a world that it never

0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.840
<v Speaker 1>existed in and it can't fill its prior ecological role,

0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.920
<v Speaker 1>I think from a conservation standpoint, I'm not super interested

0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.400
<v Speaker 1>in that. And so if the blackfooted ferrets were to

0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.200
<v Speaker 1>go extinct tomorrow and you were able to bring back

0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:45.000
<v Speaker 1>enough individuals so that there wouldn't be in breeding problems,

0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.960
<v Speaker 1>and that would depend on how many and what kinds

0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:49.440
<v Speaker 1>of genomes you could get, I don't know, say it's

0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.000
<v Speaker 1>five hundred individuals, and then you could put them back

0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:55.040
<v Speaker 1>in their natural environment and somehow they'd be able to

0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.960
<v Speaker 1>still have their wild behaviors, which sometimes is you know,

0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.280
<v Speaker 1>through learning from other individuals, So that could be to

0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.520
<v Speaker 1>get back. But if you're able to get enough genetic

0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:04.960
<v Speaker 1>diversity where they won't decline because of inbreeding, and then

0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.200
<v Speaker 1>they can go back into their wild habitat and survive.

0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:10.960
<v Speaker 1>That to me would be successful de extinction. What do

0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:11.280
<v Speaker 1>you think?

0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.400
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well, I think that's fascinating because it says something

0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.640
<v Speaker 2>about what a species really is. It's more than one individual,

0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.240
<v Speaker 2>it's a community, and it's also their environment and how

0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:21.880
<v Speaker 2>they interact and as you say, like learned behaviors that

0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.600
<v Speaker 2>are passed down. So it takes a lot to really

0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:28.720
<v Speaker 2>recreate a lineage. I guess my motivation would be different.

0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.040
<v Speaker 2>I'm not an ecologist. I would just be wondering how

0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:32.400
<v Speaker 2>many do you have to bring back so that I

0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:35.160
<v Speaker 2>could have a tasty burger of each kind, you know,

0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:37.960
<v Speaker 2>in a sustainable way. Of course.

0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.560
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Absolutely, Let's jump a little bit more than into

0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.080
<v Speaker 1>motivation for de extinction before we get into the method.

0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:47.080
<v Speaker 1>So Colossal is pushing for de extinction as a method

0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:50.720
<v Speaker 1>to protect ecosystems that are in some form of decline.

0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.280
<v Speaker 2>For example, like bees are going extinct and we need

0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.200
<v Speaker 2>them as pollinators, so let's make sure we can bring

0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:56.520
<v Speaker 2>them back.

0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:58.520
<v Speaker 1>That kind of thing kind of although I can hear

0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.320
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of people saying, the honeybees that we use

0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:04.480
<v Speaker 1>are not native, and so you've already created something artificial.

0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:08.680
<v Speaker 1>But the big example that they use are mammoths. Mammoths

0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.960
<v Speaker 1>used to live in like tundras in Siberia, for example,

0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:16.400
<v Speaker 1>and as they walked across the landscape, they would crush

0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:20.160
<v Speaker 1>or knock over trees and their impact on the environment

0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:24.920
<v Speaker 1>resulted in a sustainable grassland. Oh interesting, Yeah, and that

0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.040
<v Speaker 1>grassland absorbed a lot of carbon dioxide. And I should

0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.720
<v Speaker 1>say I'm parroting exactly what I saw on their website.

0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:32.680
<v Speaker 1>So this is all assuming that they are correct on

0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.600
<v Speaker 1>their website, because this is out of my area of knowledge.

0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.800
<v Speaker 1>But these grasslands absorb a lot of carbon, which could

0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.240
<v Speaker 1>help us in this period of global climate change. And

0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.320
<v Speaker 1>having that grass there helps the permafrost not melt, and

0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.360
<v Speaker 1>as the permafrost melts, that releases more greenhouse gases and

0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.680
<v Speaker 1>is bad for a variety of other reasons. So they're

0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:53.160
<v Speaker 1>arguing that if you de extinct the wooly mammoth, who

0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:55.920
<v Speaker 1>can put it back into this environment which is maybe

0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.800
<v Speaker 1>still in the process of changing, and it can push

0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:02.960
<v Speaker 1>the environment back to a more ancestral state, and actually

0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.200
<v Speaker 1>that more ancestral state is better for the ecosystems and

0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:06.680
<v Speaker 1>the globe.

0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:10.040
<v Speaker 2>Wow, I'm even more skeptical after hearing that, because this

0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:12.320
<v Speaker 2>sounds to me not like we're going to resiss the

0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.320
<v Speaker 2>data species because we think it's cool or it's a tragedy,

0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:21.720
<v Speaker 2>but instead as an element of ecological planetary geoengineering, like

0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.640
<v Speaker 2>we think we bring this back, it can change the climate. Like, wow,

0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:27.880
<v Speaker 2>is that a huge Rube Goldberg machine that we do

0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:30.560
<v Speaker 2>not understand? And you start banging on those levers like

0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:34.280
<v Speaker 2>who knows what's going to happen? That seems very dangerous

0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:36.520
<v Speaker 2>to me. To me, that's as bonkers as like the

0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:38.960
<v Speaker 2>folks who want to put sulfur in the atmosphere to

0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:40.880
<v Speaker 2>make it more reflective and see what happens.

0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.520
<v Speaker 1>And I think they would argue that putting sulfur in

0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:47.640
<v Speaker 1>the atmosphere to see what happens is different than trying

0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.480
<v Speaker 1>to revert back to a state that once did exist.

0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:52.720
<v Speaker 1>I totally see your point. And I'm also skeptical that

0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.440
<v Speaker 1>you're going to be able to release wooly mammoths. I mean,

0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:57.400
<v Speaker 1>there's some parts of the world where they'll survive, but

0:16:57.400 --> 0:16:59.680
<v Speaker 1>there won't be a lot of people, and somebody in

0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.680
<v Speaker 1>Russia has put a side land that they've called Plistocene

0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.879
<v Speaker 1>Park for these mammoths. But you know, like in the US,

0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:08.919
<v Speaker 1>farmers were not happy when wolves were reintroduced. Can you

0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.960
<v Speaker 1>imagine suddenly needing to deal with wooly mammoths. I see

0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:16.400
<v Speaker 1>a lot of human animal problems if you actually try

0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:17.080
<v Speaker 1>to work this out.

0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.000
<v Speaker 2>I can imagine all sorts of videos on Twitter and

0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.879
<v Speaker 2>TikTok of a mammoth like crushing a playground, like walking

0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:25.840
<v Speaker 2>through a soccer game, or you.

0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.600
<v Speaker 1>Know, they kill people accidentally. Elephants do accidentally just because

0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:33.679
<v Speaker 1>they're big, lumbering giants. You know, people die to try to,

0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:35.960
<v Speaker 1>you know, give the colossal argument here. The other reasons

0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.200
<v Speaker 1>for why they do it are one along the way,

0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.680
<v Speaker 1>you learn things you didn't expect. And so I watched

0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.800
<v Speaker 1>a video from the chief science officer, her name is

0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:47.200
<v Speaker 1>Best Sapiro, arguing that along the way to studying elephants,

0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.800
<v Speaker 1>they came up with a vaccine for this virus that's

0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.800
<v Speaker 1>really bad for elephants today. So you have to understand

0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.800
<v Speaker 1>elephants today in order to edit them into being something

0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.920
<v Speaker 1>mammoth like. And then they explicitly make this space argument

0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.000
<v Speaker 1>that when we went to the moon there were all

0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.359
<v Speaker 1>of these side benefits along the way, and as we

0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.680
<v Speaker 1>shoot for this you know crazy dream of ours, there's

0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:09.439
<v Speaker 1>probably all sorts of cool stuff we're going to come

0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.240
<v Speaker 1>up with along the way. I feel like you could

0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.119
<v Speaker 1>also argue that if you really wanted to solve this

0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.160
<v Speaker 1>virus problem for the elephants, you should have just invested

0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:18.439
<v Speaker 1>in solving the virus problem for the elephants. But anyway,

0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:21.399
<v Speaker 1>so these are the current arguments for de extinction. You

0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.000
<v Speaker 1>and I discussed a book called Venomous Lumpsucker. It's a

0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:26.080
<v Speaker 1>fictional book, but it deals with some of the ethical

0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:29.159
<v Speaker 1>problems that might arise if people are like, oh, we

0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.800
<v Speaker 1>don't have to worry about driving that animal into extinction

0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:33.359
<v Speaker 1>because we can just bring it back. But you're not

0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.679
<v Speaker 1>bringing back the exact same thing. Any of the like

0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.199
<v Speaker 1>learned behaviors get lost when that last individual dies, and

0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:42.040
<v Speaker 1>they don't come back when you bring the last one back.

0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I really did enjoy that book, Venomous Lumpsucker. It

0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.159
<v Speaker 2>talks about like the corporatization of it and how it

0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.240
<v Speaker 2>just gets folded into economic formulas. But it's fascinating to

0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:52.320
<v Speaker 2>me that none of the arguments you've made so far

0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:55.159
<v Speaker 2>about de extinctification and the motivations of it touch the

0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:58.080
<v Speaker 2>reason I think it's exciting, or the reason I would

0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.960
<v Speaker 2>be enthusiastic about it, which is this that every lost

0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:03.119
<v Speaker 2>species is like a lost bit of treasure. You know,

0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:05.760
<v Speaker 2>each one is evolved over millions or billions of years.

0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.920
<v Speaker 2>It's a solution to a really complex optimization problem. It's fascinating,

0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.840
<v Speaker 2>it's inherently valuable. It may be potentially that creates some medicines,

0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.480
<v Speaker 2>you know, like aspirin from the bark of a tree.

0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:19.560
<v Speaker 2>Who knows what solutions evolution has come up with that

0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:21.640
<v Speaker 2>might be useful. You know, we're just like the value

0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.280
<v Speaker 2>of a species to exist, and it's so tragic that

0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.040
<v Speaker 2>it seems so one directional. You know, once a species

0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:29.560
<v Speaker 2>is extinct, it's gone, maybe gone. I remember having that

0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:31.879
<v Speaker 2>drilled into my head as a kid. It just feels

0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.520
<v Speaker 2>so tragic. It's like a black hole almost right. Things

0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:36.680
<v Speaker 2>fall in and they never come out. So the idea

0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:38.919
<v Speaker 2>of being able to pull these things from beyond the

0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.399
<v Speaker 2>biological event horizon, to me, that's exciting because it opens

0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.200
<v Speaker 2>up a whole world of species that we could maybe

0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.080
<v Speaker 2>bring back I don't know if that's a terrible idea,

0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.360
<v Speaker 2>and I don't actually really want to eat burgers made

0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.480
<v Speaker 2>of these animals, But to me, there's an appeal to

0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:55.200
<v Speaker 2>just bringing things back from beyond the event horizon.

