Joe Rogan Experience #2301 - Ben Lamm

Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe. Rogan Experience. Train by day. Joe. Rogan podcast by night. All day. All right. What's up, Ben? Hey, thanks. so much for having me. My pleasure. Very. nice to meet you, man. So, uh, why don't. you instead of me, why don't you explain. to people what you do? So, I'm, uh, the. CEO and co-founder of a company called. Colossal Biosciences. were the world's. first deextinction and species.

preservation company. Yeah. And uh that. is a wild thing. I mean this is uh. essentially literally wild. This is. essentially real life Jurassic Park. Yeah. We get the Jurassic Park. occasionally. Like believe it or not, we. get that. Of course. I mean I got to. drop my hydrogen tablet in here. Oh, you. do those? The Gary Brees, right? Those. are great. Yeah. So yeah, I love those. Um I just didn't want you to think it. was we were going a different direction. How did you get started even thinking. about doing something like this? So, I. kind of fell into it. I didn't plan I.

didn't wake up and say, "I saw Jurassic. Park. I'm super stoked. I love animals. I want to go work on this." Um, I'm just. a weirdly curious person. So, there's. this guy named George Church. If you. don't know George, you should look him. up. He's the father of synthetic biology. at Harvard University. He's 6'7 with. narcolepsy. He's just the best, right? So, if you ever had him on, he may fall. asleep during the podcast, but he's just. he's the absolute best. He's a genius. And I thought uh my background is in. software and just building teams of. people that are smarter than me, right? And so I I was interested in synthetic.

biology, this idea that we could. engineer life and that we could use AI. and compute to make it even better, like. how do we do directed evolution and how. and how that could apply to like crops. and animals and all kinds of stuff. So I. get on the phone with George and I ask. him my questions. He answers them in. like six seconds because he's a genius. And then I start asking about all the. other weird stuff that's coming out of. his lab. In that process, he's like, you. know, I've also been working on mammoth. and other things. I was like, wait, wait, what? And I was like, if you had. one project, what is it? This mammoth.

project. And then he went down this. whole path about how he'd bring back. mammoths, reintroduce in the Arctic, help the ecosystem, use those. technologies for conservation, use those. technologies for human healthcare. And I. kind of thought it was a [ __ ] joke. I. literally thought that like the smartest. man I've ever met and been on the phone. with was a joke. Well, then I stayed up. all night just googling George and there. was this weird mammoth through line. whether he was in 60 Minutes or you know. Steven Cobar whatever he's in. There was. this weird mammoth through line where he. was just obsessed with these mammoths. and everyone kind of wanted him to do.

this. So I called him back the next day. 7 days later I'm in his lab and we were. off to the races on okay we're going to. try to go build a company to bring back. sing species. So how do you decide what. to start with? So we started with the. mammoth first, right? Because George, you know, had been working on it for. eight years. We needed his core. technologies. Uh we thought that there. was a huge application to elephant. conservation. There was some ecological. modeling that had been done to shows. that the reintroduction of mammoth back. into the wild uh could actually have a. net benefit to the ecosystem. Um and so.

that was an easy place to start. After. we launched the company, it went crazy. viral and all these other folks from. deextinction research started calling us. like folks from like the thyloine or. Tasmanian tiger which looks like a. mythical creature. It's awesome. Yeah. Um the best here with the dodo, everyone. just started calling us and then we just. started expanding you know our our. entire set. So how does one do this? So. like let's before we get to what you. showed me earlier which is [ __ ]. amazing. Before that how does one do.

this? like from what I understand you. have to take the gene of an Indian. elephant which is the closest thing to a. mammoth. Yeah. Let me walk through the. whole process. So first you have to find. ancient DNA which is pretty shitty on a. good day. So the minute we take DNA out. of our bodies or out of anything it. starts to degrade at an insanely rapid. rate. So we definitely need uh to find a. lot of samples. So we actually have. about 109 mm samples ranging from 3,000. years old to 1.2 2 million years old,

which is awesome. Wow. But it's also. fragmented. It's like it's like a shitty. jigsaw puzzle that you don't know what. the box is and someone's stolen part of. the puzzle and then oh by the way, people have taken other puzzle pieces. and put them in there. So there's all. kinds of problems with that. So this is. really an AI and compute problem. It's. not as much a human problem. So you have. to get a lot of samples first and then. you have to start mapping them to their. closest living relative. And genotyping. allows us to understand that that's. Asian elephants, right? So Asian. elephants are 99.6% and 6% the same as.

mammoth. They're actually closer related. to mammoths than they are to African. elephants. Really? Yeah. Which always. blows people mind. That and the fact. that mammoths were alive when we were. building the pyramids or aliens or. whoever was building the pyramids. Like. like literally like humans were building. the pyramids while mammoth existed. And. sometimes that blows people's mind. because they always think of them as in. this like weird like uh prehistoric like. 65 million years old dinosaur. When when. did they go extinct? Uh, so the last one. went extinct about 4,000 years ago. Really? On Wrangler Island? Yeah. Wow.

So they've been a while. They were. around for a long time. 4,000 years ago. I know. They weren't I mean now they. appeared about 2 and a half million. years ago as far as we understand in the. they were mostly a plycistine species, but as we moved into the holysine and. kind of the period that we're in right. now, they existed they existed all the. way up until they had this like small. genetic bottleneck on Wrangler Island. Wow. And where's Wrangler Island? Uh, it's northeast of Siberia. Whoa. And they just Was it a small.

island? They just ran out of resources. there. Like what happened? Well, there's. a couple different theories, right? One. of the theories uh with Wrangler Island. is that they actually uh uh there's lots. of inbreeding. So, there's lots of like. genetic bottleneck which happened. because there's not a different species. there. How large is Wrangler Island? I'm. not quite sure. Can you give me a photo. again, Jamie? I'll pull up a map. Okay. And so essentially though um Wrangler. Island and then um uh there's another. island called St. Paul Island which is. also between Alaska and and the United.

and uh Russia also is where they were. Those are kind of the last two places. that that we know mammoth existed today. and they died off 4,000 years ago. And. now now some there is actually a another. working hypothesis that they actually. ran out of water. They ran out of access. to fresh water on the island. Oh wow. So, some combination of genetic. bottleneck and that occurred. Wow. 4,000. years is so recent. I know. It's It's. crazy recent, right? Jamie, can you. please pull up a photo of an Asian.

elephant versus a African elephant? And. they're actually mammoths because. there's, you. know, mammoths themselves. Yeah. Mammoths themselves are closer. related to the Asian elephant. They have. which is on the left. Yeah. Which on the. left. So, they have that dome cranium. They have the small ears. They have a. little bit of a hump structure. Um, you. know, mammoth because they had these. massive, massive tusk, right? And, um, you know, you've talked to lots of folks. in in kind of the mammoth world, they. actually, you know, move their heads.

quite slowly. They had to, you know, they had to have this entire ridge of. extra muscle in order to do that. But. one of the things that's awesome also. about the uh Asian elephants is some. Asian elephants uh some of the ones that. are born actually have they look they're. not mammoth like but they have a lot of. fur on them and they kind of lose it. over time. Wow. Um so are those the ones. that you would find like in Thailand? Uh. yes and um Thailand and then parts of uh. different parts of India and the Indian. subcontinent. I actually rode one of. those once with my family. Oh. Did you.

go? Did you go to one of those places. that you like take care of them? Yeah. You you have to like get a relationship. with them. So you feed them sugar cane. and you wash them and you know you play. nice with them for like a while, like a. couple hours. It was like at least an. hour. You're just hanging out with them, petting them and and then once they. decide you're cool, they let you ride. them. But uh my whole family rode them. and I was like totally opposed to it. I. was like, I'm doing it just cuz you guys. want to do it. I just want to feed them.

I just want to hang out with them. Yeah. It just felt weird. My daughter fell off. I think twice. One of one my youngest. daughter fell off once at least and I. was like do we know that this elephant. wants us riding? You know what I mean? It's kind of a weird thing. It's a weird. thing, right? Yeah. And then afterwards. you get in the water and you wash them. Yeah. And and everything and I just kind. of hung out with them and I'd be cool. They're very sweet. I don't think I want. to ride one. Um I would just I like. being, you know, around them. There's a. video on my Instagram of it. Yeah, there.

is. There definitely is. cuz she was. eating a log. I was like, "Oh, why are. you eating a log?". It's just weird. They're they're so. enormous, but they're really like. peaceful and incredibly smart and. they're they have incredible pack. dynamics, right? So, they live in a. herd. They've even had all these. different examples where they also adopt. other animals. I don't know if you've. seen any of these videos, but Oh, yeah. So, here it is. So, this is a few years. ago in. Thailand. And this is uh an Asian. elephant just chilling with this.

elephant. Yeah. 2018. Okay, there it is. It was. really cool. No, it's awesome. It's just. it's just cool to be around them. They're just a fascinating animal. Just. the biodiversity of Earth, the fact that. that thing exists. This enormous This. enormous thing with this like robotic. potential arm. Yeah, it's crazy. As long. as you're cool to them, they're cool to. you. Yeah, they sense it, right? Like, and I mean, we see that nature with a. lot of animals, right? If you sense it. and they they don't feel like they're,

you know, being backed into a corner or. fearful, then they're not going to be. around that. So, some of our animals. have been around and they're starting to. get quite large, which I'm sure we'll. talk about at some point. Um, that uh. yeah, at some point though, you're still. kind of like they are wild animals, so. you have to maintain some level of. healthy distance. Yeah. So, let's just. get right to it. Wait, wait, we want to. finish the process? Yeah, please. So, okay. We have the ancient ancient uh. genomes that you have to collect and. assemble, right? And that's a lot of. people just think of us in the lab, like. just a bunch of people in the lab, but.

that's like some Indiana Jones [ __ ]. Like we're literally going into the. perafrost and like collecting dead. samples from the perafrost, which you. know, you've had, you know, John Reeves. on here. It's disgusting. It's It smells. like death. It literally I mean, I guess. it is death. It's just over time piled. up death. And have you visited John? Yeah. Yeah, I I visited John. You went. to the boneyard? Yeah, I went to the. Boneyard. What's it like there? It's. It's crazy. It's exactly what you'd. expect. I I didn't know, John. Uh so I'm. on the board of trustees of the. Explorers Club. So we take these. expeditions. We did an expedition to.

Alaska to do mammoth retrieval. And then. we're also doing some cultural um uh. studies with some of the indigenous. people groups around mammoth. Like do. you want mammoths back? Is this a good. idea? Right? Because we try to be pretty. inclusive. And uh they were like, "Oh, we got to meet the biggest land owner in. Alaska, John." And I was like, "Okay, great. I'm excited." So we go meet him. We pull up. He's in a different car and. he's like and I think he wanted us to. follow him. He's like, "Get in." I was. like, "Okay." And he's a big dude. I'm. not that big of a dude, right?

