April 17, 2025 • 17 mins
Famous entrepreneur and molecular biologist Ben Lamm and Beth Shapiro join us in the Interview Lounge to discuss their most recent, viral de-extinction of the dire wolves and making of the woolly mouse!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
We're so excited.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You know, I'm excited first of all for Gandhi, because
Gandhi is extra excited about the excitement. The excitement is exciting.
We'll leave it at that. This is gonna be a
great conversation. Ben Lamb and Beth Shapiro from Colossal Biosciences,
this incredibly cool company you're gonna learn about in a second.
They are here to talk about many things you've been
seeing in the news. Last week there was a big,
(00:22):
huge announcement about the dire wolf.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
A lot of people are like, what do you know
this dire wolf? What's a dire wolf?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, this wolf is I'm gonna let them explain to
you in just a second about that. Then, maybe several
months ago you heard Gandhi all giddy and doing cartwheels
over the Colossal wooly mouse.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
So cute.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
It is objectively adorable.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
It is.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
But Ben and Beth, thank you for being here. Thank
you so much for coming in and talking about this.
This is so exciting, it really is.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I don't want us to go into all of the
above until we also talk about the arguably the most
critically endangered wolf in the world, the red Wolves that
you guys have basically brought into our world again through
this non invasive blood cloning technique, and let's talk about
(01:15):
Let's start with them, because I love conservation being a
big headline at Colossal Biosciences.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Talk about it.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
No, that's great. I mean most people just want to
make de extinction the headline. We always talk that. You know,
de extinction and species preservation go hand in hand. De
extinction is not a replacement for modern conservation. We need
all of the tools, including new tools, to help save species,
and so we're very glad to talk about the red wolves.
But on the path to de extincting the dire wolf,
(01:43):
we actually develop some new, really great technologies which we're
open sourcing for the world, one of which is how
to isolate a type of cell called endothelial progenitor cells,
which is not fully differentiated. It's it's really easy to cultivate,
and then it's great for biobanking, so for backing things
up and protecting them, and it's great to clone from.
And it's also non invasive, so you don't have to
(02:04):
take skin biopsy and ear punch or anything for the animal.
So it's even better from an animal welfare perspective, and
then we use that technology to actually make four red wolves.
And to your point, red wolves are the most endangered
canids on the planet. They're the only wolves that were
endemic here to the United States. So I think it's
really really important that you know, we're not just thinking
(02:26):
about the theory of applying the extinction technologies to conservation,
but doing it in real time. And most people don't
even know that we've made more red wolves than dire wolves.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Wow, okay, I love it. By the way, the dire wolves.
I saw the photos, I saw the videos. I want
one immediately. I don't know, Yeah, I don't know where.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
We're gonna start adopting those most are the third most
popular requests. The first is they want dinosaurs. The second
is they want wooly mice. And now we're getting the
flood of dms and messages of that. They want teakup
dire wolves, which which is.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Got one step at a time. So so, Beth, I mean,
you know, the first thing, I'm sure many of our
audience members are thinking.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
They're thinking of Jurassic Park.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
They're thinking of people running through this gated park and
being killed by terosaurs. And things, and I don't know
what what what is it you guys are doing?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
What do you guys have about at all?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
What is it you are doing that's sort of related
to Jurassic Park, but nothing like Jurassic Park.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Just to bring it into perspective.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Well, what we are doing is we're getting DNA from
remains of things that used to be alive and using
that DNA to figure out what it is that made
those extinct species look at act like those extinct species,
And that I guess was the idea for Jurassic Park.
They supposedly got DNA from dinosaurs that was in mosquitoes
in amber. I've actually tried that.
Speaker 6 (03:53):
You're you're the only one that we know that actually tried.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Is actually not a great storage vehicle of it's it's terrible.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
So amber only forms in a really hot place. It's
it's porous, which means fungi and bacteria can get in there,
and they just chew up the DNA, so there's nothing lefty.
Dinosaurs when extinct more than sixty five million years ago.