0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:57.280
<v Speaker 1>I think we should revisit this question at the very

0:19:57.359 --> 0:19:59.479
<v Speaker 1>end of the episode. You should decide if what it

0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.840
<v Speaker 1>is that is being brought back actually checks that box

0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.119
<v Speaker 1>that you're talking about, like this thing that's been lost

0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:07.679
<v Speaker 1>is back. So let's take a break and when we

0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.720
<v Speaker 1>get back, we'll talk about what exactly was done to

0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.119
<v Speaker 1>bring back the dire wolf, and we'll revisit your question.

0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:31.960
<v Speaker 1>All right, we're back, and we were just talking about

0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:33.840
<v Speaker 1>why you would bring an animal back from extinction. So

0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:36.000
<v Speaker 1>now let's go into a little bit of detail about

0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:38.880
<v Speaker 1>what Colossal did with the dire wolf. So what exactly

0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:43.359
<v Speaker 1>did they bring back. They had two dire wolves that

0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.000
<v Speaker 1>had died in a way that preserved some of their

0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:47.040
<v Speaker 1>genetic material.

0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:49.280
<v Speaker 2>And when did dire wolves go extinct?

0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:51.879
<v Speaker 1>Then went extinct about thirteen thousand years ago, which is

0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.240
<v Speaker 1>a lot of time for DNA to degrade.

0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:56.520
<v Speaker 2>Even when it's frozen, it still degrades.

0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:58.119
<v Speaker 1>Even when it's frozen, it can still degrade. Yeah, And

0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:00.000
<v Speaker 1>you know often if you're in an area that's frozen,

0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:01.600
<v Speaker 1>and every once in a while it will thaw out

0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.239
<v Speaker 1>a little bit and then it will freeze again, and

0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:06.040
<v Speaker 1>so you know, over time you get these sort of

0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.600
<v Speaker 1>fluctuations that break down the DNA. And so what they

0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.600
<v Speaker 1>did was, first they figured out what the most closely

0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:16.080
<v Speaker 1>related species alive today is and they determined that that's

0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:18.960
<v Speaker 1>the gray wolf. So they got the genome from the

0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:22.240
<v Speaker 1>gray wolf and they use that as a reference. And

0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:24.840
<v Speaker 1>so they put together the genome of the dire wolf

0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.040
<v Speaker 1>as best they could from the sequences that they had,

0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:30.960
<v Speaker 1>and they matched that up to the gray wolf so

0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:32.800
<v Speaker 1>that they could try to figure out where the like

0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:35.359
<v Speaker 1>chunks of DNA that they had collected, because a lot

0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:37.600
<v Speaker 1>of time the DNA gets like broken into pieces and

0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:39.119
<v Speaker 1>then it's like a puzzle. You need to figure out

0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:40.960
<v Speaker 1>where the pieces are supposed to go, and if you

0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:43.240
<v Speaker 1>match it up with the gray wolf, that kind of helps.

0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:45.159
<v Speaker 2>You, all right. So we don't have a complete genome

0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:48.000
<v Speaker 2>of the dire wolf. We have some snapshots and bits,

0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:51.160
<v Speaker 2>some snippets here and there from a couple of dire

0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:53.760
<v Speaker 2>wolves that were frozen thirteen thousand years ago, just from

0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:56.880
<v Speaker 2>two individuals. Yep, Wow, that's amazing. And so to fill

0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:58.879
<v Speaker 2>it out, they compare with the gray wolf, which they

0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.040
<v Speaker 2>think is similar, and it's sort of like sketching out

0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:03.640
<v Speaker 2>the bits that were missing and then also understanding the differences.

0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:04.439
<v Speaker 2>Is that what's going on?

0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:07.040
<v Speaker 1>Yes, And so to try to understand the differences, what

0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:09.639
<v Speaker 1>they did is they'd look at areas where the genomes

0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:13.400
<v Speaker 1>seemed to differ, and they would say, Okay, this genetic

0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:17.640
<v Speaker 1>code in other species has been associated with, for example,

0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.919
<v Speaker 1>white fur coats or with more muscular thighs, and so

0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:24.960
<v Speaker 1>they'd look for areas where the genomes differed and they

0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:27.000
<v Speaker 1>found Why does that make you laugh?

0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.040
<v Speaker 2>Because I'm imagining dire wolves with the like really chunky thighs,

0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:33.560
<v Speaker 2>like looking out the gym like direwolf says, don't skip

0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:34.480
<v Speaker 2>leg dais.

0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:39.040
<v Speaker 1>That is a trait that they honed in on.

0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:40.920
<v Speaker 2>How do we know that just from the frozen diar

0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:42.280
<v Speaker 2>Roves were like, wow, look at those.

0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:44.480
<v Speaker 1>I don't actually know if they were able to tell

0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:47.400
<v Speaker 1>from the frozen dire wolves, but they looked at the

0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:50.080
<v Speaker 1>genotypic sequences and they were like, Okay, this looks a

0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:52.240
<v Speaker 1>little different, and I think often they'd say this looks

0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.239
<v Speaker 1>a little different in ways that are consistent with more

0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:57.879
<v Speaker 1>muscular legs, So that's probably what they had. So they

0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:02.960
<v Speaker 1>ended up deciding that probably dire wolves differed from gray

0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:09.159
<v Speaker 1>wolves by having increased size, broader skulls, a white coat,

0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:13.520
<v Speaker 1>stronger shoulders and legs, and a thick and sort of

0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:14.359
<v Speaker 1>condensed coat.

0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:16.960
<v Speaker 2>They sound kind of awesome. Why did they go extinct?

0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:19.399
<v Speaker 1>They do sound awesome. I don't know why they went extinct.

0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:21.480
<v Speaker 1>Probably humans, that's my guest.

0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:24.640
<v Speaker 2>Too many dire wolf burgers.

0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:28.200
<v Speaker 1>It sounds like, yeah, well, animals can be delicious. It's

0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:31.520
<v Speaker 1>not their fault. And so they found twenty genes that

0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:34.480
<v Speaker 1>they thought, you know, it looks like these are important differences.

0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:37.560
<v Speaker 1>So we're going to take the gray wolf genome and

0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:40.679
<v Speaker 1>we're going to edit it in those twenty locations so

0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:44.120
<v Speaker 1>that it looks like the dire wolf genome. But it's

0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:47.320
<v Speaker 1>important to keep in mind that when an organism is

0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:52.359
<v Speaker 1>expressing a trait, it's not just about the genes that

0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:55.600
<v Speaker 1>it has. It's also about when those genes are turned

0:23:55.640 --> 0:23:57.840
<v Speaker 1>on and how long they're turned on. So you might

0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:00.719
<v Speaker 1>remember when we were talking about coat color when we

0:24:00.720 --> 0:24:04.280
<v Speaker 1>were answering our listener questions episode, Whether or not a

0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:08.040
<v Speaker 1>particular hair cell makes black or white is all about

0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:10.280
<v Speaker 1>whether or not this promoter for a gene is turned

0:24:10.280 --> 0:24:12.080
<v Speaker 1>on or off, whether or not a gene is getting

0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:15.119
<v Speaker 1>the message to make black or not. But none of

0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:20.600
<v Speaker 1>that timing information is probably incorporated in this technique. But

0:24:21.520 --> 0:24:25.120
<v Speaker 1>they did end up getting organisms that look like what

0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:27.960
<v Speaker 1>we imagine dire wolves look like. They sort of look

0:24:28.040 --> 0:24:30.000
<v Speaker 1>like the specimens we've collected. They look like what we

0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:32.960
<v Speaker 1>all saw in Game of Thrones. And so the stuff

0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:35.640
<v Speaker 1>that they took after they edited the genome is they

0:24:35.920 --> 0:24:40.919
<v Speaker 1>put that genetic information into an egg from a gray wolf,

0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:44.639
<v Speaker 1>and then they got that gray wolf pregnant, she carried

0:24:44.680 --> 0:24:47.320
<v Speaker 1>it to term, and she gave birth to a dire wolf.

0:24:47.359 --> 0:24:48.560
<v Speaker 1>And they did that three times.

0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:49.160
<v Speaker 5>Mm.

0:24:50.080 --> 0:24:52.680
<v Speaker 2>So this sort of answer is the deep philosophical question, right,

0:24:52.800 --> 0:24:55.800
<v Speaker 2>what came first the dire wolf for the puppy? I guess,

0:24:56.080 --> 0:24:59.840
<v Speaker 2>because here you implanted a dire wolf into another species

0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:02.560
<v Speaker 2>and it was able to gestate and give birth to it. Yeah,

0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:05.000
<v Speaker 2>and does that require the species to be similar? Like

0:25:05.000 --> 0:25:07.200
<v Speaker 2>you couldn't put that inside an elephant for example.

0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:09.840
<v Speaker 1>Right, that's right. It requires the species to be similar,

0:25:09.880 --> 0:25:13.080
<v Speaker 1>but this is another area where things could be different.

0:25:13.200 --> 0:25:17.320
<v Speaker 1>So maternal effects refers to all of the different ways

0:25:17.359 --> 0:25:20.200
<v Speaker 1>that a fetus is impacted by the mom's body. It

0:25:20.240 --> 0:25:22.960
<v Speaker 1>could be the hormones that she's producing, right, and you know,

0:25:23.000 --> 0:25:25.439
<v Speaker 1>subsequently it can be the bacteria that she passes on

0:25:25.560 --> 0:25:27.440
<v Speaker 1>to her offspring, or the things that you get from

0:25:27.440 --> 0:25:30.280
<v Speaker 1>the milk, including bacteria, and so any of that maternal

0:25:30.320 --> 0:25:33.160
<v Speaker 1>effects stuff that was dire wolf specific, they are now

0:25:33.200 --> 0:25:35.120
<v Speaker 1>getting gray wolf versions of.

0:25:35.480 --> 0:25:37.679
<v Speaker 2>And give us a sensum like the distance between these

0:25:37.680 --> 0:25:40.000
<v Speaker 2>two species. I mean, it's sort of amazing to me

0:25:40.080 --> 0:25:42.080
<v Speaker 2>that you can have one species give birth to another.