Especially after especially after Gary. Bre has been working on him. I'm a. smaller dude, right? And so like I. literally uh uh get in, I get in the. car, there's a there's a bunch of. stickers and there's one that has. butterflies on it uh that says give zero. [ __ ] And I was like, and then there's. and he's like just move the gun over. So. I move the gun over and he goes, "Listen." And this is the first words. out of his mouth to me. If I stop short, you hand me that gun. And I was like, I. didn't even ask a follow-up question. because like, what do you do when you. get in the car with John? And he says, you hand me that gun. If I stop quick.

and I say, hand me that gun, you hand me. that gun. I was like, that's awesome. And he showed me around the What kind of. gun was it? Uh, it was just some type of. rifle. So, it was Grizzlies. I assume it. was for grizzlies. Yeah. Or bears or, you know, something large. Yeah. But. then he showed me around the boneyard. and showed me his collection. And he was. completely I mean he didn't know us from. anybody. He just opened up everything to. us, right? And he's like, "Let me show. you all this." Showed us his skull. He. actually has a a warehouse. I don't know. if he ever discloses where it is, but he. has a warehouse with where he has some. of the greatest specimens ever. So, it's.

cool. You should go. It's cool. I do. want to go. He's an amazing guy. I love. And he's a cool And he's a cool guy. And. then, you know, being in the mammoth. researcher business, uh we're like, "Oh, we'd love to we'd love to, you know, take you some of your samples. Can we. take them?" And he's like, "No." And he. was very honest. Then he told this and. that's like before your podcast with him. we kind of learned that story right and. so that's what sucks is how like some. people can ruin it for everybody you. know cuz he's you know he outside of. Fairbanks it's not the easiest place to. build a you know bioontainment level.

three lab um but he's like but he is. open he's like you build a lab here you. can use whatever you want but he's like. the bones stay here so he is very. consistent with his messaging well you. know the whole deal with the Museum of. Natural History right. and I totally believe it I totally. believe. Well, it's a fact now. They've. found these bones in the East River. exactly where they told them to drop it. off. They have step bison fragments and. I've seen it. Woolly mammoth fragments, so they know that they're there. Yeah. And well, I mean, you you've built a. relationship with John. He's just a.

normal, no [ __ ] kind of guy. He's. like, "You stole this stuff. Give it. back." Yeah. Or he's also like, "Hey, if. you want to come work on it, come on.". Like, he's very collaborative. It's also. It's like, what what do you guys have? Like, why are you keeping that [ __ ] in a. basement? Like what is that? I mean when. we do work you know outside of the. expeditions of collecting ancient DNA. DNA when we do work we also work with. museums right and so we go to like the. catacombs of the museums and it's. exactly what you think of as like the. Vatican archives right you go down to. like subb 4 of the Smithsonian and it's.

just rows and rows and rows of. taxiderermy animals that you've never. seen. It's got like like little drawers. and boxes and they're like oh uh this is. giant sloth poop. And I was like I. didn't know there was giant sloth poop. They're like, "Yes, and we think there's. DNA in it." I was like, "Well, this is. like, you know, the card catalog of like. all spe of all like dead species, but. it's not on display for the public. It's. just in a basement." And is it. extensively archived? They know where. everything is, or is there some stuff. down there know what it is? I wouldn't.

say that they are the at least any. museum, they have a they I think they. have a lot more than they know. I don't. see it in like massive computer systems. cuz we ask for inventory lists and you. know like what's the shopping list? It's. been over a hundred years they've been. doing this. So, people have come and. gone. Oh, they'll pull out Yeah. And. they'll pull out drawers that have like. Darwin's name on it and stuff like that. I mean, that's how we did the thyloine. We actually found in a cup about this. size. We actually found what's called we. call the miracle pup where they shot the. mother. They took the three joeies, the.

the babies, killed the three pups, and. they put one of them in formaldahhide. and we got a 98% complete genome from. the first sample of that pup. Wow. But. they didn't even know they had it. They. also uh on the thyloine which I'm sure. I'll talk more about more later. They. also found uh a head in a bucket. They. didn't even it was the mom's head. So we. actually knew we could actually look at. the genetic uh relation between the two. And they actually found they didn't know. they had the head in the bucket. They. just had a head in a bucket. They opened. it up. It was marked thyloine. They. opened up and there was a full thyloine.

skull in there. There's pictures of it. online and everything. And we use that. to get to a 99.9% complete genome. because we also had the ancestry of the. two of the uh uh pup and mother. Wow. Yeah. So there's there's probably. treasure troves in some of these museums. that aren't being you know fully. utilized. So if you have 98% or you have. 99% what's the process of going from. that? So here there's the head there's. the uh head in the bucket. So Andrew.

Pasque who leads our um uh in. partnership with University of Melbourne. leads our thyloine work and uh yeah. that's the head and bucket. I mean. there's soft tissue, there's teeth, there's petrus bones which we'll talk. about. Do you buy into any of these. sightings? No, I did. So Andrew Pasque. for years he's been working on for 15. years. He's amazing. He's awesome. Uh. he's been working on on like a. shoestring budget and that's part of the. problem with the extinction is nobody's. put real capital into it until now. and. he's been working on it for 15 years and. he's had people send him, you know, uh,

poop, uh, uh, clippings from, you know, hair and all this stuff over the years. They just send it to him and then he. loves the thyloine so much he just. sequences it and he's like, "Nope, it's. a dog. You sent me more dog [ __ ]. Thanks." I mean, so it's it's. demoralizing, but like when I got into. the thyloine, you know, we met Andrew, we did a partnership with him. We. actually made the largest investment in. marsupial research, more than the. Australian government. we made the. largest investment in in research for. marupal development of anyone. So we do. this um and then you you get into the. myth of it, right? So you start reading.

it, right? You start reading I start. reading all the books on the thiocene. I. want to be I get obsessive about. projects and so I'm pretty obsessive. about extinction right now. And so got. super deep in it and uh then I started. calling Pas. I was like, "Hey, I've been. watching these YouTube videos and I kind. of think they're still there." And Pas's. like, "No, no, stop it. Don't go down. that rabbit hole." So I I don't believe. Why did he say that? Well, because he's. been testing for the last 15 years all. over Tasmania, right? So, not just. Southern Australia, but all over. Tasmania. So, samples, poop, samples,

just everything using camera traps. And. nobody's I I think they officially say. that uh the thyloine went extinct in. 1936. Mhm. But probably into the late. 40s and early 50s, they still existed. But I mean, I think it I think it's very. unlikely that one still exists. It' make. our lives a lot easier. Forest really. believes in it. He does. He thinks. they're in Papa New Guinea. and because of sightings. Yeah. He said. he thinks in the western part of Papa. New Guinea in the mountains and also.

incredibly remote and very difficult and. and the separation of that topography. separates the uh Papa New Guinea um uh. singing dogs which could be competitive. for them for predator prey uh from where. the thyloine sightings were. What's a. singing dog? Uh it's it's just another. large canid that has a unique howl. Oh. wow. So it still exists. Well, I I mean. I'm sure Jamie can find a video. I want. to hear that. I've never heard of this. singing dog. Wow. Papini singing dogs. By the way, folks, this is we're teasing.

you because we there's a this is not. just theoretical. Yeah. So, and this is. what's going to get crazy. It's going to. get weird. This podcast is going to blow. your [ __ ] mind. Go ahead, Jimmy. Opera singers. That's what they said. These rear. animals have a knack for holding a tune, even to an exact key. [Music]. Opera singers love these. Oh, they're so. cute. Yeah, they're so cute. Do people. keep them as pets? That looks like a dog. dog. Yeah, it looks like a dog. That.

looks like a dog that they're wild dogs. in in Papa New Guinea, but I'm sure. people have domesticated them. Wow. Pretty [ __ ] cool dogs and. hanging out with a fox. So once you have. enough of that DNA, right, from all. these different samples and you can. assemble it, you then have to build. comparative genomic models to its. closest living relatives in the case of. the mammoth, the the Asian elephant. But. I I'm from software, so I just assume. there's like the, you know, Google cloud. of DNA. Like we backed like we've all. done 23 and me before it went bankrupt,

right? So we should assume that I assume. that the government or someone backed up. and had kind of like the 23 and me of. all species, right? That doesn't exist. Wow. which is insane. So there's like. there's no backup there's no like Noah's. arc bio vault for life like kind of like. the seed vaults that doesn't exist and. so we're actually petitioning US. government to help put a massive project. together to help bio bank starting with. just American mega megapana and keystone. species so that doesn't exist at all and. so so then you so then colossal had to.

go out and go build reference genomes. for all the species like the closest. living relatives for all the species. that we're working on. So this is the. question if you have say let's go to. woolly mammoth. So if you have woolly. mammoth and you have 99% how do you. bridge that gap how do you how do you. create that's synthetic biology. So you. never have to get to 100% right you need. to get to synthetic biology synthetic. biology that's where you are using all. of these different genetic tools. probably heard of crisper all these. other things genetic you know which is. it it knock out it breaks the DNA it's.

not the always the best tool we can now. actually make individual edits uh to. when you think of the DNA double you. know helix right in those rungs of the. ladder those individuals are called. nucleotides we can change the letters. like that's how precise we can be we can. say at bought, you know, 4 million. eight. I need to change that letter. And. so you change that letter. And then. other times you actually synthesize big. blocks of DNA. So when you notice that. in the mammoth and in in in the uh Asian.

elephant, there's a difference. And if. it's in these certain like co protein. coding regions in all these different. regions of the genome that drive. phenotypes or physical like attributes. like you know curved tusk dome cranium. small ears the subcutaneous fat layer um. and uh and then hair and coat color you. can actually then engineer that into the. Asian elephant right because you're only. looking you you're only really looking. at that point4% difference right it's. still a lot of numbers but you're only. looking at that and so the better you. can be at software and the better you. can be using AI and the and computer.

models the less edits you have to make, right? Because you're really just trying. to target those core phenotypes, right? Are are there specific genes that. regulate size because they're they're. larger than it's a it's a So mammoths. were about the same size. They're a. little bit bigger than Asian elephants, a little bit smaller than African. elephants. So, um there were uh 11, you. know, everyone argues over the. definition of speciation because it's. stupid concept that humans made, not. nature made. And so, there were 11. different types of mammoths out there. that evolved in different uh in. different ways. and some of them were. larger, but the woolly mammoth, the one.

that we were pursuing that has that. woolly uh uh phenotype, it was about the. size of a Asian elephant. And but to. your question on size, it's actually a. cluster of genes. We're finding more and. more about how different genes also map. across uh all species as well. And so there's specific characteristics. that these animals have. One of them. being the big furry coats that you guys. What did you do with mice? We we made. woolly mice.