The oldest ancient DNA that anybody has ever recovered from
a bone is somewhere between one and two million years old,
which is way more recent. But most of the ancient DNA,
(04:22):
the DNA that's preserved in bones that we can recover,
is really much more recent than that, like the last
several tens of thousands of years. So we're really thinking
ice Age Park, not Jurassic parks. And there's not as
many scary animals in the well, there's I mean, there's some.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Well, I mean, is that ever a thought when you
sit down and start at base one to start one
of these projects? Do we really want do we really
want to do this? Is this an ethical thing that
is good for us to do?
Speaker 5 (04:52):
Yeah, we actually have a whole framework for this, right,
so we try to think about what, you know, should
we do it?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
You know, believe it or not?
Speaker 5 (04:58):
To the drastic park comment, we get the scientists were
so preoccupied whether they could they didn't stop to.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Think if we should.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
We've heard that at time or two, basically every time
we say anything on X or any social media platform.
But what's interesting is we actually have a whole framework,
right like, is it possible, is there a closely related
species that we can help with it? You know, are
there cultural application? Is there ramifications to indigenous and First
(05:25):
nation groups, So we try to take all of that
into account when we select these species. In every species
we work on actually has a connection to a existing
species that's in trouble, right, like the Asian elephants with
the mammoth, the pink pigeon with the dodos, and even
the northern coal with the Tasmanian tiger, and obviously the
red wolves with the dire wolves.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yeah. Wow, it was in fact this checklist that led
us to the dire wolf as really the ideal species
for the first de extinction. Dire Wolves are morphologically similar
to gray wolves. We know that they are very closely
related to gray wolves. They share ninety nine point five
percent of their DNA. But the other thing that makes
gray wolves and dire wolves a really important pair for
(06:07):
this is that we know so much about gray wolves
because domestic dogs are a gray wolf, and so we
have tons of information about how to care for them
in the wild, how to do surrogacy, how to interpret
anything that changes as a consequence of the work that
we're doing, and ultimately we want these technologies to be
able to be applied broadly as a tool for conservation,
(06:29):
not a replacement for traditional conservation, but a new tool
for conservation, and so we need all of this foundational
scientific knowledge, and the gray wolf and dire wolf make
that possible in a way that really no other species could.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, I'm loving that my little Schnauzers are a gray
from the gray wolf family. So I mean, gandha, you
had them on your podcast before and give us a
reach around to one of the most some of the
most fascinating things you learned on that podcast that we
can bring to light today.
Speaker 7 (06:58):
Okay, so a couple things. One you guys were talking about.
You figured out that you could, but why should you? Why?
Because everyone's the biggest question, why bring back a wooly mammoth?
What is the benefit of that to society today?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
For each of our species, what we're thinking about is
how does the ecosystem in which they used to live,
How has that ecosystem been impacted by the loss? So
in the Arctic, we know that we're missing most of
the big animals that used to be there, and we
have this amazing resource. And there's a place up in
northeastern Siberia called Pleistocene Park where Russian Academy of Science
(07:33):
biologist Serge Zimov and his son Nikita are doing this
crazy experiment where they've imported some of the animals that
used to be there, deer, muskoks, bison, horses, and they're
looking at what happens when you have the animals there,
and they do things like spread seeds and spread nutrients
and aerate the soil. And during the winter they scrape
away the snow from the surface and expose the surface
(07:55):
of the dirt to the really cold Siberian winter air.
And some places don't get exposed to the air and
they stay warmer and wetter because the snow stays on top.
And then in the spring when the snow melts, you
get this really interesting diverse landscape where you have pockets
of plants that prefer dryer habitat and pockets that prefer
wetter and this means that there are more plants there
(08:18):
and this different species of plants can support different species
of animals. And so we see how every species is
really intricately tied to everything else in their ecosystems. So
what we're doing with our projects is try to identify
species that are going to have the most impact if
we can put them back now. Not identical copies of
these species it's extinction is forever. It's not possible to
(08:40):
bring something back that is one hundred percent identical to
a thing that used to be alive. But we can
bring back some of these key functions, and when we
talk about functional de extinction, this is exactly what we mean.