0:25:42.359 --> 0:25:44.800
<v Speaker 2>I mean, could you put a human baby inside a

0:25:44.840 --> 0:25:47.520
<v Speaker 2>gorilla for example. I'm not suggesting anybody do that. Yeah,

0:25:47.720 --> 0:25:50.080
<v Speaker 2>this is a thought experiment to think about the difference,

0:25:50.160 --> 0:25:52.719
<v Speaker 2>Like how far away from us could you get and

0:25:52.760 --> 0:25:53.800
<v Speaker 2>still have a live birth.

0:25:54.040 --> 0:25:56.000
<v Speaker 1>I don't think enough experiments have been done where we

0:25:56.040 --> 0:25:57.320
<v Speaker 1>could have a good answer to that.

0:25:57.920 --> 0:26:00.280
<v Speaker 2>It sounds like you're suggesting some human experimentation in there.

0:26:00.280 --> 0:26:01.239
<v Speaker 2>I'm not signing on to that.

0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:04.760
<v Speaker 1>I have absolutely not suggesting that kind of human experimentation.

0:26:04.840 --> 0:26:08.560
<v Speaker 1>I think that's wildly unethical to be clear on the record,

0:26:09.200 --> 0:26:09.919
<v Speaker 1>shouldn't do that.

0:26:10.040 --> 0:26:11.600
<v Speaker 2>But you're saying that the only way to know is

0:26:11.600 --> 0:26:12.400
<v Speaker 2>to do the experiment.

0:26:12.560 --> 0:26:14.040
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think in a lot of cases that would

0:26:14.040 --> 0:26:15.360
<v Speaker 1>be the best way to know. I mean, I think

0:26:15.400 --> 0:26:20.040
<v Speaker 1>closer related species probably have similar requirements. It wouldn't surprise

0:26:20.160 --> 0:26:24.560
<v Speaker 1>me if a chimpanzee or a bonobo could well. But

0:26:24.640 --> 0:26:26.480
<v Speaker 1>so like, we're much bigger than them, and so at

0:26:26.480 --> 0:26:28.680
<v Speaker 1>some point you get to how big is the head

0:26:28.680 --> 0:26:31.719
<v Speaker 1>that's coming through a tiny opening? And like, chimpanzees might

0:26:31.760 --> 0:26:33.120
<v Speaker 1>not be able to survive that part.

0:26:33.320 --> 0:26:36.480
<v Speaker 2>You know, Well, do we know how much experimentation Colossal did,

0:26:36.560 --> 0:26:39.360
<v Speaker 2>Like is this their first attempt and their first success

0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:41.040
<v Speaker 2>or did they have a bunch of failures first?

0:26:41.359 --> 0:26:41.560
<v Speaker 5>Oh?

0:26:41.720 --> 0:26:45.640
<v Speaker 1>You know, I don't know that they have publicly reported

0:26:45.760 --> 0:26:48.800
<v Speaker 1>if there were gray wolves who had miscarriages or who

0:26:48.840 --> 0:26:51.639
<v Speaker 1>died in childbirth or anything. I don't remember seeing anything

0:26:51.680 --> 0:26:54.240
<v Speaker 1>like that. I think in general, they've kept this project

0:26:54.280 --> 0:26:56.520
<v Speaker 1>pretty close to the vest and haven't been releasing too

0:26:56.520 --> 0:26:58.880
<v Speaker 1>many details. But we know that it worked at least

0:26:58.880 --> 0:26:59.399
<v Speaker 1>three times.

0:26:59.600 --> 0:27:01.480
<v Speaker 2>And is this like a scientific project or they can

0:27:01.480 --> 0:27:04.080
<v Speaker 2>be publishing papers in peer review journals, or is it

0:27:04.119 --> 0:27:06.120
<v Speaker 2>a commercial project like they're going to be selling dire

0:27:06.119 --> 0:27:07.480
<v Speaker 2>wolf puppies both.

0:27:07.560 --> 0:27:10.040
<v Speaker 1>I don't have any evidence that they're selling dire wolf puppies.

0:27:10.240 --> 0:27:13.639
<v Speaker 1>They have been publishing scientific papers as they go. So

0:27:13.720 --> 0:27:16.280
<v Speaker 1>for example, they have a paper in review right now

0:27:16.720 --> 0:27:20.320
<v Speaker 1>showing that gray wolves are the closest living relatives to

0:27:20.440 --> 0:27:24.480
<v Speaker 1>the dire wolfs. Beth Shapiro does study ancient DNA, and

0:27:24.560 --> 0:27:27.840
<v Speaker 1>she works on these questions about relatedness between species, and

0:27:27.920 --> 0:27:30.439
<v Speaker 1>so as they go, they're doing a lot of science

0:27:30.440 --> 0:27:32.520
<v Speaker 1>and they're publishing it and sharing it as they go.

0:27:32.880 --> 0:27:34.560
<v Speaker 2>And do you get the sense that this is cutting

0:27:34.600 --> 0:27:36.520
<v Speaker 2>edge science? I know that a lot of times in

0:27:36.600 --> 0:27:39.720
<v Speaker 2>popular science we hear about something and we're told it's amazing,

0:27:39.760 --> 0:27:41.360
<v Speaker 2>and then people in the field are like, yeah, that's

0:27:41.359 --> 0:27:44.440
<v Speaker 2>not very impressive, and Bob over there at Georgia is

0:27:44.440 --> 0:27:46.879
<v Speaker 2>already doing that. Is this cutting edge science?

0:27:47.280 --> 0:27:49.440
<v Speaker 1>I would say that in addition to doing solid science,

0:27:49.520 --> 0:27:52.240
<v Speaker 1>they are doing pretty cutting edge stuff. I do feel

0:27:52.240 --> 0:27:57.560
<v Speaker 1>like bringing back these ancient genes is impressive. I'm not

0:27:57.600 --> 0:28:00.679
<v Speaker 1>feeling completely satisfied at an emotional level that we have

0:28:01.680 --> 0:28:04.399
<v Speaker 1>undone any damage our species might have done. Like, I

0:28:04.440 --> 0:28:07.520
<v Speaker 1>don't necessarily feel like this method does that, but I

0:28:07.560 --> 0:28:10.000
<v Speaker 1>do feel like they've done some pretty interesting stuff.

0:28:10.040 --> 0:28:11.840
<v Speaker 2>All right. So they've started from a gray wolf and

0:28:11.920 --> 0:28:15.959
<v Speaker 2>they've basically taken a big step towards dire wolf DNA,

0:28:16.119 --> 0:28:18.560
<v Speaker 2>not completely all the way there, only twenty edits, but

0:28:18.600 --> 0:28:21.280
<v Speaker 2>still in the sort of information space of DNA. They've

0:28:21.280 --> 0:28:23.720
<v Speaker 2>gone from the gray wolf towards a dire wolf and

0:28:23.760 --> 0:28:26.240
<v Speaker 2>then successfully given birth to this critter which is like

0:28:26.320 --> 0:28:28.720
<v Speaker 2>alive in running around and baying at the moon and

0:28:28.760 --> 0:28:31.280
<v Speaker 2>stuff like that. So I guess the question then is like,

0:28:31.720 --> 0:28:33.880
<v Speaker 2>is this a dire wolf? What is this thing?

0:28:34.400 --> 0:28:34.560
<v Speaker 5>Right?

0:28:34.640 --> 0:28:36.400
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so that is the big question. And I want

0:28:36.440 --> 0:28:38.600
<v Speaker 1>to real quick say something that maybe I wish I

0:28:38.600 --> 0:28:40.600
<v Speaker 1>had mentioned earlier, which is that we don't yet have

0:28:40.680 --> 0:28:44.960
<v Speaker 1>the ability to print genomes. So even if you did have,

0:28:45.080 --> 0:28:48.680
<v Speaker 1>for example, the entire direwolf genome read out, we don't

0:28:48.720 --> 0:28:52.160
<v Speaker 1>have a machine that can print an entire genome at

0:28:52.200 --> 0:28:54.680
<v Speaker 1>a reasonable cost, like I think it would be like

0:28:54.680 --> 0:28:57.000
<v Speaker 1>a billion dollars or something. And so that's another reason

0:28:57.040 --> 0:29:00.479
<v Speaker 1>why you take gray wolf genomes and edit them and

0:29:00.520 --> 0:29:02.440
<v Speaker 1>then use that to make the next round of babies.

0:29:02.440 --> 0:29:05.520
<v Speaker 1>So it's possible that in ten twenty years or something,

0:29:05.880 --> 0:29:08.560
<v Speaker 1>you could print everything you know about the dire wolf

0:29:08.640 --> 0:29:11.000
<v Speaker 1>genome instead of picking these twenty genes to tinker with,

0:29:11.080 --> 0:29:13.040
<v Speaker 1>and then you could fill in the spaces with whatever

0:29:13.040 --> 0:29:14.800
<v Speaker 1>you know about the gray wolf genome and get a

0:29:14.800 --> 0:29:17.160
<v Speaker 1>little closer. But these are the techniques we have right now.

0:29:17.240 --> 0:29:20.240
<v Speaker 2>And so when you say print, you mean like synthetically

0:29:20.320 --> 0:29:23.400
<v Speaker 2>assemble from the basic amino acids, because in the end,

0:29:23.440 --> 0:29:25.640
<v Speaker 2>it is just chemistry, right, or like, let's bring these together,

0:29:25.680 --> 0:29:28.280
<v Speaker 2>click them together. This is a molecule we know can exist.

0:29:28.760 --> 0:29:30.480
<v Speaker 2>But you're saying that's still really expensive.

0:29:30.720 --> 0:29:33.360
<v Speaker 1>Exactly, Yeah, it is very expensive. And you know you've

0:29:33.400 --> 0:29:35.680
<v Speaker 1>got billions of base pairs or something in a genome.

0:29:35.760 --> 0:29:38.600
<v Speaker 1>So even if the cost is fairly minor, it adds

0:29:38.640 --> 0:29:39.280
<v Speaker 1>up pretty quick.