See if you can find that. The the only. the only like unintended consequences. was they were cute as [ __ ] Like people. have lost their minds, right? We are. there's there's I was I was on the phone. recently with a you know moderately. aggressive um journalist and uh and it. was going quite poorly as some calls go. Moderately aggressive. They were being. aggressive in what way? Like why are you. doing this? Some people Yeah. They they. everyone likes how. cute. My daughter actually found this.

online and wants one. Yeah. So we get. that a lot from She wants a mouse. So. every week every week um I don't have my. laptop. I should. but every week, oh my god, they're. adorable. So this so these William mice. aren't just adorable. We basically said, look, what are the core genes that drive. the hair phenotype or physical attribute. of a of a mammoth um from an Asian. elephant to a mammoth. And then because. we want to do this in the most ethical. way as possible, there's about 200. million years of genetic divergence. between mice and elephants. We didn't.

just want to ram mammoth DNA in there. and see what happens. So we look for the. mouse equivalent, right? So we look for. like all of us have similar genes and so. we can try to look for those genes and. then edit those genes with the data we. got from the mammoth so that we're then. not just putting random genes in there. that could either hurt the animal or. kill them, right? Or they may not even. be compatible with life, right? So we. try to be really really thoughtful about. and the the the woolly mice um went like. went insane. There's people that are. like making t-shirt there's a memecoin.

Uh and so we we made 36 mice. They're. all they're all healthy. There's 36 mice. that we made. Um, and what was crazy. about it is we're excited about it. because it shows that the end to-end. process of taking data from an ancient. gene uh DNA, comparing it to a living. animal, making those changes, doing it. with 100% efficiency, and that's really. important, really hard. So, we did it. with 100% efficiency. Yeah. That that's. the difference. Well, so the one of. them, if it was in a trap, you'd be so. sad. Yeah. Like the little guy on the.

left, if he was in a trap, be like, "Oh, look what we killed." Isn't that funny? Just a little bit of fur. It makes you. love them. And that's the color that we. think most mammoths were. Really? They. were like a blonde. They were like, they. were like a golden brown color, right? Because when we pull them out of the. perafrost, they've been sitting in mud. for quite some time. Oh, but if you see. very fresh mammoths like from Siberia. and whatnot, like in Yakuts and other. places in northern Siberia, that they. actually have uh pretty pretty well. preserved mammoths. They actually have. kind of a a dirty blonde meets uh gold.

meets brown fur. Wow. And so we so we. did that and now there's people that are. making t-shirts that aren't us and. pillows that are like legalized woolly. mice. I'm like they're not illegal. And. then there a meme account for the guy. that did the like the crisper babies, you know, that went in trouble for, you. know, making edited babies in China. Yeah. A meme account. Oh, wow. So that's. mammoth fur. Yeah. A meme account though. uh actually said on on X that that uh. these are a bioweapon and that Colossals.

made a bio. So the the the weirdness of. the woolly mouse went crazy viral. What. we were trying to show is that we used. our multi multiplex editing tools, meaning that we edited all of those. genes at the same time. Most people edit. one gene, let that mouse live. From the. second lineage, they'll do one more. gene, let that mouse live, and then. they'll stack those edits over multiple. generations. We've developed a system so. that we can deliver all of those edits. at one time all over the genome, get. exactly what we want, and then we have. this mon what's called monoconal.

screening where we're screening the. cells at the end, sequencing all the. cells, which is expensive and sounds. like overkill, but then we know that. none of them have unintended. consequences or offtarget effects in the. in the genome. So that we know the mice. that we then do cloning with, we know. that they'll be healthy. M and so so we. try to spend a lot of time you know on. that because we're certified by American. Humane Society it's the oldest humane. organization in the world and um if. you've seen the film that's like no. animals were harmed in the making of. this film that's those guys so so we've. ended up um uh so so we really care.

about kind of not just the deextinction. efforts the genome engineering efforts. but ensuring that the animals are. healthy when they come out and so the. the woolly mouse was a really. interesting proof of concept it shows. that the edits that we are working on. are working Right. And we're getting. exactly what we predicted. Is there any. plans to sell those? No. Everyone keeps. asking us that. But you know what? Museums actually are now calling us. saying uh and and zoos are calling us. saying, "Can we display the woolly. mice?" They're like, "It'll drive so. much value. It'll teach people about,

you know, genetics and whatnot." So, you. know, it's it's not our business model. to sell our animals or to sell, you. know, woolly mice, but it it's kind of. gone crazy. Is it dangerous though to. leave these mice in the hands of someone. even at a zoo who decides I want more of. these? Yeah, if we ever if we ever put. them I think more likely we put them in. a museum for that needs to be free like. the Smithsonian or something like that. from an education perspective versus. something that's more attraction based. I think we do it more in the case of a.

museum. Do you plan on keeping this. batch alive? Yeah, they're going to live. out their normal lives and um but you're. not going to make new ones. Um, we may. make new ones with new These won't. They're all separated. They're all. separated by sex. So, we're not gonna. have like a Jurassic Park moment where. they change. Um, uh, they're all. separated by sex. But if you, uh, if. Jamie finds a picture of their habitats, they actually live they live a couple. years, but they don't live like. traditional lab mice that live in like a. small little cage and all on top of each. other. Um, the they actually live in.

pretty sweet digs that we made for them. Uh, that all Yeah. Like. spared no expense. Cool little house. Yeah. And they're big and we, you know, we put fun stuff in them to play with. like like this. And what's been crazy is. we only named two of them and we named. them Chip and Dale because we we people. were asking what the names were and I. was like, uh, Chip and is the only thing. that I could think of at the moment. And. now even on X, people were like, "We. need pictures of Chip. Where is Chip? We've only seen pictures of Dale." And. there's like these incredible internet. sloohs that are like, "That's not Chip.

That's Dale. We need a picture of Chip. You can't get involved." Yeah. So we've. just Yeah, we don't don't get involved. with those people. We've not We've not. leaned in. Yeah, you cannot. We're. excited. They're excited, but we just. can't. We Yeah, we're busy. So So this. is a new thing. The the woolly mouse is. a new thing. Is there any talk about. doing other kind of new things? So it's. more of a proof of technology. I think. that the mouse model because it's a. 20-day gestation versus 22 months in. elephants. It's it's a great way to test.

phenotypes because with, you know, with. a a mammoth, you have three ways to test. if you got the edits right. One, you can. do molecular tests. You can do DNA. sequencing to see if it worked. Uh two, I guess there's four. Uh two, you could. grow a mammoth and see if it looks like. it. But that's a lot of work in 22. months. Like a lot of gestational time, a lot of money. Uh I think there's a lot. of risk in that. The third, and this is. a little weird, we created what's called. induced pur potent stem cells. So we. created cells that you can then turn. into any type of tissue. So we actually.

do have mammoth hair follicles growing. in a lab. So we have hair growing in. petri dishes in the lab, which is pretty. cool. If you come see the lab, you'll. get the whole Willy Wonka tour of it, which is pretty cool. Um, and then then. the fourth way is mice, right? Because. it's like if we can then engineer them. into mice, we can see immediately within. 20 days if the edits were working, if. there were any unintended consequences. that were be detrimental to the animal. Wow. So, we'll probably make more. iterations of the woolly mice. Um, the. thyloine's closest living relative is. the fat tail dunart, which is a.

mouse-sized marupial, and it actually. gestates in 13 and a half days versus 20. days. So, there's no reason to do it in. mice when you can do it immediately in. the model species. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Um, so how did you make the decision to do. what you ultimately did, what you showed. me before the show? Um, so, uh, we're. working on the mammoth, the Tasmanian. tiger, and the dodo for different. reasons. We work with a lot of different. private land owners, governments, and. indigenous people groups. And, uh, a. project that we announced, uh, through. our colossal foundation about two and a.

half years ago was, uh, doing a. population genomics map. We talked about. bioanking a little bit. So we want to. understand from the bison that are still. here in America what's genetic diversity. what's been lost you know what's the. number of imbreeding so we go through. this whole process to try to understand. and then we were giving a report back to. MHA nation chairman Fox it's one of the. largest uh indigenous people groups in. the United States one of the largest. tribes based in North Dakota so we're. giving them a report out on this we we. we went to their nation wanted to share. this and and then you know we're curious.

so we said what other projects would you. work on if if that you that we could do. that's helpful outside of helping the. bison. And they said that they that we. needed to help with wolf conservation. They brought up that. They said that we. needed to help with more bison. conservation. Uh they said if we could. do stuff around um uh eagles and fish. And so we kind of got that feedback. And. when um Chairman Fox was walking me. through their their herold their. cultural heritage museum, he actually. stopped on this incredible picture of of. a white wolf and he said, "You know,

that's the great wolf." and uh and he. talked about the ancestral knowledge. that was passed down and that's been. lost and how many people believed um uh. that it could have even been a direwolf. And I was like from Game of Thrones. that's cool. I love the show. That's. interesting. So I did that. We we talked. about that. Um and then you know 3. months later I was in North Carolina and. uh understanding that uh for a. completely different meeting around. financing and in that meeting the. Redwolf program came up. I don't know if. you know anything about the Redwolf but. it's kind of a disaster. you know, it's.

the only endemic wolf to America that's. only endemic to America. It's a red. wolf. Uh it's beautiful and uh there's. like 15 left in the wild and with with. massive loss of of genetic diversity, massive bottleneck. And and I was like, wait, we're supposed to be this country. of innovation. We can't save our own. When you think of like the American. West, right, you think of wolves, you. think of like uh you know, eagle. soaring, you think of like trout, bears. catching trout, you you know, you think. of bison. the thought that we could lose. one of these amazing icons, like we were.

like, we have to do something about. this. We have to figure something out. And so we put that kind of on the list. And then in a weird series of events, we've had all of these kids over the. last three years send and teachers and. parents sending us pictures of Willy. Mammoth or dosile scenes. Like we get. like boxes of this every single week, which is pretty cool. So we're going to. make a colossal kids corner um at our. new new uh labs. and and in that we've. had all this some Hollywood talent like. you know Tom Brady others that have. invested in the business they're just.

excited about it most of them learned. about it through their kids kind of like. with the woolly mouse with you and so. everyone's excited about it and then um. we talked again to MHA Nation they. brought up the direwolf again and so we. thought maybe there was an opportunity. to bring back an American species. because direwolves were only found in in. the US a little in in North America but. predominantly in the United States. coastal United States and Um, we thought. if we could do something that could. bring back the direwolf also uh help. wolf conservation and bring people from.