Bringing back the big animals that can help spread the
seeds and spread the nutrients. Bringing back the only top
predator of the ecosis to men tasmania, so that we
(09:01):
can restore balance to that ecosystem. This is the goal
of our de extinction projects, and then also of our
species preservation projects that are tied to these projects, where
we can keep these important components of ecosystems there because
it's going to be way simpler to make sure that
species stay alive than it is to try to bring
them back.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So there is there any point to the argument things
or animals become extinct for a reason at that time,
they should have gone extinct for whatever reason.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I'm just throwing that out there because I've heard that
thrown against the wall before. Is that a possible true statement?
Speaker 5 (09:36):
Well, there's lots of different ways that people think that
megafauna went extinct, right, and so one of the things
that is pretty clear is that the rise of early
man at certain population levels on all of the continents
and in subcontinents, we see a directly inverse relationship to
the decline of megafauna, which which kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Right.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
It's like, if you're working as a group, and you're
working as a tribe going after a kind of big
you know, large, slow moving megafauna is a great target, right,
if you start moving into from that, you know, into
that hunting and gathering kind of a way. Now, there's
other theories, right that talk about climate change. There's other
theories that talk about rapid cooling. Most likely, and Beth
(10:18):
and I spend a lot of time talking about this
is it was probably some combination, right of anthropologic effects
being from human and as well as you know, changing
in rapid cooling in that kind of that younger dryest
period is probably most likely the reason why we lost
a lot of that megafauna.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I think it's important to look at what's happening today.
I mean, yes, there has been a rate of extinction
that has existed throughout the history of life on Earth,
but the rate of extinction today is somewhere between one
thousand and ten thousand times higher than that background rate,
and a lot of that is because of stuff that
we are doing. I mean, habitats around the world are
changing faster than species can keep up. And some of
(10:59):
that is climate, and some of that is the way
that we are changing landscapes by building towns and cutting
off connections and corridors.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Between fishing right and erradicate the entire forests.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
That's really where this technology I think has the most
potential impact. We need traditional approaches to conservation, We need
to do habitat restoration, We need to continue to do
the things that have been working for the last one
hundred years of conservation.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
But we're still not winning this war.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
We are still driving species to extinction. There's still the
threat that scientists have predicted that in twenty five years,
more than half of species on the planet will be
in danger of becoming extinct. And that's terrifying. We need
new tools, and we need tools that can act as
quickly to help species catch up as these changes are happening.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
So if you're just turning us on and your head
is blowing up like mine, because this is all a
lot of information, but it's fascinating as f I may say,
Ben Lamb and Beth Shapiro are from Colossal Biosciences. And
if you've read recently in the news, gosh, the dire wolves,
those beautiful, cuddly little howling. I love that howl that
(12:05):
we haven't heard in how many years exactly, And of
course several months ago we're talking about the wooly mouse,
which I think is adorable. It is incredible to actually
also not forget that a lot of these beings are
extinct because of us. We did this, we continue to
do it every day. Right, that's the point you wanted
(12:27):
to make, right, Nate, Yeah, we had a converse. I'm
a big nerd like Gandhi when it comes to this
kind of stuff. And there are so many species outside
of the wooly mammoth and the dire wolf that a
lot of people have no idea about. And it's because
of man encroaching on these places where these animals were
just living.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Their happy little lives. And then oh wait, we're hungry.
Oh this dodo bird can't really run that fast. Let's
just eat it. Yeah, boom, they're gone.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
Right, So it.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Is kind of because of us that a lot of
these species aren't around anymore. It's fascinating that you guys
are doing this.
Speaker 7 (13:00):
I feel like like, go ahead, no, And some.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Are direct right like the testmiantiger orthilosine. You know, the
Australian government actually put a bounty on their heads to
remove them. And so sometimes people say, well, did these
things happen naturally? And it's like, no, that's not natural.