0:29:39.400 --> 0:29:41.840
<v Speaker 2>It's the kind of thing that feels like, in ten years,

0:29:41.920 --> 0:29:45.160
<v Speaker 2>it's going to cost seventeen cents. Yeah, maybe it's somebody's

0:29:45.200 --> 0:29:47.760
<v Speaker 2>Pahd thesis and it cost millions of dollars. But biology

0:29:47.960 --> 0:29:50.000
<v Speaker 2>makes these leaps and bounds all the time, where like

0:29:50.000 --> 0:29:52.120
<v Speaker 2>things that used to be Peachd thesis are now like

0:29:52.160 --> 0:29:53.880
<v Speaker 2>a little machine that sits on the bench and it

0:29:53.920 --> 0:29:55.720
<v Speaker 2>takes two minutes and you press the button.

0:29:55.560 --> 0:29:58.800
<v Speaker 1>And I imagine that's both frustrating and exhilarating if you're

0:29:58.800 --> 0:30:01.240
<v Speaker 1>a student who's like I, I spent five years on

0:30:01.320 --> 0:30:03.760
<v Speaker 1>something that now takes thirty minutes. But you know you

0:30:03.840 --> 0:30:06.240
<v Speaker 1>had to be part of the people who made the

0:30:06.280 --> 0:30:07.120
<v Speaker 1>path to get there.

0:30:07.280 --> 0:30:09.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and that's why biology can do so many amazing

0:30:09.880 --> 0:30:12.840
<v Speaker 2>things because things that used to be impossible are now trivial,

0:30:13.000 --> 0:30:15.600
<v Speaker 2>which opens up the space of possibilities for like new

0:30:15.680 --> 0:30:19.560
<v Speaker 2>whole emergent concepts that nobody even imagined before. So yeah,

0:30:19.680 --> 0:30:20.600
<v Speaker 2>I look forward to that.

0:30:20.760 --> 0:30:21.000
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:30:21.040 --> 0:30:23.160
<v Speaker 2>So let's get back to the question. Yeah, is this

0:30:23.240 --> 0:30:26.320
<v Speaker 2>thing that they made a diar wolf Kelly, what's your ruling?

0:30:26.600 --> 0:30:28.600
<v Speaker 1>Well, so before I give you my opinion, I'm going

0:30:28.680 --> 0:30:30.600
<v Speaker 1>to back up and say that, you know, when this

0:30:30.800 --> 0:30:33.800
<v Speaker 1>announcement first came out, apparently, I think it's the New

0:30:33.880 --> 0:30:37.960
<v Speaker 1>Yorker broke the embargo. So when a research group has

0:30:38.000 --> 0:30:40.400
<v Speaker 1>a finding that they want to share, they will send

0:30:40.440 --> 0:30:43.800
<v Speaker 1>a report out to major news organizations and they'll say,

0:30:43.840 --> 0:30:46.080
<v Speaker 1>you can't mention this until we tell you you can

0:30:46.120 --> 0:30:47.880
<v Speaker 1>mention it. But if you want to start writing the

0:30:47.920 --> 0:30:49.840
<v Speaker 1>story now, so that when we give the thumbs up

0:30:49.840 --> 0:30:52.480
<v Speaker 1>you're already ready to go, then we'd be happy to

0:30:52.520 --> 0:30:55.000
<v Speaker 1>talk to you now. And apparently the New Yorker broke

0:30:55.040 --> 0:30:58.240
<v Speaker 1>the embargo. And the way that I heard this story

0:30:58.480 --> 0:31:00.680
<v Speaker 1>was that they have brought back the die wolf. And

0:31:01.080 --> 0:31:02.640
<v Speaker 1>you know, Zach even sent it to me and he

0:31:02.720 --> 0:31:04.840
<v Speaker 1>was like, the dire wolf is back. How cool is that?

0:31:05.280 --> 0:31:08.520
<v Speaker 1>And we both actually should have been a little bit

0:31:08.560 --> 0:31:11.920
<v Speaker 1>more skeptical because we had interviewed Beth Shapiro, who's the

0:31:11.960 --> 0:31:14.920
<v Speaker 1>chief science officer for Colossal, for our book Soon Is,

0:31:15.000 --> 0:31:17.719
<v Speaker 1>because we had a little section on de extinction and

0:31:18.040 --> 0:31:20.120
<v Speaker 1>she had made very clear in that interview what the

0:31:20.160 --> 0:31:23.560
<v Speaker 1>process actually involves, which is not making an exact replica.

0:31:23.840 --> 0:31:27.120
<v Speaker 1>But in the days after that article that Zach sent

0:31:27.160 --> 0:31:30.000
<v Speaker 1>me from Time that was like, we have the dire wolf. Now,

0:31:30.040 --> 0:31:32.960
<v Speaker 1>there's been a lot of like anger heaped on Colossal

0:31:33.040 --> 0:31:35.760
<v Speaker 1>for being like, this isn't a dire wolf. And so

0:31:36.120 --> 0:31:39.840
<v Speaker 1>Beth Shapiro, again the chief science officer, has said, you know,

0:31:39.880 --> 0:31:43.080
<v Speaker 1>there's something like thirty definitions of a species out there,

0:31:43.080 --> 0:31:45.200
<v Speaker 1>and she's right, there's a big debate about what counts

0:31:45.240 --> 0:31:49.000
<v Speaker 1>as a species and the dire wolf that Colossal made

0:31:50.000 --> 0:31:54.160
<v Speaker 1>fits some of those definitions, but doesn't fit others I see.

0:31:54.280 --> 0:31:56.640
<v Speaker 1>And so the question is, you know, to what extent

0:31:56.640 --> 0:31:58.720
<v Speaker 1>should you be excited about this? And I think from

0:31:58.720 --> 0:32:02.360
<v Speaker 1>the standpoint of of wonder, you know, like bringing back

0:32:02.400 --> 0:32:05.239
<v Speaker 1>an organism that so many people want to see, like

0:32:05.280 --> 0:32:07.080
<v Speaker 1>from Game of Thrones for example. You know, I can

0:32:07.200 --> 0:32:10.600
<v Speaker 1>imagine you put these dire wolves in a zoo and

0:32:10.640 --> 0:32:13.920
<v Speaker 1>people get more excited about conservation. I can see some

0:32:14.040 --> 0:32:17.160
<v Speaker 1>benefits in that regard, but I guess again, my concern

0:32:17.200 --> 0:32:19.760
<v Speaker 1>is that people are going to feel like the moral

0:32:19.880 --> 0:32:22.360
<v Speaker 1>responsibility that should be on our shoulders for killing a

0:32:22.440 --> 0:32:25.080
<v Speaker 1>species could go away if we're able to bring these

0:32:25.080 --> 0:32:27.960
<v Speaker 1>species back. But again, we don't know if their behaviors

0:32:28.000 --> 0:32:30.920
<v Speaker 1>are natural. Maybe there were very unique behaviors that were

0:32:30.960 --> 0:32:33.040
<v Speaker 1>taught to them by their mothers that they'll never express

0:32:33.080 --> 0:32:35.160
<v Speaker 1>now because there's no one there to teach them those things.

0:32:35.360 --> 0:32:37.000
<v Speaker 1>And so you know, to me, they differ in ways

0:32:37.040 --> 0:32:39.000
<v Speaker 1>that matter because I don't think you could ever release

0:32:39.040 --> 0:32:41.320
<v Speaker 1>them back out into the wild. They'll never fill their

0:32:41.320 --> 0:32:43.880
<v Speaker 1>ecological role. They won't be what we lost.

0:32:44.200 --> 0:32:46.360
<v Speaker 2>Could be something else though, right like if they escape

0:32:46.360 --> 0:32:49.160
<v Speaker 2>into the wild. They could create some new niche from themselves.

0:32:49.200 --> 0:32:51.360
<v Speaker 2>They could be invasive, right, and we could be overrun

0:32:51.400 --> 0:32:54.240
<v Speaker 2>with dire wolves or you know, ancient guinea pigs with

0:32:54.400 --> 0:32:56.640
<v Speaker 2>really strong legs or whatever we're going to bring back next.

0:32:56.880 --> 0:33:01.160
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, what do you think they bring back the dire wolf?

0:33:01.160 --> 0:33:01.880
<v Speaker 1>Are you excited?

0:33:02.000 --> 0:33:04.560
<v Speaker 2>I think it's really cool and an awesome demonstration of

0:33:04.600 --> 0:33:07.960
<v Speaker 2>biological technology. It doesn't feel to me like they brought

0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:10.760
<v Speaker 2>back the direwolf. I mean, I imagine if humans went

0:33:10.800 --> 0:33:14.440
<v Speaker 2>extinct and then in the future AI brought back something

0:33:14.560 --> 0:33:17.280
<v Speaker 2>kind of similar to humans and they're like, look, yeah,

0:33:17.360 --> 0:33:19.680
<v Speaker 2>we didn't kill them all there back. I wouldn't really

0:33:19.680 --> 0:33:22.520
<v Speaker 2>feel like we're back. And so, yeah, it doesn't really

0:33:22.520 --> 0:33:25.719
<v Speaker 2>feel like the direwolf, but doesn't have to be, right, Like,

0:33:26.160 --> 0:33:29.200
<v Speaker 2>this shows that you can do biological engineering in a

0:33:29.240 --> 0:33:31.480
<v Speaker 2>really cool way. You can start from one animal. You

0:33:31.520 --> 0:33:34.720
<v Speaker 2>can move through that information space towards another animal you

0:33:34.720 --> 0:33:38.120
<v Speaker 2>think is interesting or useful or cool or worth bringing back,

0:33:38.280 --> 0:33:40.200
<v Speaker 2>and you could do that multiple times. Right, You could

0:33:40.200 --> 0:33:41.960
<v Speaker 2>go in the direwolf direction and you could add a

0:33:42.000 --> 0:33:44.560
<v Speaker 2>little bit of fox or something. I think this opens

0:33:44.640 --> 0:33:46.720
<v Speaker 2>up a whole new avenue. I think that's the exciting

0:33:46.800 --> 0:33:50.520
<v Speaker 2>thing about it, not like, oh, we have cleansed ourselves

0:33:50.680 --> 0:33:52.080
<v Speaker 2>of this crime we committed.

0:33:52.240 --> 0:33:53.760
<v Speaker 1>And I think that is a great point. So if

0:33:53.760 --> 0:33:57.560
<v Speaker 1>you're trying to understand what makes two species that are

0:33:57.560 --> 0:34:00.440
<v Speaker 1>closely related different, this now does get of us the

0:34:00.480 --> 0:34:02.920
<v Speaker 1>tools to answer those questions. You know, is it this gene?