like sci-fi fantasy and kids more into. science and into the conversation around. conservation. We thought it was a cool. idea, but we had no idea if we could. pull it off. Is. there dead direwolves that were trapped. in perafrost or is No, most are most of. the direwolf skulls out there uh there's. thousands of them in Labraatar Fritz. So. if you go there, they have this. beautiful wall, but because of heat and. acid acid acidification, there isn't. anything that's protected. Like there's.

nothing you can get from that. But uh. about 6 years ago, uh a group including. Bess Shapiro, our chief science officer, uh sequenced a tooth that was found in a. cave, just a single tooth, right? And in. that tooth, they actually found a uh uh. they actually got. 0.15x or coverage of the genome. So they. got about 15% of the genome, but that's. not really enough. You need to get up to. about 10x. Meaning that you can read the. entire genome about 10 different times. so that even if there are gaps, you.

understand stuff understand enough of. the core kind of uh coding regions that. you could bring back that animal or is. this done by AI? Is this done by AI and. software? Yeah. So we we built um part. of our business model is building. technologies uh to solve these really. complicated problems. They're much. harder to solve than you know just. solving them for you know existing. species. open sourcing that for. conservation for free but then also. taking those technologies that we can. monetize for humans and spinning them. out. So our first uh computational. analysis company was called formbio and. we actually spun it out of the business. So you have this tooth you have one.5.

yeah.5 so 15% of the genome. Okay. Um. and so I went to Beth who was only an. adviser at the time and said could you. resample the tooth? And she's like it's. like you know half an inch long. She's. like it's destructive sampling like it's. going to ruin. I was like, "Well, could. we scour the other museums and see if. it's even possible?" So, we we lucked. out and that tooth is 13,000 years old. The skull itself is uh 72 73,000 years. old. Not exactly sure. Uh but it was. found in a riverbed. Um and it wasn't.

found in uh a riverbed at the mouth of a. cave. So, it wasn't found like in in uh. the perafrost, but also wasn't found in. like heat acidification. So, uh, there's. a bone in all of us called the Petrus. bone, which is insanely dense and it. doesn't change a lot from after you're. born. It's a great DNA storage, better. than teeth, better than anything. It's. on the It's like in the inner ear kind. of head area. And so, um, we got. permission from the museum to uh, very. carefully uh, drill into the back the.

underside of the skull and remove uh, the petrus bone to see if we could get. DNA. And we got really lucky between. resampling the first and um the and and. the skull. We ended up getting about 13. to 14x coverage. So that's more than we. needed to potentially bring back the. direwolves. And then what' you do? Well, and then uh then we got a knock on the. door and it was CI. Um no. So so we took. that DNA. Can I ask you before we even. started with this? Yeah. The aggressive. reporters are is it you're playing God?

How do you have the right to do this? So, it it's been a journey. Okay. So, the journey that we've had is when we. started the business, we didn't have any. scientists. Like, we just didn't, right? They're like, "This is tech bros wanting. to see cool animals and oh, they've only. got $16 million in funding and they. don't have any scientists. Haha." So, that was that was phase one. And then. we're like, "Oh, well, you know, as an. entrepreneur, my job is to hire much. smarter people than me." Do you smoke. cigars? I do not. Um, Gary's got me on. quite a kick. So, a health kick. Yeah.

So, yeah. I mean, cigars aren't bad for. you. Well, I'm not saying they're bad. for you. I'm just saying that I. allegedly Yeah. I I don't care. I'll. take This is the last of the things that. I partake in that are probably bad for. you. Yeah. But you got to uh you got to. do what you got to do. Everybody's got. their vices. I like a little cigar. Um. so, my question, if I was going to grill. you, if I was a reporter, it'd be like, what what right do you have to invade. the natural process of nature and to. inject your curiosity and your ability.

to create new life? I think that we've. become the apex predator on this planet. and we inject our curiosity and choices. every day that we overfish the ocean, we. over hunt something. In the case of the. thyloine, we the Australian government. put a bounty on its head and killed it. off, right? Every time we cut down the. rainforest, every every time we drink. hydrogenated water, we are, you know, playing God on some level, right? we are. we are we are change we humans are very. good at changing the natural flow of.

things. Now the good news is is that. there's been a lot of work around. ecology and understanding what the. impacts to reing can be. And so it's. been really really helpful for us to. understand you know um you know one of. the most successful rewing programs of. all times was reintroducing of 14 or 15. wolves back into Yellowstone, right? and. and looking at at how the e the ecology. of the system completely changed. Like. it changed the shape of rivers, you. know, because the elk population were. just, you know, they were getting fat,

they were getting lazy, they weren't. migrating. The sick and the old and the. weak weren't getting killed off. They. were spreading disease. They were eating. all of the willows and everything along. the banks. So therefore, the beavers. went away. Beavers are like the most. super, you know, climate impact animals. that probably exists because they make. wetlands. They make uh they they cause. the rivers and ponds to get deeper. So. it allows different types of fish and. different types of animals. So you have. this thing called tropic downgrading and. you have this tropic cascading effect. when you reintroduce these species. That.

documentary is fascinating. It's so. fascinating. How wolves change rivers. Yeah. That I know people that lived in. Montana before the wolf reintroduction. and a lot of people don't like that the. wolves are there and but most of them. are elk hunters that were used to. something that's just outrageously. overpop populated. That's the reality of. it. Yeah. But they were telling me that. there was they had so many elk that were. living. They had s such a large. population versus the actual resources. that were available that they had all.

these crazy hunts that were available. over the counter like you can hunt cows. in the snow. So in the middle of the. winter where they can't move good, you. just pick them off in the snow because. they were just trying to call the. population. They were trying to diminish. them. And that's and that's not good for. the elk population. It's not only good. for the ecosystem, but it's not good for. the elk population itself, right? Um I. have a good friend who lives in. Colorado. He has a a ranch in Colorado. and uh we were at his. place approximately 2 weeks after they.

re reintroduced wolves. So they actually. reintroduced wolves on his property. Oh. yeah. Um and he didn't know it was going. to happen before it happened. And all. the people around there are ranchers. Yeah. So already these five wolves that. they've re reintroduced, he said killed. over a dozen cows and calves. So the. problem is they've killed elk as well. In fact, I took a photo of an elk leg. that we found on the ground that the. wolves had killed. I'm not a big fan of. people getting to vote on whether or not. you should do something with wildlife.

I'm a big fan on having real wildlife. biologists assess situations. And in the. case of Colorado, Colorado obviously. borders Wyoming and Wyoming has wolves. Wolves were making their way into. Colorado already and they are protected. The problem with reintroducing them is. you're essentially asking a wolf that. doesn't know the territory to start. killing things in that territory. Yeah. Or to stop at a at a imaginary border. It doesn't exist. There's no border. They go hundreds and hundreds of miles. But the idea that you're doing this and.

you're doing this where there's ranches. is crazy. And in Colorado, particularly. stupid because the first batch were. literally animals that they had captured. because they were killing wildlife. So. they they moved them from Oregon to. Colorado where they started killing. Yeah. They're kill excuse me, I'm saying. wildlife. What I what I really meant to. say was uh animals, agriculture. They're. killing domesticated cows. They're. they're killing these uh calves. and you.

know they're they're having a real. [ __ ] problem with that. Um and it it. is something that needs to be. continually monitored that shouldn't. just be on some random vote of how you. feel about it, right? Like you just. can't let people vote on that. Too many. people live in these high population. areas. I could I couldn't agree more, right? And so like we as humanity like. if you look at the the third leading. cause of death of of elephants, it's. human elephant conflict, right? Like we. have to we have to figure these things. out.

We also we don't want ecosystems. We. don't want to lose species, but you have. to be you have to do this in a very. thoughtful and measured way. Right? Like. with Yellowstone, they're like, "This is. big enough ecological preserve. We're. tagging the animals. We're going to walk. and measure it." I don't think that it's. safe or smart to put any, you know, not. just predators, but also like large. herbivores in these heavy population. dense areas. We can just we just un we. have to understand that some of these. areas not are lost but have already been. uh changed for a different reason and.

they've achieved homoasis homeostasis. they've achieved the balance right which. is the the big issue with Colorado right. now and it's going to be the big issue. whenever you reintroduce an animal that. used to be there and is no longer there. and I think in the case of Montana I. think you're right and I think that. there is an argument that maybe the. wolves being there is better obviously. Not if you're a rancher. Well, the well. the Colorado so the Colorado stuff is. completely going to destroy all of the. stats. So precol, right? So I'm talking. about reintroduction into Montana,

reintroduction into uh parts of Canada, reintroduction into Yellowstone, the red. wolf, which is a very small population. in in North Carolina. There's been less. than five confirmed fatalities in all of. North America in the last 100 years. You. mean humans? Humans. Humans, right? And. are most of them in Alaska? most are in. Alaska or in Canada. And then um uh and. then it's before Colorado. So I'm not. saying what with I don't know if the. data has I I don't think it has the. latest from Colorado, but it uh it.

represents. 02% uh of deaths assoc associated with. uh wolves and cattle and livestock, right? And all livestock, not just. cattle. And so the problem is when you. go out there and you have a maintained. balance that people can understand and. governments actually give subsidies to. the ranchers when they get killed by. when they get killed by the um by. wolves. Um so that that I think that is. a good program because you have to be. fair to the people that are actually. ranching. But the problem is when you're. you're not as thoughtful with the reing. program and you don't and you're not as.

measured as like what they did in. Yellowstone and they start encroaching. in these areas then the stats are going. to go crazy. And what if the stats goes. crazy, then you're going to start. looking uh to the animals that are the. problem, but it's not the animals that. are the problem. It was the decision. that we gave that power to the masses. that were really not informed to make. that decision. Exactly. The problem is. people just have these ideas like wolves. are beautiful. They're amazing. We all. love wolves. It's an incredible animal. I'm so happy it exists. Don't put it. near where there's a ranch. You can't. vote on that if you live in Denver. That's crazy. Yeah. If if it doesn't.

affect your livelihood, if it doesn't. affect your the risk to your animals or. your family, Yeah. You have to be. mindful of that. There's also they're. getting a very skewed perspective. because the governor is really. interested in it and his husband is. really interested in it. His his husband. apparently is the one who really wanted. it to happen and you know you you have a. mandate. So you have to get wolves out. by a certain time and when you're doing. it the only wolves available are wolves. that kill livestock. So you're like [ __ ]. it. Yeah. It's just not it's you have in. and the a lot of the so the project that.

we'll probably eventually talk about is. uh we brought in a lot of the teams uh. so many people that have been on your. show uh that uh know how to do the. rewalding the right way over time like. Okay, so this is what we'll just get to. it. You made a [ __ ] direwolf. I. didn't. Uh our team uh our incredible. team uh uh made uh three direwolves so. far. Let's see the photos. Jamie, bust. out some photos. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourself cuz this is truly.