When a government puts a bounty on your head to
kill you and eradicate you, that is not a natural
cause of extinction.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
So I think a huge part obviously, maybe the only
thing that you guys are doing is things that are
going to better humanity, society, the planet right now. And
when you were on my podcast, you mentioned something that
I found fascinating and I feel like it needs so
much more attention. And it was a micro organism that
you guys had pretty much found one.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Of your researchers.
Speaker 7 (13:37):
Yeah, and it eats through plastic and leaves behind only carbon. Yep,
that would change the world dramatically if it can be
I don't want to say mass produced, but if it
can be used to get away to rid ourselves of
all the plastic that they are right now, where are
you guys out on that.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
So part of our mission with Colossal is as we
develop technologies that have an application of conservation, we give
those to the world or free. If there's applications that
have an application, ways that can apply to human health
care or to actually you know, helping industrial use cases,
we spin those out right. Because we do have investors,
we have to find ways to monetize. And one of
our spinouts is Breaking. It's just breaking dot com. It's
(14:15):
led by an incredible woman, su Kanya, and su Kanya
in our partner Ofvascar, actually had this discovery at the
VS Institute where they discovered this microbe that amidst this
enzyme that actually breaks down every type of plastic. Now
you've probably heard about plastic degradation. You've heard of other
companies working on it, which is great. We need a
thousand companies working about it. But what's unique about this
(14:36):
is they don't have to be pre treated, right, they
don't have to have extra chemicals spread on them. The
enzymes work just by you know, putting the enzymes in
a contained environment with the plastics, and it literally we
call it breaking because it doesn't make smaller microplastics it
breaks the chemical bonds. So we raise a bunch of
capital for that business, and we actually have eleven pilots
(14:58):
with very large one from textiles to industrial, military use
cases and others where we as humanity build a lot
of plastics in.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Plastic is in so many things that we do. Right,
we think of it as like plastic bottles, but it's
in everything.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
It's in our clothes, it's in you know, our airplanes,
it's in our it's definitely in our body, right, and
it's in microplastics are a bigger thing. So a lot
of the plastic degradation tools out there are just making
smaller plastics. That's not helpful. We actually have to disintegrate
and break the chemical bonds, and so we are now
using synthetic biology to supercharge.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Those microisms organisms.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
So that we were we've already made it where plastic
that could never be broken down, so literally never that
we know of, can now be broken down in twenty
two months, and we're trying to get that down under
twenty two hours.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, you gotta get faster because a lot of people
are trying to get rid of those top secret vibrators.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
It'll help so many people.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I gotta melt that thing down before mom and dad
get right, So if you accelerate that pilot that we
haven't explored.
Speaker 6 (16:00):
Ye, just talking real world right now. I know, I
know you've.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Got a lot, you've got a busy schedule today. If
you want to know more about what all the above,
you can actually go back and listen to that podcast
featuring uh Ben and Beth with Gandhi and her Sauce
on the side podcast.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Where else can we see you? How can we learn more?
Speaker 5 (16:21):
So we try, we try to communicate, right, So we
have a YouTube channel, right, we're constantly putting out content.
We're putting We're constantly putting out content on social our websites,
just colossal dot com. It's very easy to find. Got
that good for you, and so please please go to it,
please watch it because you know, people get excited about
the headlines, right, and everyone's very busy. But like I said,
and like we talked about at the top of the show,
(16:43):
most people don't even know about the red Wolf for
because they just focused on the dire wolves. And it's
great that everyone in the world is talking about de
extinction and species preservation and the extinction crisis, right I
love that people are talking about that and that projects
like the Direwolf did that. But I also want to
make sure people understand the applications to conservation.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Uh Gandhi, is there anything you want to do to
wrap up?
Speaker 7 (17:04):
Yeah, because in the company, but he said they don't
need any By the way, I love.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
What you guys are doing.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Ben, Are you interested in buying well, a media company
called I'm Heart.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
We're very very focused, and you know, I think I think,
I think we've seen a lot of other big tech
people buy media companies.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Let's see how they'll shake you off.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
All right, Well, Ben, Lamb Best Shapiro. We could go
on and on and on. You were fabulous for being
here and in good luck with everything. We'll keep an
eye on you. Thanks so much, awesome, thank you.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
Thank
We're so excited.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You know, I'm excited first of all for Gandhi, because
Gandhi is extra excited about the excitement. The excitement is exciting.