0:34:03.000 --> 0:34:04.600
<v Speaker 1>Is it that gene? What happens if you take her

0:34:04.600 --> 0:34:06.680
<v Speaker 1>with this gene? And so we do now have this

0:34:06.760 --> 0:34:10.880
<v Speaker 1>amazing ability to better understand how the genome results in

0:34:10.920 --> 0:34:14.520
<v Speaker 1>differences in appearance and function for organisms. That's pretty cool.

0:34:14.640 --> 0:34:16.680
<v Speaker 2>And we could take chihuahuas and give them like really

0:34:16.680 --> 0:34:18.840
<v Speaker 2>strong legs, that would be really amazing. I'd like to

0:34:18.840 --> 0:34:20.600
<v Speaker 2>see that totally buff chihuahua's.

0:34:21.080 --> 0:34:23.400
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, my daughter would absolutely adopt one of those. But

0:34:23.440 --> 0:34:26.920
<v Speaker 1>she would adopt any chihuahua, no matter how pitiful they look.

0:34:27.280 --> 0:34:29.120
<v Speaker 2>You know, I used to be kind of anti chihuahua

0:34:29.160 --> 0:34:31.560
<v Speaker 2>because I thought about them as like little gappy dogs.

0:34:31.960 --> 0:34:35.000
<v Speaker 2>But the dog that we adopted, he's like forty percent chihuahua,

0:34:35.719 --> 0:34:38.279
<v Speaker 2>but he's really wonderful and he never barks. He's like

0:34:38.480 --> 0:34:41.320
<v Speaker 2>German shepherd and chihuahua, which is an interesting combination.

0:34:41.480 --> 0:34:42.400
<v Speaker 1>How did that happen?

0:34:42.480 --> 0:34:45.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there was an interesting evening or somebody somewhere. Yeah,

0:34:45.120 --> 0:34:48.680
<v Speaker 2>one night in Mexico. But he's got this wonderful German

0:34:48.719 --> 0:34:51.279
<v Speaker 2>shepherd plus chihuahua face. It's like German shepherd but a

0:34:51.280 --> 0:34:53.239
<v Speaker 2>little bit of sad eyes. I don't know. Oh, I

0:34:53.280 --> 0:34:53.719
<v Speaker 2>love him.

0:34:53.840 --> 0:34:54.800
<v Speaker 1>That sounds wonderful.

0:34:55.160 --> 0:34:56.880
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so I'm warming up the chihuahua.

0:34:57.120 --> 0:34:57.400
<v Speaker 5>All right.

0:34:57.440 --> 0:34:59.560
<v Speaker 1>Well, let's take a break and then when we come

0:34:59.600 --> 0:35:02.120
<v Speaker 1>back to talk a little bit more about their plans

0:35:02.120 --> 0:35:04.080
<v Speaker 1>for bringing back the mammoth, which we talked about a

0:35:04.120 --> 0:35:07.719
<v Speaker 1>little bit earlier. So start dreaming of mammoth steakes and

0:35:07.760 --> 0:35:27.120
<v Speaker 1>we'll be back to you soon. And we're back from

0:35:27.120 --> 0:35:29.920
<v Speaker 1>the commercial break, which seems like a fine time to

0:35:30.040 --> 0:35:32.920
<v Speaker 1>mention that. On Apple, if you subscribe to our podcast,

0:35:33.000 --> 0:35:35.719
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0:35:35.760 --> 0:35:37.880
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0:35:38.080 --> 0:35:39.880
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0:35:39.920 --> 0:35:40.279
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0:35:40.480 --> 0:35:42.040
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0:35:42.080 --> 0:35:43.600
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0:35:43.760 --> 0:35:48.319
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0:35:48.440 --> 0:35:49.680
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0:35:50.920 --> 0:35:53.359
<v Speaker 2>And you'll be forced to listen to them all retroactively.

0:35:54.480 --> 0:35:56.680
<v Speaker 2>Oh no, that's not what we're doing today. We're talking

0:35:56.680 --> 0:36:02.480
<v Speaker 2>about retroactive undeletion of animals called de extinctificationisism. Tell us

0:36:02.560 --> 0:36:04.640
<v Speaker 2>about how we might bring back the wooly mammoth. Now,

0:36:04.680 --> 0:36:07.120
<v Speaker 2>I've been joking about dire wolf steaks, but a lot

0:36:07.160 --> 0:36:09.320
<v Speaker 2>of humans made it through the winter on the meat

0:36:09.360 --> 0:36:11.440
<v Speaker 2>of the wooly mammoth. Isn't that true? It's really something

0:36:11.520 --> 0:36:12.880
<v Speaker 2>humans have eaten for a long time.

0:36:13.160 --> 0:36:14.960
<v Speaker 1>I think that is true. Yeah, I think we did

0:36:15.000 --> 0:36:17.120
<v Speaker 1>eat wooly mammoth. I mean they give you a large

0:36:17.200 --> 0:36:19.279
<v Speaker 1>quantity of food, whether it's delicious or not.

0:36:19.719 --> 0:36:22.719
<v Speaker 2>Based on my research, mostly from reading Farside comics, I

0:36:22.719 --> 0:36:24.600
<v Speaker 2>think a lot of humans have did with the mammoths.

0:36:25.600 --> 0:36:28.160
<v Speaker 1>I mean, Gary Larson never got anything wrong ever, I

0:36:28.200 --> 0:36:30.000
<v Speaker 1>think so I'm on board with that.

0:36:30.080 --> 0:36:32.319
<v Speaker 2>You have the best science consultants.

0:36:31.719 --> 0:36:36.320
<v Speaker 1>For sure, he did. He did so. Mammoths went extinct

0:36:36.320 --> 0:36:39.560
<v Speaker 1>about four thousand years ago, and so when you find

0:36:39.600 --> 0:36:42.080
<v Speaker 1>a specimen preserved the right way, you can get more

0:36:42.080 --> 0:36:44.560
<v Speaker 1>information out of it. And they tended to live in

0:36:44.640 --> 0:36:46.880
<v Speaker 1>cold areas like tundras, so I think you've got a

0:36:46.920 --> 0:36:50.200
<v Speaker 1>slightly better chance at getting their DNA in the first place,

0:36:50.400 --> 0:36:52.480
<v Speaker 1>and so we found a lot of mammoths that are

0:36:52.520 --> 0:36:54.720
<v Speaker 1>preserved in a way where you can get some DNA

0:36:54.760 --> 0:36:56.920
<v Speaker 1>from them. So we have a lot more information to

0:36:57.000 --> 0:36:59.520
<v Speaker 1>work with than we did with the dire wolf and

0:36:59.640 --> 0:37:02.319
<v Speaker 1>so in this case. But again it's still difficult, and

0:37:02.360 --> 0:37:03.960
<v Speaker 1>I just want to highlight a couple of reasons why

0:37:03.960 --> 0:37:06.520
<v Speaker 1>it's difficult. We talked about the DNA degrading, and that

0:37:06.640 --> 0:37:09.000
<v Speaker 1>makes it hard and it breaks into little pieces. But

0:37:09.120 --> 0:37:11.759
<v Speaker 1>you also have to be sure that you're not getting contamination.

0:37:11.960 --> 0:37:15.720
<v Speaker 1>So for example, when that mammoth died, bacteria probably started

0:37:15.760 --> 0:37:18.440
<v Speaker 1>to break it down before it completely froze through, So

0:37:18.480 --> 0:37:19.920
<v Speaker 1>you have to make sure you're not getting any of

0:37:19.960 --> 0:37:23.759
<v Speaker 1>those bacterial genomes in your genome. Or you know, some

0:37:23.880 --> 0:37:26.600
<v Speaker 1>clumsy scientists didn't have their gloves on the whole time.

0:37:26.880 --> 0:37:30.000
<v Speaker 1>Now you've got human DNA in there. So not only

0:37:30.000 --> 0:37:33.200
<v Speaker 1>do you have to try to find the ancient DNA

0:37:33.239 --> 0:37:34.600
<v Speaker 1>and figure out what to do with it, you need

0:37:34.600 --> 0:37:37.040
<v Speaker 1>to make sure that all of the DNA that's contaminating

0:37:37.120 --> 0:37:38.080
<v Speaker 1>it has been removed.

0:37:38.160 --> 0:37:40.520
<v Speaker 2>This sounds like an awesome update of the fly Guman

0:37:40.640 --> 0:37:45.440
<v Speaker 2>accidentally injects their DNA into the mammothtinctification project. Weird mammoth

0:37:45.480 --> 0:37:47.719
<v Speaker 2>baby comes out with like Jeff Goldbloom's head on.

0:37:47.680 --> 0:37:51.120
<v Speaker 1>It, I'd feel so weird about that. Jeff Goldbloom is

0:37:51.160 --> 0:37:52.240
<v Speaker 1>so handsome.

0:37:52.880 --> 0:37:56.400
<v Speaker 2>You'd make a great mammoth. I think, okay, all right, anyway, Netflix,

0:37:56.480 --> 0:37:57.800
<v Speaker 2>call us if you want to turn that into a

0:37:57.840 --> 0:37:58.440
<v Speaker 2>real project.

0:37:58.480 --> 0:38:00.000
<v Speaker 1>We've got lots of other ideas too.

0:38:02.040 --> 0:38:04.200
<v Speaker 2>Few more terrible than that, but yes, we do, right,

0:38:04.480 --> 0:38:07.240
<v Speaker 2>all right. So you get this DNA from the specimen,

0:38:07.280 --> 0:38:09.400
<v Speaker 2>and I think it is similar living species, right for

0:38:09.440 --> 0:38:11.319
<v Speaker 2>a reference, don't you? What are you using the case

0:38:11.360 --> 0:38:11.880
<v Speaker 2>of the mammoth.