[ __ ] crazy. Yeah, that's the pup. Yeah. So, this is uh so that's actually. uh Romulus as so we have two boys, Romulus and Remis, uh founders of Rome. And then uh and then we have Khesi, who's the new girl. So, this is Romulus. and Remis. Uh so, funny funny story. about this. So, Peter Jackson uh from. Lord of the Rings. Um Jamie uh Peter. Jackson from Lord of the Rings uh was. actually uh one of our investors and he. has this huge museum in Wellington that.

he's building for all these movie props. and he's like we were I was sitting in. in Peter's uh house with he and his his. partner Fran and I was like you know um. uh I showed him the video of them. howling. He started tearing up and he. goes, "This is the first time I've heard. a direwolf or anyone's heard a direwolf. in 10,000 years." Started, "Well," he. like he like physically, emotionally got. chills and started crying. And then he's. like, "Well, you know, I do have the. throne." I was like, "What do you mean?". He goes, "I bought the throne last week. at auction at at a private auction for. like Sabes or someone, right?" And so, so he did and it just happened to be.

where the wolves were doing their vet. checkup. Like, talk about cosmic. coincidence. Incredible, right? And so. um you know what you don't see in this. photo is you don't see the fact that we. have American Humane Society there. We. had three veterary people. We had six. people from our uh animal care. When you. say checkup, you don't vaccinate these. little guys, do you? Uh they do get they. because of viruses from that they can. get from the soil. Uh at at uh eight at. 8 weeks they do get basic virus. They do. they do get basic vaccines. Oh, were you.

concerned about that? I mean you have. this animal that you're just Yeah. Yeah. So, these are staying on, you know, like. these are not going back into the wild, right? Right now, they're on a 2,000. acre uh secure expansive ecological. preserve with 24/7 care. We have an. animal hospital that we built. Uh people. always are like, "You guys raised so. much money." And I was like, "Well, it. because we didn't just spend it on the. labs, you have to spend it on the animal. care, the facilities, and whatot." Let's. see the photo of the the actual grown. ones because they're [ __ ] nuts.

Um Yeah. So, so this is uh Ramos and. Remis uh in playing in the snow on the. preserve when they are um uh 3 months. old. So, at 3 months, how big are they? Uh 3 months they were north of 45 lbs. Wow. So, um look at that face. God, they're so beautiful. Oh, they just get. they just get like as they've aged. they've just got more and more. beautiful. So, let's go to the adults. because the adults have crazy. characteristics that you were saying. that you didn't even know we didn't.

know, right? And so we we did we we. ended up taking getting a Is this a full. grown one? Uh no, they're still 5 months. old. So they're 80 lbs at 5 months. So. wolves typically grow 12 to 14 months. So it they're not full grown yet. Wow. And how big is it already? Uh 80 lb. Um. about 5 and 1/2 ft. Um and the main. Yeah. And so so a couple things about. the wolves, Jamie, if you go back. Yeah. So we didn't know this, right? We knew. that they were a plecistine wolf. We. knew that they existed uh and went.

extinct about 12,000 years ago um when a. lot of megapona went extinct like the. during kind of that younger dry per that. younger dus kind of cooling period. Um. they went they went extinct as well, right? Um and we knew all we know. because all we have is we don't have. frozen direwolves or frozen samples. We. literally just know from skeletal. remains that they were 20 to 25% long uh. larger. They were stockier. uh they. probably weren't as fast based on kind. of their their body weight as a normal. wolf would be. Um but we knew that they.

had thicker skulls, a larger cranium and. whatnot. And we assumed that they're. they're and we did find this out in the. genome which is pretty cool that they. were white because there's like this. misconception for a while that they were. red because some scientists wanted to. make a paper and assume that they are. red so they get their paper. Doesn't it. make sense for natural selection? They're an arctic hunting animal. Yeah. And they have this beautiful We didn't. know this. They have this beautiful like. maneike quality to them. And when. they're babies, you saw a couple. pictures, their fur almost feels like. polar bears. It's crazy. Wow. It's so Is.

it like polar bears and it's hollow or. is it No, it's not. It's it's like. typical wolves, but it's incredibly. thick. It grows in kind of these these. clumps, but then as they've uh as. they've grown in, they've started to get. this kind of like mane to them, which is. incredible. The females as well. Uh. well, the female, she's only 6 weeks. old, so it's too too soon to tell. So, if you keep going through a couple other. photos, Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they are. just they're just beautiful. And I mean, it's funny. Someone actually said they. uh on our team was like, "They almost. look like Shetland pony wolves at some. point." Right. Right. There's something.

They're so stocky. They're stocky. They're thicker. Um they are I mean. they're they're absolutely beautiful. Um. that So this is Kesi. So who looks like. a baby little face. And uh we we nailed. it. We uh we we named her. Can we hear. it? Let me hear. We named Kesi for George R. Martin. Obviously. Obviously. Who's an investor. in Colossal? Oh, wow. [Music].

A nature's cute little murderers. Well, everything in nature murders. something, right? Like we murder Well, cows murder grass. Yeah. And people are. now saying you can hear grass and other. plants like scream. Yeah. Yeah. They. scream. Yeah. So I guess I guess guess. we all are bad. Life eats life. This is. this is I mean that's the reason why. plants have chemicals to dissuade us. from eating them. What are they eating.

there? Uh so they love to chew on horns. and in the say so we have a different. phases of we we built a 145 page animal. guide. These are actually um different. horns from different elk and other. species that we're putting out there. And they chew on like they just love. like a dog does like a dog does. Right. So, are you letting these animals kill. things or are you feeding them? So, so. we're feeding them still. So, they need. a combination of bison meat, horse meat, and do you plan on letting them kill. things? So, we're just about to. introduce carcasses to them. So, giving. them part of a carcass, letting them.

feed, building in that that dynamic. between the two brothers for now, and. then um and they are starting to exhibit. some hunting behavior. Are you going to. let them hunt? I mean, they're on they. are on a seemingly wild 2,000 acre. preserve with just them. So, they do. have the ability to hunt on that. preserve, but they're not doing it yet. They're starting to exhibit the the. original the kind of the the first. inklings that that it will trend toward. that. But, we want them to live, we want. them, and we're going to probably make. two or three more. We want a a solid.

little social pack that we can monitor, that can live a seemingly wild life that. we can understand more about them. Wow. It's cool. But the other thing that's. that's equally uh cool to it going back. to the red wolf story um c can you. what's crazy to me that you have. reignited these 10,000y old hunting. genes. Yeah. That they're starting to. including size. Including size. So we. understand more about like we you know. we looked at what uh genes made really a. direwolf a direwolf like what was. separated. And the beautiful thing for. us is that we had a 13,000 year old.

tooth and a 73,000y old skull. So we. could actually understand uh the genetic. uh distance with that much genetic. distance between them we could actually. understand uh you know what truly was. fixed and conserved in the direwolf. genome and what wasn't just population. genomics right if there's if you and I. are 50,000 years apart we you know. there's a lot of different mutations in. that time period but if we can then. really say okay you know what made Ben. Ben and what made Jojo Joe oh here's the. overlaps it allowed us to really. understand that pretty awesome it's just. fascinating that the behavior.

characteristics are kind of baked into. those genes and they just were dormant. for 10,000 years and now these things. are waking up. So I was I was like so I. was in um you know cuz I bottlefed. Ramulus um and and Ramos was partly. raised with me like I'd go out to the. preserve I' I'd check on him quite quite. frequently. Uh it's in the northern. United States. We don't say where it is. But um mainly because of we're we're for. not just the animals health but for. human health. We ever since we launched. the woolly mouse, we've had um very. excited people just show up at our our.

labs are not open to the public and. we've had lots of people just show up. wanting to see the mice. And so um. showing people too much of the preserve. We're always very very nervous about we. scrub all the videos and whatnot to. ensure that no one can pick it out. because we we assume people will be. moderately excited. Oh yeah. Oh, the the. internet sleuths will try to find you. Yeah. We've we've done not I'm not. trying to challenge them, but we've been. we've done everything we can to protect. it. Yeah, I understand. I mean, you have. to Some dude from Saudi Arabia wants a.

wolf. Yeah, exactly. Somebody wants a. dire weird calls. But the the other. thing though, someone with deep pockets. Oh, we get we get Make me a direwolf, my. friend. I have everything in my. collection. We get a lot of weird calls. Yeah. Yeah. from people that are like. those people that have private zoos. Oh. yeah. Yeah. Like enormous in like in. India. Yeah. Yeah. They have that family. has like the largest private zoo and. preserve which is so wild. It's so.

crazy. Yeah. Well, you know, Texas is. history with animals, right? Yeah. There's more tigers in captivity and. private collections than in the wild. than in the wild of the world. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. But I was I was in the. um I was in So we of the 2,000 acres, we. have a subsection of it that's about six. and a half acres where we have an animal. hospital, a storm rescue shelter, we. have a a couple of natural dens that. we've built for them as well as an. animal husbandry uh area so that that.

way when we want to take photos of them. or video them or do blood tests, they're. in a seemingly more contained area. And. um it's funny, two weeks ago I I was up. there and I was actually sitting on. those logs in one of those pictures and. Remis came. Romulus, who I spent the. most amount of time with, Remis came up, came pretty close, and I was able to. touch him again, but I thought at that. moment, and he kind of skittished away. I was like, that's the last time I'm. touching Remis like what am I doing? And. I mean, don't get me wrong, I had Yeah. I have animal care teams there and.

everything. And they have been some. there's some level of habituation. between uh the the care team. They. really know and love the care team, but. they're still wild animals, right? And. so they probably hunted humans. Uh yeah, I don't I don't I don't we don't know, right? But the rise of kind of going. back to their extinction, the rise of. the the change in kind of this younger. dest uh and the change the massive I. don't know the some of the stuff that. there's like several different. prevailing theories. One of which is. human predation, right? that like the.

rise of humans led to the extinction of. the megapana. That's kind of, you know, I think I think it's the answer is. probably a combination. Uh could have. there been an, you know, astrological. event? Uh there's starting to be more. and more data around that. Uh I'm sure. you've seen Randall Carlson talk about. it. I've seen Randall Carlson talk about. it, Graham Hancock talk about it, and. they just got the [ __ ] beat out of them. Not. anymore. Impact theory is well respected. now. It's Yeah. And it happened. Yeah. And it and it definitely also happened. in kind of a regional sense, right?

Because you see different which which. also tracks to the theory, right? So not. only do you have these different layers. that you can prove from a sedimentation. perspective, but you know there was also. a massive uh glacial lake and and and. some of the glaciers up there that got. rapidly liquefied that then dumped in. the ocean that also changed ocean. pattern. So you went from a period you. know in the that that um kind of. transition from plyine to holysine there. was this period of ex insanely. accelerated cooling. Do you know how.