We'll leave it at that. This is gonna be a
great conversation. Ben Lamb and Beth Shapiro from Colossal Biosciences,
this incredibly cool company you're gonna learn about in a second.
They are here to talk about many things you've been
seeing in the news. Last week there was a big,
(00:22):
huge announcement about the dire wolf.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
A lot of people are like, what do you know
this dire wolf? What's a dire wolf?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, this wolf is I'm gonna let them explain to
you in just a second about that. Then, maybe several
months ago you heard Gandhi all giddy and doing cartwheels
over the Colossal wooly mouse.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
So cute.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
It is objectively adorable.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
It is.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
But Ben and Beth, thank you for being here. Thank
you so much for coming in and talking about this.
This is so exciting, it really is.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I don't want us to go into all of the
above until we also talk about the arguably the most
critically endangered wolf in the world, the red Wolves that
you guys have basically brought into our world again through
this non invasive blood cloning technique, and let's talk about
(01:15):
Let's start with them, because I love conservation being a
big headline at Colossal Biosciences.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Talk about it.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
No, that's great. I mean most people just want to
make de extinction the headline. We always talk that. You know,
de extinction and species preservation go hand in hand. De
extinction is not a replacement for modern conservation. We need
all of the tools, including new tools, to help save species,
and so we're very glad to talk about the red wolves.
But on the path to de extincting the dire wolf,
(01:43):
we actually develop some new, really great technologies which we're
open sourcing for the world, one of which is how
to isolate a type of cell called endothelial progenitor cells,
which is not fully differentiated. It's it's really easy to cultivate,
and then it's great for biobanking, so for backing things
up and protecting them, and it's great to clone from.
And it's also non invasive, so you don't have to
(02:04):
take skin biopsy and ear punch or anything for the animal.
So it's even better from an animal welfare perspective, and
then we use that technology to actually make four red wolves.
And to your point, red wolves are the most endangered
canids on the planet. They're the only wolves that were
endemic here to the United States. So I think it's
really really important that you know, we're not just thinking
(02:26):
about the theory of applying the extinction technologies to conservation,
but doing it in real time. And most people don't
even know that we've made more red wolves than dire wolves.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Wow, okay, I love it. By the way, the dire wolves.
I saw the photos, I saw the videos. I want
one immediately. I don't know, Yeah, I don't know where.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
We're gonna start adopting those most are the third most
popular requests. The first is they want dinosaurs. The second
is they want wooly mice. And now we're getting the
flood of dms and messages of that. They want teakup
dire wolves, which which is.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Got one step at a time. So so, Beth, I mean,
you know, the first thing, I'm sure many of our
audience members are thinking.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
They're thinking of Jurassic Park.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
They're thinking of people running through this gated park and
being killed by terosaurs. And things, and I don't know
what what what is it you guys are doing?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
What do you guys have about at all?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
What is it you are doing that's sort of related
to Jurassic Park, but nothing like Jurassic Park.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Just to bring it into perspective.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Well, what we are doing is we're getting DNA from
remains of things that used to be alive and using
that DNA to figure out what it is that made
those extinct species look at act like those extinct species,
And that I guess was the idea for Jurassic Park.
They supposedly got DNA from dinosaurs that was in mosquitoes
in amber. I've actually tried that.
Speaker 6 (03:53):
You're you're the only one that we know that actually tried.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Is actually not a great storage vehicle of it's it's terrible.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
So amber only forms in a really hot place. It's
it's porous, which means fungi and bacteria can get in there,
and they just chew up the DNA, so there's nothing lefty.
Dinosaurs when extinct more than sixty five million years ago.