0:38:12.080 --> 0:38:14.719
<v Speaker 1>So there are three living species of elephants. There are

0:38:14.719 --> 0:38:17.399
<v Speaker 1>two African elephants. One lives in the forest and one

0:38:17.400 --> 0:38:20.000
<v Speaker 1>lives in the grasslands or the savannahs, and then there

0:38:20.080 --> 0:38:23.680
<v Speaker 1>is an Asian elephant. The Asian elephant they think is

0:38:23.880 --> 0:38:27.879
<v Speaker 1>closer genetically to the wooly mammoths, and so they're using

0:38:27.920 --> 0:38:32.600
<v Speaker 1>the Asian elephant as their reference genome. They are trying

0:38:32.640 --> 0:38:36.720
<v Speaker 1>to essentially make a more cold adapted Asian elephant because

0:38:36.719 --> 0:38:39.200
<v Speaker 1>again they are saying that they want to release the

0:38:39.200 --> 0:38:42.400
<v Speaker 1>wooly mammoth into what would have been its native environment,

0:38:42.840 --> 0:38:45.160
<v Speaker 1>so they're trying to create a wooly mammoth that can

0:38:45.200 --> 0:38:48.440
<v Speaker 1>survive there, and so they're looking at things like shaggy hair,

0:38:49.120 --> 0:38:52.160
<v Speaker 1>fat deposits. They also want to bring back the curved tusks,

0:38:52.200 --> 0:38:54.440
<v Speaker 1>and I think maybe that's partly because those are just

0:38:54.480 --> 0:38:58.040
<v Speaker 1>like iconic mammoth things, but also maybe they're important for

0:38:58.120 --> 0:39:03.000
<v Speaker 1>knocking down trees. And so they've identified sixty five genes

0:39:03.200 --> 0:39:06.920
<v Speaker 1>that they think could make the Asian elephant more cold tolerant,

0:39:07.360 --> 0:39:09.759
<v Speaker 1>and so they're going to make these edits to the

0:39:09.800 --> 0:39:12.640
<v Speaker 1>Asian elephant genome. And then they're not sure if they're

0:39:12.640 --> 0:39:16.960
<v Speaker 1>going to impregnate an African elephant or an Asian elephant,

0:39:17.040 --> 0:39:20.920
<v Speaker 1>because the African elephant is bigger than the Asian elephant,

0:39:21.560 --> 0:39:23.640
<v Speaker 1>and so they think it might have a better time

0:39:23.920 --> 0:39:28.080
<v Speaker 1>giving birth to a wooly mammoth baby. And elephants are

0:39:28.120 --> 0:39:31.000
<v Speaker 1>pregnant for some crazy amount of time, like a whole

0:39:31.080 --> 0:39:33.279
<v Speaker 1>year or something. Maybe if it's even longer basically.

0:39:32.960 --> 0:39:35.200
<v Speaker 2>Like two years, two years, I think, yeah.

0:39:35.000 --> 0:39:37.440
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think it's something like twenty two months. Can

0:39:37.480 --> 0:39:42.240
<v Speaker 1>you imagine carrying around a wooly mammoth baby for twenty

0:39:42.280 --> 0:39:44.960
<v Speaker 1>two months If they're bigger than Asian elephants. That sounds

0:39:45.320 --> 0:39:51.000
<v Speaker 1>incredibly unpleasant. But anyway, and it's not even yours, and

0:39:51.080 --> 0:39:53.520
<v Speaker 1>it's not even yours, right, but in.

0:39:53.400 --> 0:39:55.080
<v Speaker 2>Some sense it is right you were saying earlier. The

0:39:55.120 --> 0:39:58.440
<v Speaker 2>maternal environment is an important factor. Right, It's not like

0:39:58.480 --> 0:40:02.240
<v Speaker 2>when you're the surrogate, you're just some sort of irrelevant host.

0:40:02.560 --> 0:40:04.760
<v Speaker 2>Like the maternal environment plays a role in the development

0:40:04.800 --> 0:40:05.280
<v Speaker 2>of the baby.

0:40:05.480 --> 0:40:07.080
<v Speaker 1>Yes, that's right, and the things you eat might be

0:40:07.120 --> 0:40:10.720
<v Speaker 1>playing a role. And then also after elephants are born,

0:40:11.360 --> 0:40:14.319
<v Speaker 1>Beth Shapiro was telling me that they often consume some

0:40:14.400 --> 0:40:17.520
<v Speaker 1>of the feces of family members to get their microbiome.

0:40:17.640 --> 0:40:20.520
<v Speaker 1>Makes sense, Yeah, And so if the wooly mammoth had

0:40:20.560 --> 0:40:24.080
<v Speaker 1>a wooly mammoth specific microbiome, they're going to be getting

0:40:24.160 --> 0:40:28.279
<v Speaker 1>an Asian or African elephant specific microbiome. But anyway, so

0:40:28.280 --> 0:40:30.360
<v Speaker 1>they're going to be growing up with an Asian or

0:40:30.440 --> 0:40:34.879
<v Speaker 1>African elephant parent. And then the plan is to yeah,

0:40:35.000 --> 0:40:37.440
<v Speaker 1>release them into the wild at some point to try

0:40:37.440 --> 0:40:39.839
<v Speaker 1>to recreate what the wooly mammoths were doing.

0:40:40.320 --> 0:40:42.879
<v Speaker 2>That's a whole fascinating other angle. I never even thought

0:40:42.880 --> 0:40:45.320
<v Speaker 2>about the microbiome of these creatures, right, which is usually

0:40:45.320 --> 0:40:48.479
<v Speaker 2>passed down from the parents. If you bring a species back,

0:40:48.680 --> 0:40:51.799
<v Speaker 2>it's microbiome has gone extinct with it, And obviously you

0:40:51.840 --> 0:40:54.040
<v Speaker 2>don't have the DNA or its microbiome unless you like

0:40:54.120 --> 0:40:57.120
<v Speaker 2>dug into its gut and found those bacteria and sequence

0:40:57.200 --> 0:41:00.560
<v Speaker 2>their DNA also, and that could somehow replicate that. That's

0:41:00.560 --> 0:41:03.200
<v Speaker 2>a whole other fascinating dimension it is. Or maybe you're

0:41:03.200 --> 0:41:05.600
<v Speaker 2>just going to end up with decincified species members with

0:41:05.719 --> 0:41:07.160
<v Speaker 2>like bad digestive problem.

0:41:07.360 --> 0:41:11.120
<v Speaker 1>Direwolf with IBD could be I mean, maybe they were

0:41:11.239 --> 0:41:15.680
<v Speaker 1>essentially the ecosystems that like cold adapted bacteria were thriving in,

0:41:16.040 --> 0:41:18.680
<v Speaker 1>and maybe you've lost those bacteria altogether. Maybe you can't

0:41:18.719 --> 0:41:20.160
<v Speaker 1>bring them back. I don't know, who knows.

0:41:20.320 --> 0:41:23.239
<v Speaker 2>We could end up with like wooly mammoths with horrible diarrhea.

0:41:23.320 --> 0:41:27.440
<v Speaker 1>Oh man, IBD wooly mammoths. That would be a bummer.

0:41:28.320 --> 0:41:30.640
<v Speaker 2>That'd be quite a science achievement, though, wouldn't it.

0:41:31.280 --> 0:41:31.959
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I guess.

0:41:32.000 --> 0:41:36.040
<v Speaker 2>So, So where do we stand on this progress towards

0:41:36.320 --> 0:41:38.960
<v Speaker 2>creating these diarrhea spraying elephants.

0:41:40.440 --> 0:41:43.879
<v Speaker 1>So they are claiming that in five years they will

0:41:43.920 --> 0:41:47.560
<v Speaker 1>be able to bring a cold adapted Asian elephant into

0:41:47.560 --> 0:41:49.800
<v Speaker 1>the worlds that you could call the colossal wooly mammoth.

0:41:50.000 --> 0:41:51.320
<v Speaker 1>That's a pretty short timeframe.

0:41:51.680 --> 0:41:54.120
<v Speaker 2>How reliable are they with their predictions? Did they predict

0:41:54.239 --> 0:41:56.319
<v Speaker 2>their ability to do the Direwolf or is this sort

0:41:56.320 --> 0:41:58.200
<v Speaker 2>of like Elon Musk like projections.

0:41:58.480 --> 0:42:00.439
<v Speaker 1>I don't know that we have the data to make

0:42:00.480 --> 0:42:03.240
<v Speaker 1>those statements yet, because my sense was that the dire

0:42:03.320 --> 0:42:07.160
<v Speaker 1>Wolf surprised everybody, like they didn't really let folks know

0:42:07.280 --> 0:42:08.719
<v Speaker 1>where they were, and then all of a sudden they

0:42:08.760 --> 0:42:10.560
<v Speaker 1>were like, hey, we've done it. I don't know. This

0:42:10.680 --> 0:42:13.759
<v Speaker 1>sounds like an incredible amount of work. And additionally, you know,

0:42:13.880 --> 0:42:15.520
<v Speaker 1>I don't think they've gotten to the step yet where

0:42:15.560 --> 0:42:18.640
<v Speaker 1>you try to impregnate either of the elephants, and you know,

0:42:18.640 --> 0:42:22.200
<v Speaker 1>if you get halfway through that pregnancy and then it fails,

0:42:22.280 --> 0:42:24.480
<v Speaker 1>you've got another year to wait. And so I think

0:42:24.600 --> 0:42:27.160
<v Speaker 1>it's hard to figure out the timing for that stage

0:42:27.160 --> 0:42:29.239
<v Speaker 1>in particular, Like maybe they have a good handle on

0:42:29.239 --> 0:42:31.319
<v Speaker 1>how long the gene editing takes now, but if it's

0:42:31.360 --> 0:42:33.160
<v Speaker 1>going to take in the elephants or not, I don't

0:42:33.200 --> 0:42:35.839
<v Speaker 1>think we know yet. Fascinating one of the benefits that

0:42:35.880 --> 0:42:38.879
<v Speaker 1>they're touting to this technique is that along the way

0:42:39.000 --> 0:42:43.359
<v Speaker 1>they've done research on elephant endoheliotropic herpes viruses, which are

0:42:43.400 --> 0:42:46.160
<v Speaker 1>a leading cause of death in wild elephants. You'll note

0:42:46.239 --> 0:42:50.200
<v Speaker 1>I can't correctly say prions or prions, but I think

0:42:50.280 --> 0:42:54.479
<v Speaker 1>I got endoheliotropic herpes viruses out. Okay, sounded good, Yeah, great,

0:42:54.480 --> 0:42:56.920
<v Speaker 1>thank you. And so they've been working to understand that

0:42:56.960 --> 0:42:59.200
<v Speaker 1>this is a leading cause of death in wild elephants

0:42:59.200 --> 0:43:01.279
<v Speaker 1>and I think also in zoo populations. And so you know,

0:43:01.280 --> 0:43:03.239
<v Speaker 1>they're arguing that one of the benefits is all of

0:43:03.280 --> 0:43:06.120
<v Speaker 1>this science that comes along on the ride that they

0:43:06.120 --> 0:43:09.160
<v Speaker 1>figure out our moonshot. They say they're about five years away,

0:43:09.760 --> 0:43:11.719
<v Speaker 1>and we're gonna have to wait and see how they do.