Randall came up with that idea before it. was brought to like his idea is that it. was an. instantaneous melting of these caps. So. some sort of immense cosmic event and. millions and millions of trillions of. gallons of water at an insane rate ran. through the land and just carve deep. gouges into the earth. He was on acid. He was on acid and this idea came to. him. He was looking out over a ridge. He.

was looking at this enormous gorge and. he realized the gorge was formed by. water rushing at an insane rate of. speed. And then he he started noticing. that there's these huge boulders that. are just out in the middle of nowhere. that were just moved by this immense. amount of water. And then the way the. ground the the features of the ground. looks like the features that you see on. sandy beaches when the tide rolls in and. out and it's like this is crazy and it.

all tracks. It tracks all over the. world. It's like it's like those it. reminds me of those stories where they. show people like the side of the Sphinx. and they're like, "Oh man, that's a lot. of water erosion." And then they like. flip the photo and then you see the head. of the things like that's not water. erosion. It's Dr. Robert Chock from. Boston University. He I've interviewed. him. He was the first guy to propose. this. He's like, "This is thousands of. years of rainfall." And we know that the. last time there was rainfall like that. in the Nile Valley was 9,000 years ago. So the whole thing is really screwy in.

terms of like what is the timeline that. this stuff was actually built? And are. we just assuming because we've decided. that it's 2,500 BC that that's it. forever and no one wants to let that go? Well, that that that I'm not a. scientist, but that's and I don't come. from academia. I'm just an entrepreneur. that knows how to build teams of smarter. people than me and I find cool [ __ ]. interesting and I try to work on it, right? And what what's crazy to me is. the academic system. You know, once. again, non-academic, I'm sure I'll get. crucified for this, but I don't read the. comments. It doesn't really matter. I.

don't read the comments. I don't trust. me, I don't read the comments. It. doesn't I sleep quite well. Um the uh. but but you know the academic so we have. 95 of the top scientific adviserss in. the world, Nobel laureates and whatnot. We've got we fund 17 academic. universities right all over the world. We fund 40 posttocks right uh all over. the world right and that that are that. are doing this. So we're very integrated. with with different ideas from from. academia and these scholars and our top. people that work at Colossal came from. academia. So I think we try to be very.

academically friendly but they live in. this world this super kind of like. fortune and glory world where it's like. it's a popularity contest if someone has. a paper because their entire motivation. is publish or or parish. So one of the. other things that people [ __ ] about is. they're like you guys don't write. scientific papers for every single thing. you do is like we're not an academic. university. We're not allowed I I don't. have to write a paper on anything ever. We do a couple here and there because we. want to share our knowledge with with. the community, right? But we get this. feedback of like if we wrote a. scientific paper for every single thing.

that we did that went through peer. review, like we we would have 3,000. scientific papers and no mammoths ever, right? Cuz we'd just be sitting around. writing [ __ ] papers all day long. This is interesting because they want to. impose their idea of what you're. supposed to and not supposed to do. Well, they want to impose your their. idea that they've already established. and any change to that establishment. So. So in addition, the public 95 scientific. advisors and these are some of the top. women and men in the world, right? that. for fall in all sides of the political. spectrum, all sides of every single uh.

spectrum out there. They um we have. another probably 40 advisors. They're. like, "We love you. We just you can't. say anything because if I submit it, we. know these other people don't like me. If I submit a paper, they're and we. totally agree with you and we'll help. you, but we submit a paper, they judge. my paper, it gets rejected, then I don't. get my grant. So then I can't continue. my research. I have to fire my postocs.". So it's a complete scam of a system, right? And so we we went through this. phase where it's like we didn't have. enough scientists, we didn't have labs, we didn't have money, we weren't doing. anything for conservation. So we went.

through this whole like philosophical. perspect of these like these all these. things that people threw threw at us uh. from the scientific community. And some. of our biggest people that hate us are. people that we denied their funding. Of. course. Well, the problem is not the. scientific community. The problem is. weak men. It's this this what you see in. these these squables, these like ultra. personal squables where like horrible. vitriolic statements made about people. like they're just not happy people.

Exactly. It's the same problem with all. of life. It's these [ __ ] little. people, these [ __ ] little monsters, and they have taken over something. that's incredibly important. And their. work, their work, these [ __ ] little. people, their work is incredibly. important. Yes. But at the core of their. being, they're a [ __ ] little person. and they can't and that's why and that. is why we don't have flying cars. We. don't have mammoths. And until Elon, we. were not going to live on Mars, right? And so like we didn't have like I think.

that takes time. It Yeah. But it it. doesn't come but also academia is really. focused on point solutions not full. systems, right? So if you want to go to. Mars or you want to bring back a. mammoth, you have to design the entire. system and you have to innovate across. everything. Whereas in academia, you're. you are only incentivized to get that. piece of paper and get that approved. Well, it's also you're you're dealing. with grants and enormous amounts of. money that gets donated and and given to. these. institutions along with a whole ideology.

like it's not just as simple as let's. follow data. It's all got to be attached. to this very. leftleaning, almost preposterous in some. aspects ideology and everyone has to say. things as a [ __ ] scientist that you. know is not true. You should just follow. the scientific method. I'm not a. scientist, but we should just And guess. what? When new data shows up that uh you. know changes your old data, you. shouldn't get mad about that. You should. celebrate it. Exactly. Well, also you.

have to look at all data, you know, like. I don't want to get into this, but like. if you you have academics who are. legitimate scientists and have published. papers who are telling you that a man. can be a woman and which is fine in. terms of like who you are, but now when. you're having them compete with women in. sports, you've entered into nonsense. land and you're the person we're. counting on to be the most intelligent. person on the subject. You're trapped by. an ideology that you're now ignoring.

biology in favor of sociology. I just. wish we could get philosophy, we. separate like philosophical perspectives. from science. We one of the things that. we fight about all the time you know. because it's like once we got the. scientists and once we got the money and. once we proved that we are the most. advanced you know synthetic biology. company in the world once inutel which. is a uh the funding arm of the CIA and. other government started investing in. Colossal because of our technologies um. and once we started proof points the the.

last arguments that we have against some. of those scientists are philosophical. ones right they're like it's not a. mammoth it's not a direwolf and it's. like this concept of speciation. is a human construct that we are trying. to impose on nature that flows more like. a river than a rock. So are they saying. that it's not because it didn't come. straight from nature? It's something. that you've recreated by piecing this. together with that. Like what what are. the genes that you had to use to create. a direwolf? We didn't totally explain. this. Yeah. So you have crisper, you. have these gene editing tools, you have.

a good sample of DNA. How do you turn. that into a wolf? So you map them uh. next to it and and there was a a study. that came out about and once again this. goes back to the status quo of. scientists um of academic scientists. There was a paper that came out a few. years ago because they didn't have much. data. They said that uh direwolves were. closer related weren't closer related to. wolves. They were closely related to. jackals. And that's because at the time. they only had 0.15% of the genome. Right? They just didn't have all the.

data. That's not a negative. They just. didn't have all the data. Now we know. that they actually were closer related. to wolves because we have more data. whichol uh greywolves or the the. precursor to grey wolves, right? So um. so they were closer to to to the wolf. ancestry line in kind of the broader. kanid group and family group. And so. what we found is so once you do that we. start looking at all these genes and we. start to understand what are the. differences and we start to see that in. certain parts of the genome that are. responsible for size for muscle for. cranial facial that there's differences. right so we can start to map and say.

okay where are the differences between. greywolves and where are the differences. between greywolves and direwolves and. then with those we have a lot of. different tools that we can then go use. to make those changes from the. direwolves in a greywolf cell line and. so um and then once you go through that. process we We didn't talk about this. earlier. You do the same process uh. called sematic cell nuclear transfer. which is effectively cloning where you. take the uh nucleus of one cell you put. it that into another uh egg cell and. then uh you take that embryo and you. insert it into a surrogate and is this a.

100% direwolf or is this a new thing? So. this is so this goes into the. philosophical thing. So if you look at. speciation right there's basically the. scientists don't agree on how you. classify a species. So you've got. certain people that will say, "Well, if. it can't if a species is dictated by. something that can't breed." That's. literally a definition like like if this. animal can't breed with this animal, then that's its own species. Then you. have other people. You have the. paleontologist and some of them love us. like Kenneth Akavar who's arguably the.

number one paleontologist in the world. that loves us. But then you have other. paleontologists just hate us and they do. it based solely on tooth morphology. because they argue that's the only thing. that is going to be persistent over. time. And I asked a paleontologist. recently that that hates us. I said, "If. I made a mammoth with like that was. giant with like pink curly fur and it. had the right tooth morphology, you're. saying that based on your scientific. papers that you would say that's a. mammoth." And she's like, "Yes, but that. doesn't matter." And I'm like, "Well, so.

so but then why does she hate you guys?". Be because I Why does anyone You know, anytime you do anything in this world. now that's like moderately bold or. polarizing, people give you push back. But this is heavily bold. I wouldn't say. this is moderately bold. You made three. [ __ ] direwolves. That's not. moderately bold. It's really kind of one. of the one of the craziest things that a. human being's ever done. It's it's. definitely in in the realm. This is. right up there with inventing the. internet. Yeah. So, when you see Well, and we have more stuff to come that that. I think will be equally interesting.

There's people out there. Did you worry. that someone is going to get, you know, because this falls. into. religious realms? Well, it's it's it's. there's philosophical and religious and. so like back on speciation, you know, polar bears and brown bears are two. different species, right? But they may. produce viable offspring all the time. And a bear expert will tell you that a. polar bear is just a cold aquatic. adapted cold adapted bear, right? And so. I always ask people that they they're. their offspring are they can have.

children, right? Yes. It's not like a. donkey. Yeah. Exactly. So there's. different ways to characterize making a. mule rather but there's different ways. to say is something a something right. and so you know we are not the same. right if if I don't know what percent. you probably from 23 and me or something. have some percentage Neanderl you don't. say that you're an ad mixture or a. hybrid you just say you're a human you. don't you don't really but that's a good. point though because Neanderthal if you. want to talk about a different species. just because they could breed with us. god they're so different but that's it.

but there like I said there's six. different ways there's actually a. species definition that's based solely. on geographics And there's a a funny uh. uh paper out there around one species of. toad that they built a road through and. the same toads live on both on two sides. of the street and they're different. species and they're the same [ __ ]. toad just because there's a road just. because because we as humans change it's. called geographic isolation of. speciation. So it's just crazy. And so. so the only arguments that we now have. is but is it a mammoth? And it's like.

well then don't call it a mammoth. You I. was like I asked people I was like did. you see Jurassic Park? And they're like, "Yeah." I was like, "What is Jurassic. Park? What was J to your qu? What do you. think? What was Jurassic Park about to. you when Yeah. If you're like, if you're. gonna take your kids to see Jurassic. Park, what is the movie about?". Dinosaurs. Is it because they took ancient DNA and. they mixed it with a bunch of other. stuff? Are they dinosaurs or are they or. are they genetically modified animals, GMOs, genetically modified organisms. that have inserted genes from lots of. different things? Or are they dinosaurs? If they serve the ecological function,

this is what's called functional. deextinction. if they serve the. ecological function and they have the. lost biodiversity and phenotypes that. made that animal unique like the polar. and a bear and a bear they're just that. animal. So these goes into this starts. the whole religious and philosophical. debates where it's funny because the. scientists who should not fall into. these philosophical debates when they. don't like what you're doing that's what. they go to. So what was the argument? How did they present it? Oh it's just. like it's by their own definition. they're like well it doesn't have enough.