The oldest ancient DNA that anybody has ever recovered from
a bone is somewhere between one and two million years old,
which is way more recent. But most of the ancient DNA,
(04:22):
the DNA that's preserved in bones that we can recover,
is really much more recent than that, like the last
several tens of thousands of years. So we're really thinking
ice Age Park, not Jurassic parks. And there's not as
many scary animals in the well, there's I mean, there's some.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Well, I mean, is that ever a thought when you
sit down and start at base one to start one
of these projects? Do we really want do we really
want to do this? Is this an ethical thing that
is good for us to do?
Speaker 5 (04:52):
Yeah, we actually have a whole framework for this, right,
so we try to think about what, you know, should
we do it?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
You know, believe it or not?
Speaker 5 (04:58):
To the drastic park comment, we get the scientists were
so preoccupied whether they could they didn't stop to.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Think if we should.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
We've heard that at time or two, basically every time
we say anything on X or any social media platform.
But what's interesting is we actually have a whole framework,
right like, is it possible, is there a closely related
species that we can help with it? You know, are
there cultural application? Is there ramifications to indigenous and First
(05:25):
nation groups, So we try to take all of that
into account when we select these species. In every species
we work on actually has a connection to a existing
species that's in trouble, right, like the Asian elephants with
the mammoth, the pink pigeon with the dodos, and even
the northern coal with the Tasmanian tiger, and obviously the
red wolves with the dire wolves.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yeah. Wow, it was in fact this checklist that led
us to the dire wolf as really the ideal species
for the first de extinction. Dire Wolves are morphologically similar
to gray wolves. We know that they are very closely
related to gray wolves. They share ninety nine point five
percent of their DNA. But the other thing that makes
gray wolves and dire wolves a really important pair for
(06:07):
this is that we know so much about gray wolves
because domestic dogs are a gray wolf, and so we
have tons of information about how to care for them
in the wild, how to do surrogacy, how to interpret
anything that changes as a consequence of the work that
we're doing, and ultimately we want these technologies to be
able to be applied broadly as a tool for conservation,
(06:29):
not a replacement for traditional conservation, but a new tool
for conservation, and so we need all of this foundational
scientific knowledge, and the gray wolf and dire wolf make
that possible in a way that really no other species could.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, I'm loving that my little Schnauzers are a gray
from the gray wolf family. So I mean, gandha, you
had them on your podcast before and give us a
reach around to one of the most some of the
most fascinating things you learned on that podcast that we
can bring to light today.
Speaker 7 (06:58):
Okay, so a couple things. One you guys were talking about.
You figured out that you could, but why should you? Why?
Because everyone's the biggest question, why bring back a wooly mammoth?
What is the benefit of that to society today?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
For each of our species, what we're thinking about is
how does the ecosystem in which they used to live,
How has that ecosystem been impacted by the loss? So
in the Arctic, we know that we're missing most of
the big animals that used to be there, and we
have this amazing resource. And there's a place up in
northeastern Siberia called Pleistocene Park where Russian Academy of Science
(07:33):
biologist Serge Zimov and his son Nikita are doing this
crazy experiment where they've imported some of the animals that
used to be there, deer, muskoks, bison, horses, and they're
looking at what happens when you have the animals there,
and they do things like spread seeds and spread nutrients
and aerate the soil. And during the winter they scrape
away the snow from the surface and expose the surface
(07:55):
of the dirt to the really cold Siberian winter air.
And some places don't get exposed to the air and
they stay warmer and wetter because the snow stays on top.
And then in the spring when the snow melts, you
get this really interesting diverse landscape where you have pockets
of plants that prefer dryer habitat and pockets that prefer
wetter and this means that there are more plants there
(08:18):
and this different species of plants can support different species
of animals. And so we see how every species is
really intricately tied to everything else in their ecosystems. So
what we're doing with our projects is try to identify
species that are going to have the most impact if
we can put them back now. Not identical copies of
these species it's extinction is forever. It's not possible to
(08:40):
bring something back that is one hundred percent identical to
a thing that used to be alive. But we can
bring back some of these key functions, and when we
talk about functional de extinction, this is exactly what we mean.