0:43:11.840 --> 0:43:14.560
<v Speaker 1>They also have a project in the works on the

0:43:14.560 --> 0:43:16.880
<v Speaker 1>thylacine and another one on the dodo.

0:43:17.239 --> 0:43:19.640
<v Speaker 2>What's the thylacine? That sounds like an amino acid?

0:43:19.880 --> 0:43:22.439
<v Speaker 1>That does sound like an amino acid. Now you're making

0:43:22.440 --> 0:43:25.120
<v Speaker 1>me wonder today. Write the name wrong. It really sounds

0:43:25.160 --> 0:43:27.440
<v Speaker 1>like an amino acid. No, that's actually an animal.

0:43:27.520 --> 0:43:28.800
<v Speaker 2>Oh it's a Tasmanian tiger.

0:43:28.920 --> 0:43:31.439
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and that only went extinct in nineteen thirty six,

0:43:31.719 --> 0:43:34.040
<v Speaker 1>and so I think we have a fair number of

0:43:34.080 --> 0:43:37.000
<v Speaker 1>specimens that were like stuck in freezers from animals that

0:43:37.000 --> 0:43:39.080
<v Speaker 1>were held in zoos back when we were like, oh wait,

0:43:39.120 --> 0:43:40.920
<v Speaker 1>we should try to turn this all around. Oh we

0:43:41.000 --> 0:43:43.919
<v Speaker 1>waited too long. So yeah, they're working on that. They're

0:43:43.920 --> 0:43:47.280
<v Speaker 1>working on the Dodo, and the Dodo went extinct something

0:43:47.320 --> 0:43:50.200
<v Speaker 1>like three hundred years ago, and so you know, both

0:43:50.200 --> 0:43:54.799
<v Speaker 1>of those projects, the animals are thousands of years less

0:43:54.840 --> 0:43:57.759
<v Speaker 1>dead than the others, but those projects are also in

0:43:57.800 --> 0:43:58.480
<v Speaker 1>the works.

0:43:58.360 --> 0:44:01.880
<v Speaker 2>And those feel like efforts to write some wrong, you know,

0:44:01.920 --> 0:44:04.760
<v Speaker 2>to undo some crime that we committed by like lazily

0:44:04.840 --> 0:44:08.400
<v Speaker 2>or sloppily or greedily or selfishly wiping out some species.

0:44:08.480 --> 0:44:11.520
<v Speaker 1>And you know, I should be clear that Colossal's website

0:44:11.600 --> 0:44:15.799
<v Speaker 1>isn't saying de extinction rights past wrongs. I think what

0:44:16.120 --> 0:44:19.080
<v Speaker 1>they are arguing is that the science is important. I'm

0:44:19.120 --> 0:44:20.719
<v Speaker 1>sure a lot of people go to work every day

0:44:20.760 --> 0:44:23.520
<v Speaker 1>because it sounds awesome to bring back the dire wolf,

0:44:23.520 --> 0:44:25.560
<v Speaker 1>and it's important to be excited about your job, and

0:44:25.719 --> 0:44:29.640
<v Speaker 1>they believe in this, like replacing of ecosystem processes that

0:44:29.680 --> 0:44:32.800
<v Speaker 1>were lost when the organisms went extinct. But I agree

0:44:32.840 --> 0:44:35.279
<v Speaker 1>that does feel to me also like a get out

0:44:35.280 --> 0:44:37.160
<v Speaker 1>a jail free card for the things that we've done

0:44:37.160 --> 0:44:37.680
<v Speaker 1>in the past.

0:44:37.960 --> 0:44:40.840
<v Speaker 2>Then let's revisit one of the Solar System's greatest crimes,

0:44:41.160 --> 0:44:44.040
<v Speaker 2>which is wiping out the dinosaurs sixty five million years ago.

0:44:44.360 --> 0:44:47.160
<v Speaker 2>So Kelly is Colossal going to open Jurassic Park at

0:44:47.200 --> 0:44:47.600
<v Speaker 2>some point.

0:44:48.000 --> 0:44:50.720
<v Speaker 1>So I asked Beth Shapiro this like a decade ago,

0:44:50.960 --> 0:44:54.600
<v Speaker 1>and her answer was no. And I was like, but

0:44:54.680 --> 0:45:00.560
<v Speaker 1>like maybe when the technology advances, and she was like, no, never, never, never,

0:45:00.800 --> 0:45:04.560
<v Speaker 1>why never? And she's like, look, you almost certainly can't

0:45:04.640 --> 0:45:07.799
<v Speaker 1>read DNA sequences that are over a million years old,

0:45:08.760 --> 0:45:11.399
<v Speaker 1>and so we just don't have the DNA to work

0:45:11.440 --> 0:45:16.120
<v Speaker 1>off of from fossils. And so what you could do

0:45:16.320 --> 0:45:18.839
<v Speaker 1>is you could say, all right, I know that this

0:45:18.960 --> 0:45:22.600
<v Speaker 1>gene controls feathers, and this gene controls teeth, and this

0:45:22.719 --> 0:45:26.560
<v Speaker 1>gene controls mouth size, and you could try using what

0:45:26.640 --> 0:45:30.920
<v Speaker 1>you knew and some dinosaur like reference genome to like

0:45:30.960 --> 0:45:35.279
<v Speaker 1>tinker with that and make something dinosaur oid. But she's like,

0:45:35.320 --> 0:45:38.600
<v Speaker 1>you're never gonna bring back t Rex as it was.

0:45:38.880 --> 0:45:41.960
<v Speaker 1>You could bring back some frank and Rex that was

0:45:42.000 --> 0:45:42.520
<v Speaker 1>your best.

0:45:42.560 --> 0:45:45.560
<v Speaker 2>Guess you could bring back t Rex with even stronger

0:45:45.680 --> 0:45:48.280
<v Speaker 2>thighs and diarrhea like the Wooly Mammoth.

0:45:48.840 --> 0:45:52.439
<v Speaker 1>You're really on the thigh thing. I'm guessing you never

0:45:52.440 --> 0:45:57.160
<v Speaker 1>skip thy day, Daniel or leg Day leg Day.

0:45:57.800 --> 0:45:59.600
<v Speaker 2>I think that's too personal a question, Kelly. I'm not

0:45:59.600 --> 0:46:00.600
<v Speaker 2>going to answer that on the pod.

0:46:00.719 --> 0:46:01.319
<v Speaker 1>I'm so sorry.

0:46:01.400 --> 0:46:04.239
<v Speaker 2>Daniel. No, I just want to cheat. I just want

0:46:04.239 --> 0:46:06.239
<v Speaker 2>to borrow the Direwolves DNA so I don't have to

0:46:06.239 --> 0:46:06.919
<v Speaker 2>do leg day.

0:46:07.640 --> 0:46:09.799
<v Speaker 1>No, that'd be great. Just a little crisper in your

0:46:09.840 --> 0:46:12.000
<v Speaker 1>thighs and so that it takes care of it for you.

0:46:12.160 --> 0:46:15.399
<v Speaker 2>Sounds like a menu option now, Daniel's crisper thighs. Would

0:46:15.440 --> 0:46:18.640
<v Speaker 2>you like it with barbecue sauced.

0:46:17.640 --> 0:46:21.320
<v Speaker 1>I know that question is too personal, right, Let's return

0:46:21.360 --> 0:46:23.440
<v Speaker 1>to this observation you made at the beginning of the show.

0:46:23.840 --> 0:46:28.000
<v Speaker 1>It is awesome to bring back, you know, something beautiful

0:46:28.000 --> 0:46:30.799
<v Speaker 1>that existed once and we lost it and now we

0:46:30.840 --> 0:46:33.440
<v Speaker 1>get a chance to interact with it again, and that's amazing.

0:46:33.560 --> 0:46:33.719
<v Speaker 2>Ya.

0:46:33.960 --> 0:46:38.400
<v Speaker 1>Do you still have that sense of wonder with the

0:46:38.520 --> 0:46:40.399
<v Speaker 1>version that we are able to bring back?

0:46:40.680 --> 0:46:44.200
<v Speaker 2>Doesn't feel like traveling to the past or undoing something

0:46:44.239 --> 0:46:46.600
<v Speaker 2>we've done. It feels like a simulation of that or

0:46:46.640 --> 0:46:50.440
<v Speaker 2>an approximation of that doesn't totally scratch that itch, but

0:46:50.480 --> 0:46:51.920
<v Speaker 2>it definitely goes in that direction.

0:46:52.080 --> 0:46:55.239
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think I would go to see the dire

0:46:55.239 --> 0:46:58.560
<v Speaker 1>wolf exhibit at the Zool for sure, Or maybe i'd

0:46:58.560 --> 0:47:01.239
<v Speaker 1>go to see a wooly mammoth exhibit at the Zoo

0:47:01.400 --> 0:47:09.600
<v Speaker 1>where you're ring cook and bring your bleach wipes. There's

0:47:09.680 --> 0:47:13.000
<v Speaker 1>part of me that feels a little sad thinking about,

0:47:13.080 --> 0:47:15.399
<v Speaker 1>you know, like if only one wooly mammoth is brought back,

0:47:15.440 --> 0:47:17.680
<v Speaker 1>because it turns out it was really dangerous for the

0:47:17.680 --> 0:47:21.360
<v Speaker 1>elephants to go through that childbirthing process, and so we

0:47:21.400 --> 0:47:23.239
<v Speaker 1>get one wooly mammoth and we decide that's all we're

0:47:23.239 --> 0:47:23.799
<v Speaker 1>ever going to do.

0:47:24.040 --> 0:47:25.680
<v Speaker 2>Oh, it's all alone.

0:47:26.080 --> 0:47:29.240
<v Speaker 1>Something about that feels sad, like we're observing an animal

0:47:29.280 --> 0:47:32.479
<v Speaker 1>going extinct all over again. And maybe I'm just being

0:47:32.600 --> 0:47:34.719
<v Speaker 1>like too sentimental, but I don't know, what do you think?