DNA. So I was like, "So if I said, "But. the second direwolf that we have or the. the second genome that we have uh from. the tooth has is is has less of the same. DNA than the skull. Does that mean that. it wasn't a direwolf?" And it just turns. into an uh uh you're missing the point. conversation. I would like to know the point though. What is her point? What is What is she. What is her overall argument? The. general point of the the people is that. they want to pick one speciation. definition and adhere us to that. And if. you do that, no animal, including our.

animals, will fall into one species, right? It's just people that are using. the framework that they set that doesn't. isn't consistent kind of against the. their based on the argument that they. want to make. Interesting. So species is. just something it's a human construct. It's not and it's just a thing if it can. breed with another thing. Well, I mean. that's that is one definition. There is. another definition saying that it's only. a species if it can't breed with another. thing. So if I genetically modify them. to make it where they can't breed with. wolves, does that mean they're now their. own speed? Like it it just gets into.

this dumb philosophical perspective. because we made up this construct, right? But as a person who studies. biology, which this person is, right? I. could kind of understand her perspective. where she's like, "What are you doing?". Like, "What are you doing? How is this. group of people with a bunch of money. and a bunch of eggheheads? How are these. geniuses allowed to get together, splice. some jeans up, and serve up a direwolf? I could see it from her perspective. 100%. Right. But I think that if we.

don't do big bold things, it's it's. important. You know, one of the things. we should definitely show is the This is. just like the guy in Jurassic Park. But. we. should Yeah. But but but John Hammond. but John Hammond uh I don't think that. they were really focused on conservation. unless there was a subplot that, you. know, didn't make it to Final Cut. Um, we actually want to make an attraction. Yeah. So, if we could show the red wolf, I think that'd be amazing because all. the technologies that we made on the. path to bring back uh the direwolf, we. one make available to conservation. Well, let's explain the red wolf to.

people because you were saying before I. didn't even know how few of them there. are. Yeah. So, uh if you go to um the. one more Yeah. So, this is a red wolf. Uh that's Hope. That's the world's first. cloned red wolf. So, I've actually made. more red wolves than I've made. direwolves. So, I've made four red. wolves, one female. Are you just. releasing these [ __ ] No, no, they're. they're in a they're in an ecological. preserve as well. And so, but you're. you're going to you're going to die when. you hear what I went through on this. So, I found out that, you know, uh we. try to pair every deextinction project. with a species preservation project.

outside of making all of our technology. for free, right? Everything that we make. that has an application to conservation, anyone in the world can use to help save. animals. They don't pay us a dime. It's. all open source. It's all free. We have. 48 conservation partners. the team. that's running the northern white rhino. project. We're their exclusive genetic. rescue partner. It doesn't we're working. with elephants in Batswana, working. elephants in Kenya. So anybody can use. our technologies for free, right? We're. working on ketrred fun a terrible fungus. in Australia. And so um so if that's not.

enough, I found out that you know that. there's only 15 of those uh of red. wolves back in the wild in North. Carolina. So I met with the the upcoming. governor. Are they in other states as. well or is No, we'll get to that. We'll. get to that. So they're they're only. recognized by US Fish and Wildlife. there. But this incredible woman from uh. Princeton, you know, top of her field. She's one of the wolf top wolf. geneticists in the world, Bridget Von. Hold, identified a population of wolves. in Louisiana that have redwolf like. characteristics. So she started darting.

them, taking samples, and what she found. is they actually have more quote unquote. redwolf in them than the red wolves that. are being identified in in North. Carolina. And is it part of the problem? They're inbreeding with coyotes. Yeah, but they've all been like these guy like. the ones in North Carolina have all. embred with coyotes. All the red wolves. have some coyote in them because they. look like coyotes. Well, because every. uh every well the ones in North Carolina. even look more like coyotes and yeah and. because the reality is every single. species is what's called an ad mixture. They're all we are everything is.

inbreeding with everything on some. level, right? And so everything in in. life is an ad mixture. Nothing's this. goes back to the Neanderl. So this. binary idea that we have is silly. It's. no, it's it's a human cause construct, right? And they they it's insane. So, um. so I went to uh some folks from the last. administration, right? And um and I I. took some data with me and I said, "Hey, we really want to help this Red Wolf. program. We don't need any money." We. open source all of our technologies and. uh we've we've used a technology that's.

noninvasive for cloning uh where we. actually take a vial of blood. We. isolate what's called indothelial. progenitor cells. Basically the the. inner lining of your blood vessel, right? Because there's no nucleus in. blood cells. Um so we catch those and. when we catch those, we then um uh. isolate them, we grow them and we clone. from them, right? Which is amazing. because if you think about typical. cloning from an animal welfare. perspective, a lot of times you have to. anesthetize the animal. You have to take. ear punches, skin biopsies. It's. actually pretty it's pretty invasive,

terrible process to do cloning. We can. simply do it. Every single zoo takes. blood from their animals to check. certain levels and whatnot. We give. blood all the time. And so it's a very. non-invas it's about as non-invasive as. you can get, right? And so we found a. way which we've which we're open. sourcing on Tuesday is uh open sourcing. this model of how you go clone from. blood which is a gamecher for bio. banking because now you don't have to go. hurt an animal, take pieces of the. animal, an estize animal. we can just. take bloods and put them in freezers and. be able to bring them back or clone them.

uh if there's a lack of genetic. diversity using this thing. So, I I went. out to Washington with my team. I showed. them showed them hope as a baby and. little videos of and you may have videos. of of of hope, Jamie. I don't know if. it's in the folder. Show them videos of. hope and I said, "Hey, you know, there's. there's only a handful of we made these. four wolves from three different genetic. lines. Um we made these from we've made. these from three different genetic. lines, right? So, there's actually more. genetic diversity in these wolves than. what's alive in the population. And we.

said, "We'd like for you to help protect. the work uh that's being done in. Louisiana. And then how many wolves. would you like us to make using that. population as well as frozen samples. that are dead, and we'll just give them. to you. There's no cost." Here was the. feedback. We need to spend five to six. years on an internal study and spend $22. million to see if it's possible to clone. wolves. And I was I was blown away. I. was I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I. wasn't very clear. This is a cloned. wolf. Like, here's you can fly with me.

to the preserve. You have sign, but I'll. you fly with me." And they're like, "We. need to spend five to six years and 20. plus million dollars to go to go. understand this to to understand this.". Like, we'll give you all of the. technology and if you tell me you want a. 100 wolves, I'll just make you 100. wolves and we'll even we'll even. engineer in more genetic diversity for. you. And the response was, "We'll get. back to you." We went to we try to have. three other meetings. No showed and. canceled every time when we flew there. I just got back from uh meeting with.

Department of Interior which Fish and. Wildlife rolls rolls up to and they're. very very focused on you know innovation. not regulation which has been pretty. amazing. That's great. And immediately. they said we celebrate and uh Doug. Bergam the the secretary of interior. there who we met with said we celebrate. he's a huge conservationist huge Teddy. Roosevelt guy member of the explorers. club and he's like that we do not have a. celebration when animals come off the. endangered species list only about 3%. ever come off and we're really good at. putting them on and we celebrate putting.

them on. So, we have to do something. about this. And if you're saying that we. could. productionize species and as long as we. have the right support to rewild them, people can use your technologies for. free to make more of these different. species that are critically endangered. while also bio banking the samples along. the way. He's like, why wouldn't we do. this? And I was like, I met with the. previous folks and they said that we. need, you know, 5 years and 20 million. that they they were going to spend it. internally. They weren't going to use us. to do the feasibility. they were going. to spend it internally on this and we're. like we'll just do it for free and he's.

like we will completely support the. initiative and we're going to help get. you plugged in so you can help bioank. our species and also help us support you. know red wolf conservation. So when will. you start reintroducing these? So we. just had that meeting last week soulless. red wolves from hell. that you've created in a lab. They're. going to start eating people and so. we're going to uh we just met with them. last week. So, well, it's it's they're. beautiful. God, they're so beautiful. Well, it's just it's just like why we. shouldn't be afraid of innovation, right? No, but you know, the real.

question is where do you stop? Yeah. Because 90 what% of all animals that. have ever existed, all species are. extinct. Yeah. Like are we going to I. think you focus on the the species that. are critically endangered and are. keystone species meaning the environment. needs them, right? But the ones that we. But the ones that we drove to. extinction, right? Okay. So that's so. it's debatable whether or not we drove. dire wolves to extinction. We don't. really know what happened 10,000 years. ago. I'm inclined to think that when you.

see the the death of 65% of North. American megapona that happened really. quickly. Really quickly. Yeah. I'm I'm. inclined to think that these scientists. that believe it was an asteroid or a. comet impact are correct. I think I. think it's a com I think it's a most. likely it's a combination. And we do. know that when early uh that. anthropological effects from humans that. when early man went onto uh onto a land. mass at scale that that you know we. start to see that we see that in. Australia and other places but it's but. to your point it's much slower. It's. much much slower. This is a different.

thing. Um are you going to bring back. saber-tooth tigers? We so we get. everyone seems to have their favorite. animal for us to save, right? Like. direwolves would be my favorite. Yeah. Be my favorite. Yeah. Direwolves. You. got to come maybe at some point you see. them. But I want to they're amazing. I. mean they're be they're they're just. beautiful animals. Um so uh we they're. so saber saber-tooth tiger is a class of. we put that as a class. Most commonly. people think of the smileon as the. saber-tooth tiger. There's not to date.

been really great smileon DNA. There is. great homothereum DNA which is another. um type of saber-tooth guy. Oh, I didn't. know there was more than one type of. saber-tooth. How many they classify them. differently, you know, based on it, but. obviously you've been studying this, so. you're thinking about doing it? I'm not. I mean, we we like to study ancient DNA, right? Like like you know, one of the. things where I think that, you know, John Reeves is 100% right is people say. there were no saber-tooth tigers in uh. Alaska. That that's just an incorrect.