Bringing back the big animals that can help spread the
seeds and spread the nutrients. Bringing back the only top
predator of the ecosis to men tasmania, so that we
(09:01):
can restore balance to that ecosystem. This is the goal
of our de extinction projects, and then also of our
species preservation projects that are tied to these projects, where
we can keep these important components of ecosystems there because
it's going to be way simpler to make sure that
species stay alive than it is to try to bring
them back.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So there is there any point to the argument things
or animals become extinct for a reason at that time,
they should have gone extinct for whatever reason.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I'm just throwing that out there because I've heard that
thrown against the wall before. Is that a possible true statement?
Speaker 5 (09:36):
Well, there's lots of different ways that people think that
megafauna went extinct, right, and so one of the things
that is pretty clear is that the rise of early
man at certain population levels on all of the continents
and in subcontinents, we see a directly inverse relationship to
the decline of megafauna, which which kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Right.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
It's like, if you're working as a group, and you're
working as a tribe going after a kind of big
you know, large, slow moving megafauna is a great target, right,
if you start moving into from that, you know, into
that hunting and gathering kind of a way. Now, there's
other theories, right that talk about climate change. There's other
theories that talk about rapid cooling. Most likely, and Beth
(10:18):
and I spend a lot of time talking about this
is it was probably some combination, right of anthropologic effects
being from human and as well as you know, changing
in rapid cooling in that kind of that younger dryest
period is probably most likely the reason why we lost
a lot of that megafauna.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I think it's important to look at what's happening today.
I mean, yes, there has been a rate of extinction
that has existed throughout the history of life on Earth,
but the rate of extinction today is somewhere between one
thousand and ten thousand times higher than that background rate,
and a lot of that is because of stuff that
we are doing. I mean, habitats around the world are
changing faster than species can keep up. And some of
(10:59):
that is climate, and some of that is the way
that we are changing landscapes by building towns and cutting
off connections and corridors.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Between fishing right and erradicate the entire forests.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
That's really where this technology I think has the most
potential impact. We need traditional approaches to conservation, We need
to do habitat restoration, We need to continue to do
the things that have been working for the last one
hundred years of conservation.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
But we're still not winning this war.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
We are still driving species to extinction. There's still the
threat that scientists have predicted that in twenty five years,
more than half of species on the planet will be
in danger of becoming extinct. And that's terrifying. We need
new tools, and we need tools that can act as
quickly to help species catch up as these changes are happening.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
So if you're just turning us on and your head
is blowing up like mine, because this is all a
lot of information, but it's fascinating as f I may say,
Ben Lamb and Beth Shapiro are from Colossal Biosciences. And
if you've read recently in the news, gosh, the dire wolves,
those beautiful, cuddly little howling. I love that howl that
(12:05):
we haven't heard in how many years exactly, And of
course several months ago we're talking about the wooly mouse,
which I think is adorable. It is incredible to actually
also not forget that a lot of these beings are
extinct because of us. We did this, we continue to
do it every day. Right, that's the point you wanted
(12:27):
to make, right, Nate, Yeah, we had a converse. I'm
a big nerd like Gandhi when it comes to this
kind of stuff. And there are so many species outside
of the wooly mammoth and the dire wolf that a
lot of people have no idea about. And it's because
of man encroaching on these places where these animals were
just living.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Their happy little lives. And then oh wait, we're hungry.
Oh this dodo bird can't really run that fast. Let's
just eat it. Yeah, boom, they're gone.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
Right, So it.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Is kind of because of us that a lot of
these species aren't around anymore. It's fascinating that you guys
are doing this.
Speaker 7 (13:00):
I feel like like, go ahead, no, And some.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Are direct right like the testmiantiger orthilosine. You know, the
Australian government actually put a bounty on their heads to
remove them. And so sometimes people say, well, did these
things happen naturally? And it's like, no, that's not natural.
When a government puts a bounty on your head to
kill you and eradicate you, that is not a natural
cause of extinction.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
So I think a huge part obviously, maybe the only
thing that you guys are doing is things that are
going to better humanity, society, the planet right now. And
when you were on my podcast, you mentioned something that
I found fascinating and I feel like it needs so
much more attention. And it was a micro organism that
you guys had pretty much found one.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Of your researchers.