0:47:34.880 --> 0:47:38.080
<v Speaker 2>No, I think that's an important aspect. You're creating a creature,

0:47:38.080 --> 0:47:40.759
<v Speaker 2>It has an experience. What have you created? And it's

0:47:40.800 --> 0:47:43.480
<v Speaker 2>like in great pain because you've created some weird Frankin

0:47:43.560 --> 0:47:45.880
<v Speaker 2>creature and it doesn't really work or it's miserable for

0:47:45.960 --> 0:47:48.080
<v Speaker 2>some other reasons. So I think that's definitely something we

0:47:48.080 --> 0:47:51.280
<v Speaker 2>should consider, especially the more intelligent species. I mean, wolves

0:47:51.320 --> 0:47:54.560
<v Speaker 2>are smart, right, they're pack animals, they have emotions, they

0:47:54.560 --> 0:47:57.440
<v Speaker 2>have relationships. Philosophically and morally, there are a lot of

0:47:57.480 --> 0:47:58.160
<v Speaker 2>questions there.

0:47:58.280 --> 0:48:00.719
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Zach asked me, what would I think if we

0:48:00.760 --> 0:48:04.360
<v Speaker 1>could bring back Neanderthals and try to, you know, figure

0:48:04.360 --> 0:48:06.840
<v Speaker 1>out what a close human relative was like, you know,

0:48:06.920 --> 0:48:09.840
<v Speaker 1>are they as intelligent as we are? Were we just

0:48:09.880 --> 0:48:12.319
<v Speaker 1>more aggressive? And so we managed to like knock them

0:48:12.320 --> 0:48:13.400
<v Speaker 1>out of the species pool.

0:48:13.520 --> 0:48:13.839
<v Speaker 5>M hm.

0:48:14.200 --> 0:48:17.759
<v Speaker 1>I feel like that is quite clearly unethical. But what

0:48:17.840 --> 0:48:19.120
<v Speaker 1>do you think where is the line?

0:48:19.520 --> 0:48:19.680
<v Speaker 3>Oh?

0:48:19.880 --> 0:48:22.399
<v Speaker 2>Wow, that is a thorny question. Yeah. I mean even

0:48:22.480 --> 0:48:25.120
<v Speaker 2>just like editing your own babies he's in crisper, is

0:48:25.160 --> 0:48:28.840
<v Speaker 2>pretty unethical. But I feel like philosophically it's kind of fuzzy.

0:48:28.880 --> 0:48:31.600
<v Speaker 2>I mean, you choose your mate. Also, that affects the

0:48:31.680 --> 0:48:33.960
<v Speaker 2>DNA of your kids. You have some influence over it,

0:48:34.160 --> 0:48:36.239
<v Speaker 2>but it's weird to edit it directly. I don't know

0:48:36.320 --> 0:48:39.120
<v Speaker 2>exactly where that line is or why there's the line there.

0:48:39.320 --> 0:48:41.480
<v Speaker 2>There's lots of things we do. Like I created children,

0:48:41.520 --> 0:48:43.520
<v Speaker 2>brought them into this world. They didn't get to choose

0:48:43.560 --> 0:48:46.560
<v Speaker 2>it at all. Maybe they're happy, maybe they're miserable. You know,

0:48:46.600 --> 0:48:49.200
<v Speaker 2>it's sort of on me. I feel like having intelligent

0:48:49.280 --> 0:48:53.399
<v Speaker 2>babies is already a philosophical quandary.

0:48:54.000 --> 0:48:57.840
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, fair enough. Then bringing Neanderthals would be yeah, complicated too,

0:48:57.920 --> 0:49:01.240
<v Speaker 1>because they're like a scientific creation. To be clear, Colossal

0:49:01.239 --> 0:49:03.720
<v Speaker 1>has no plans to bring back the Neanderthals.

0:49:03.120 --> 0:49:04.000
<v Speaker 2>That they've made public.

0:49:04.960 --> 0:49:09.879
<v Speaker 1>Don't start trouble, don't start trouble. So let's say Gigantic

0:49:09.960 --> 0:49:13.560
<v Speaker 1>Evil the corporation decides they're going to bring back Neanderthals,

0:49:13.680 --> 0:49:16.440
<v Speaker 1>and they bring back two of them, and it turns

0:49:16.440 --> 0:49:19.440
<v Speaker 1>out those two need a lot of support. Yeah, and

0:49:19.440 --> 0:49:22.719
<v Speaker 1>then Big Evil goes out of business. What happens to

0:49:22.760 --> 0:49:25.960
<v Speaker 1>those Neanderthals who would be responsible for them? Would they

0:49:25.960 --> 0:49:29.600
<v Speaker 1>be happy in this world where they're the only two

0:49:29.760 --> 0:49:31.520
<v Speaker 1>representatives of a different species?

0:49:31.920 --> 0:49:34.400
<v Speaker 2>Sounds like a great Black Mirror episode. You should write.

0:49:34.160 --> 0:49:35.799
<v Speaker 1>There, you go. Well, if somebody wants to pay me

0:49:35.880 --> 0:49:38.799
<v Speaker 1>to write that, I am ready. I will always take

0:49:38.840 --> 0:49:39.280
<v Speaker 1>your money.

0:49:39.320 --> 0:49:42.400
<v Speaker 2>All right, Netflix, right to us. Two questions at Danielantlly.

0:49:43.920 --> 0:49:47.960
<v Speaker 1>As you can see, we have loads of ideas. All right. Well,

0:49:48.000 --> 0:49:50.719
<v Speaker 1>on that sort of dark note, that's all I have

0:49:50.760 --> 0:49:52.759
<v Speaker 1>to say about the extinction today. I think I just

0:49:52.800 --> 0:49:55.120
<v Speaker 1>like to bottom line by saying I am still excited

0:49:55.160 --> 0:49:57.840
<v Speaker 1>about this. I think it's cool. I think they have

0:49:57.960 --> 0:50:01.480
<v Speaker 1>made some interesting breakthroughs. I just have complicated feelings about

0:50:01.520 --> 0:50:03.160
<v Speaker 1>the extinction in general, what about you.

0:50:03.440 --> 0:50:05.560
<v Speaker 2>I think it also tells us something about the science

0:50:05.600 --> 0:50:09.920
<v Speaker 2>communication universe. This is an impressive step forward technologically and

0:50:10.080 --> 0:50:13.520
<v Speaker 2>fascinating scientifically, but it was over sold in the press

0:50:13.520 --> 0:50:15.560
<v Speaker 2>a little bit, and now there's like this back reaction

0:50:15.760 --> 0:50:18.440
<v Speaker 2>against it, and I think, you know, the whole science

0:50:18.440 --> 0:50:22.279
<v Speaker 2>communication ecosystem encourages people to over sell every time you

0:50:22.360 --> 0:50:25.880
<v Speaker 2>step forward as a revolutionary advance, which means that the

0:50:25.920 --> 0:50:28.440
<v Speaker 2>folks out there don't really know what they're reading. Is

0:50:28.440 --> 0:50:31.880
<v Speaker 2>this just overblown hype or not? And so there's a

0:50:31.920 --> 0:50:34.319
<v Speaker 2>lot of sort of cynicism out there, and you can

0:50:34.360 --> 0:50:36.440
<v Speaker 2>see that in people's responses to the questions. And we

0:50:36.560 --> 0:50:38.359
<v Speaker 2>got a lot of emails, and I get emails all

0:50:38.400 --> 0:50:40.759
<v Speaker 2>the time about science headlines, people like is this real?

0:50:40.880 --> 0:50:43.560
<v Speaker 2>Daniel did now so really discovered thirty seven extra dimensions. No,

0:50:43.840 --> 0:50:46.560
<v Speaker 2>they didn't. So you've got to become like a critical

0:50:46.600 --> 0:50:50.640
<v Speaker 2>thinker and an educated consumer of this science news.

0:50:50.800 --> 0:50:51.000
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.

0:50:51.040 --> 0:50:53.239
<v Speaker 1>I think that's a great point, And I think conveying

0:50:53.560 --> 0:50:56.920
<v Speaker 1>exactly what was done is a little bit more complicated

0:50:56.960 --> 0:51:00.279
<v Speaker 1>and requires an attention span from the reader to like

0:51:00.400 --> 0:51:03.080
<v Speaker 1>get through the entire description. But I think that if

0:51:03.120 --> 0:51:06.880
<v Speaker 1>you fail in that goal, then you lose trust with

0:51:06.960 --> 0:51:10.960
<v Speaker 1>your audience, and that has massive implications for any kind

0:51:11.000 --> 0:51:14.200
<v Speaker 1>of science you're trying to communicating, like vaccines and stuff,

0:51:14.239 --> 0:51:15.879
<v Speaker 1>for example. So I think you've got to be really

0:51:15.880 --> 0:51:17.200
<v Speaker 1>careful about how you do this stuff.

0:51:17.320 --> 0:51:19.480
<v Speaker 2>Big problem that we're not going to solve today on

0:51:19.560 --> 0:51:21.800
<v Speaker 2>the pod. But thanks everybody for listening to our effort

0:51:21.920 --> 0:51:24.920
<v Speaker 2>to communicate real science in a credible way to you,

0:51:25.000 --> 0:51:27.320
<v Speaker 2>because we know you're interested in learning more and digging

0:51:27.360 --> 0:51:30.520
<v Speaker 2>deeper beyond what's covered in the popsie articles, and that's

0:51:30.520 --> 0:51:32.239
<v Speaker 2>what we try to bring you here on the pod.

0:51:32.440 --> 0:51:33.600
<v Speaker 2>Thanks everyone for listening.

0:51:33.920 --> 0:51:44.000
<v Speaker 1>Thank you so much. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is

0:51:44.040 --> 0:51:47.080
<v Speaker 1>produced by iHeartRadio. We would love to hear from you,

0:51:47.239 --> 0:51:48.200
<v Speaker 1>we really would.

0:51:48.360 --> 0:51:51.120
<v Speaker 2>We want to know what questions you have about this

0:51:51.320 --> 0:51:53.000
<v Speaker 2>extraordinary universe.

0:51:53.120 --> 0:51:56.080
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0:51:56.080 --> 0:51:59.080
<v Speaker 1>for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

0:51:59.120 --> 0:51:59.480
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0:51:59.440 --> 0:52:03.239
<v Speaker 2>You really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

0:52:03.280 --> 0:52:06.120
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0:52:05.920 --> 0:52:07.799
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0:52:07.840 --> 0:52:11.719
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0:52:11.760 --> 0:52:14.080
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0:52:14.480 --> 0:52:15.480
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0:52:15.600 --> 0:52:17.160
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