Speaker 7 (13:37):
Yeah, and it eats through plastic and leaves behind only carbon. Yep,
that would change the world dramatically if it can be
I don't want to say mass produced, but if it
can be used to get away to rid ourselves of
all the plastic that they are right now, where are
you guys out on that.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
So part of our mission with Colossal is as we
develop technologies that have an application of conservation, we give
those to the world or free. If there's applications that
have an application, ways that can apply to human health
care or to actually you know, helping industrial use cases,
we spin those out right. Because we do have investors,
we have to find ways to monetize. And one of
our spinouts is Breaking. It's just breaking dot com. It's
(14:15):
led by an incredible woman, su Kanya, and su Kanya
in our partner Ofvascar, actually had this discovery at the
VS Institute where they discovered this microbe that amidst this
enzyme that actually breaks down every type of plastic. Now
you've probably heard about plastic degradation. You've heard of other
companies working on it, which is great. We need a
thousand companies working about it. But what's unique about this
(14:36):
is they don't have to be pre treated, right, they
don't have to have extra chemicals spread on them. The
enzymes work just by you know, putting the enzymes in
a contained environment with the plastics, and it literally we
call it breaking because it doesn't make smaller microplastics it
breaks the chemical bonds. So we raise a bunch of
capital for that business, and we actually have eleven pilots
(14:58):
with very large one from textiles to industrial, military use
cases and others where we as humanity build a lot
of plastics in.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Plastic is in so many things that we do. Right,
we think of it as like plastic bottles, but it's
in everything.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
It's in our clothes, it's in you know, our airplanes,
it's in our it's definitely in our body, right, and
it's in microplastics are a bigger thing. So a lot
of the plastic degradation tools out there are just making
smaller plastics. That's not helpful. We actually have to disintegrate
and break the chemical bonds, and so we are now
using synthetic biology to supercharge.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Those microisms organisms.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
So that we were we've already made it where plastic
that could never be broken down, so literally never that
we know of, can now be broken down in twenty
two months, and we're trying to get that down under
twenty two hours.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, you gotta get faster because a lot of people
are trying to get rid of those top secret vibrators.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
It'll help so many people.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I gotta melt that thing down before mom and dad
get right, So if you accelerate that pilot that we
haven't explored.
Speaker 6 (16:00):
Ye, just talking real world right now. I know, I
know you've.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Got a lot, you've got a busy schedule today. If
you want to know more about what all the above,
you can actually go back and listen to that podcast
featuring uh Ben and Beth with Gandhi and her Sauce
on the side podcast.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Where else can we see you? How can we learn more?
Speaker 5 (16:21):
So we try, we try to communicate, right, So we
have a YouTube channel, right, we're constantly putting out content.
We're putting We're constantly putting out content on social our websites,
just colossal dot com. It's very easy to find. Got
that good for you, and so please please go to it,
please watch it because you know, people get excited about
the headlines, right, and everyone's very busy. But like I said,
and like we talked about at the top of the show,
(16:43):
most people don't even know about the red Wolf for
because they just focused on the dire wolves. And it's
great that everyone in the world is talking about de
extinction and species preservation and the extinction crisis, right I
love that people are talking about that and that projects
like the Direwolf did that. But I also want to
make sure people understand the applications to conservation.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Uh Gandhi, is there anything you want to do to
wrap up?
Speaker 7 (17:04):
Yeah, because in the company, but he said they don't
need any By the way, I love.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
What you guys are doing.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Ben, Are you interested in buying well, a media company
called I'm Heart.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
We're very very focused, and you know, I think I think,
I think we've seen a lot of other big tech
people buy media companies.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Let's see how they'll shake you off.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
All right, Well, Ben, Lamb Best Shapiro. We could go
on and on and on. You were fabulous for being
here and in good luck with everything. We'll keep an
eye on you. Thanks so much, awesome, thank you.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
Thank
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