statement. There were no there were. probably no smileons there, but there. are homothereums, which are a. saber-tooth cat. Yeah, he's found things. that were not supposed to be. I I've. held things in his I He's I I've held a. direwolf skull in his in his um I hope. he's fine with me saying that in his uh. facility. Yeah, I think he's talked. about that. But they found cave bears, shortfaced bears. Wow. Homothereum is. still a saber-tooth cat. But when what.

happens is this goes back to that. philosophical. that philosophical perspective. They. think that only So if you look up. Smileadon in comparison. Oh, so this has. shorter saber teeth, but still. Can you. give me that CGI image of it again, Jamie on the left? That's so [ __ ]. cool. Yeah. And and I don't think there. I don't think you should bring something. like that back, but if you do, I'm going. to visit it. I mean, I want to see that take down a. bite. Look at his paws, bro. There was a. I mean, wait see the direl paws, bro. But that would be so crazy. Now, now all.

of a sudden, I want you to do it now. Give me another large picture of it, Jamie. There's some other pictures of. those. So, Smileodon's the one that has. the largest teeth. It has the largest. known teeth. Um, uh, but when people. think of saber-tooth tiger, this is what. or cat. That's a crazy. This is what. they think of. Those are crazy. I wonder. how why nature wanted you to have that. I mean, probably having to pierce things. like mammoth hides. They're quite thick. It has to be right. Something where you. There's a genetic advantage. The jaw. hinges. Look at that one on the right, lower right, Jamie. Below that to below.

that to the right. To the right. Yeah, right there. Click on that. Look at. that, man. CGI. So, I love because we don't, you. know what's amazing? We don't have the. DNA from it. So, we have no idea what. the color pattern is, which you can see. here, right? It's like it's got a short. tail, it's got a long tail, it's got. leopard, it's got stripes. Right. Right. We don't even know if they had long. tails. We don't even know if they could. have been white. Wow. That would be. wild. So, we do have there there have. been some really well preserved pups and. others of in the perafrost of um.

homothetherum. Whoa. Have you ever seen homothereum we. know has that kind of coloration to it? We don't uh I I don't want to say we do. or don't. We have not done the analysis. on that on the home yet. Look at that. little guy. We do we do have the genome. of it though. Um not that we're going to. work on. Okay. So, that has brown hair. Have you seen the uh Have you seen the. American shortface bear? Yes. That's the. thing I'm probably the most scared of. Yeah, you can't bring that back. 17 or.

18 foot giant bear. You can't bring that. back. We're not working on I'm just. saying it's But somebody might. That's. the problem. There might be some [ __ ]. crackhead out there that's got $40. billion. It's out of his mind. Well, I. also think that like some crazy dude. who's just got the resources. That's. insane. Look at that. That is That to me. is megalodon scary. That's a man. Yeah, that's a land megalodon. Well, that that. yeah, that is an enormous animal and. they think that's one of the animals. that probably prevented people from. crossing the Bearing Straight. Um, more. I read that. Yeah, it was it's a theory,

but it's a pro pretty good one. Yeah. If. you knew that if you knew there was a. lineage of like super, you know, polar. bears were out there, I wouldn't go near. it. And it is essentially a super polar. bear, which is really scary cuz polar. bears are are terrifying and completely. carnivorous and they don't care. They'll. just walk right up to you and kill you. Oh, yeah. There's a great video of uh. these guys that are uh behind a fence. Yeah, that was Somebody sent it to me. yesterday. Oh, [ __ ] I'll find it. I. know where it is. Um someone sent it to.

me yesterday of these guys that are. right behind a fence while this polar. bear is trying to get through the fence. There's three of them and they're, you. know, they're talking to like, "Hey big. guy, you can't come in here. Hey, fella." And it's just calmly walking. towards like, "I'm going to get in. there." Exactly. Yeah. It's It's polar. bears scare me. Very spooky. Well, they're spooky because they don't eat. anything but meat. So, we're on the. menu. Yeah. All humans are on the menu. Anything that walks and breathes is on. the menu. I got it here. Where is it? [ __ ] It'll.

take me a few minutes. Sorry, Jamie. Pause for a second. Let me find this. because it's good. Okay. I just sent it. to you. So, um I'm It looks like they're. in I don't know where they are, but I. think it'll say in the video. So, these. guys here, give me some volume. Polar. bears. That's an oil. rig. So, it's probably Canada. Like, look at these. guys. That's sound. Yeah. They're just trying to eat you.

Look at this. I had two more behind it. Yep. Hey, go on. Go on. Go on. Probably not going to. work. They're just trying to figure out. how to get in to eat you. Hey, sweetheart. Hey, sweetheart. Sweetheart wants to rip your. liver. out. Hey, go on. They're so beautiful. They are.

beautiful. It's interesting that they're. the most dangerous ones cuz they're the. ones we use for Coca-Cola and Klondike. bars. Yeah. Isn't that wild though? And. you have them just like playing around. in the snow, but they are actually. terrifying. Yeah. You were saying the. younger gyrus is really interesting. It's very very interesting because it's. a a fairly new theory and explains a lot. and especially when you look at the the. mass extinction that that did take place. during that time. I would love to have. seen what it looked like when all those. animals were around like what what was a. you know we kind of have a sense of what.

because of safaris and videos we know. what it looks like when lions are. interacting with will be in Africa like. what did it look like in Kansas 15,000. years ago? Yeah. Like what was it like? You know there's a extinct bison species. that is uh the bison lap of frrons. Have. you seen those guys? Yeah. Yeah. They're. like they have like 8 foot long Texas. long horns on on like you know uh super. HGH like bison. Our bison are small. compared to the extinct bisons, right?

Were they the largest of the North. American bison? Yeah. The the bison lot. of fronts was. See if we can get a photo. of that. Yeah. There is I didn't know. about them until a few years ago. Yeah. I didn't even know that was a thing. It's I mean there were so many different. things. Giant sloths. There's the. saber-tooth tiger, the American lion, which is American cheetah. Yes, the. American cheetah is, you know, we have. we actually have a full genome of it. And then there was a uh there was also. one of my favorite animals, which is. kind of a weird one probably on the list. since we're talking about direwolves and.

saber-tooth tigers. Uh have you seen the. stellar sea cow? No. What is that? Think. of like a manatee or dong, right? That's. the size of like a large whale. What? Yeah. And it But the sad thing is it. died. It actually died off before it. died off in Yeah. It It died off though. within a hundred years of its discovery. When was that? Uh we killed them all. Huh. They probably turned them into. candles or something. Yeah. Burn their. fat. Yeah. Yeah. So, but it was actually.

really. uh this serinian Yeah. to ever exist. It. was hunted to extinction only 30 years. after being described in the 18th. century. Wow. Yeah. And it was and we. actually bunch of [ __ ] We have a. full genome of this, too, which is. pretty cool. You going to bring it back? We can't just I would bring this back in. a heartbeat. It was hugely important to. the kelp forest of the Pacific. Northwest. It was great. It's a great. It's not scary. It's huge. It's like. bring that back. Why would you bring. back a megalodon? There is no megalodon.

DNA. There's none. No. I will say that. the the CEO of the largest. uh the the president and CEO of the. largest free museum in America um really. wants me to do Megalodon, but he he's. like I can never say that publicly. He just outed him. Yeah, but but there's. a lot of museums. I I could be wrong on. the size. Yeah, whatever. He's great. though. Uh but there is there is no DNA. He would have to eat a lot and we. already killed everything in the ocean. So, one of the things that's weird and.

interesting that we're also working on. is artificial wombs at Colossal because. if you want to get get to this world. where you could productionize endangered. species like northern white rhinos. instead of having to use surrogates for. an animal welfare perspective, you know, you if you can get to the point that you. can engineer genetic diversity into 200. northern white rhinos, grow them in labs. and bags and then work with and then you. can control that population very very. well. uh you could then reintroduce. them, you know, with uh folks in the. field that are the rewalding experts,

right? And so we we really not focusing. on the we kind of rely on third parties. on the rewalding modeling uh and all of. our, you know, our 48 conservation. partners. We are really just kind of. focused on the kind of the core science. that supports their initiatives. Um but. if if we are successful with our. artificial wombs and we are quite. um we are quite far on that project that. uh you know I would not be surprised if. eventually you see a we have to get a. mouse first but if a mouse Have you guys. had these conversations where you sit. down you go how does this scale outward.

what does this look like this technology. in a 100 years did we just [ __ ] up no I. think I I I think that if you look at. the birthing crisis that that we're in. and kind of population decline cris. crisis I think that you you look at. global like um people having uh women. having kids later um uh IVF clinics uh. people uh freezing their embryos all of. that's massively on on the inc you know. on the increase it's all going up to the. right right um and we also know that.

like uh globally like sperm and. fertility and others is going down to. the right so it's not a good look for. the future of humanity in general and so. I think though you know especially and. then we also philosophical and uh you. have religious, you have philosophical. and then you have social soc so socio. issues, right? That people have. different perspectives on like having. kids, having kids, same sex couples, get. all these things. So, we at Colossal. have kind of made this mandate that. we're not going to work on humans,

right? Because it's it's just it gets. too weird. We get asked the Neanderl and. the dinosaur question every [ __ ] day. So, we're just not going to like bridge. that gap. What we'll do is spin out. those technologies. But I do think I do. think it is harder to grow a rhino in a. artificial womb or exogenous development. system than it is a human. Not not. ethically or through an FDA process, but. it is scientifically harder to to. justestate some of the animals we're. trying to gestate exut. So I do think. that some of those technologies could. make it eventually into the human.

population. But that's where it gets. really weird, right? Like you could. create a child with no mother or father. I I I do think that I think it's about. optionality, right? I think that there. are certain situations where that would. be a blessing. You know, I just had my. first kid. Um so, uh we, you know, we we. did not grow up in an artificial womb. Yeah. But I mean, the the people that. are skeptical about this stuff, this is. what they point to. It's like what what. is involved in the creation of life. Well, it's been people having sex and.

then a sperm fertilizes the egg. A child. b is born. They they raise the child. that it gets some of their behavior. characteristics. It gets the genetics. and then we integrate it into a. community and there's like but if you. could just make life without any of that. like what is that that's that you where. does that you know what I'm saying like. no it's a good it's a great philos how. much of the child's development is. taking place while it's in the mother. sharing that shared experience the.

hormonal cues and whatnot I wouldn't. have a child that way right what if. you're making a sociopath like what if. you're making a. completely empathetic, no empathy. There's no connection. No connection to. people. They come out out of the gate. Ted Kazinski all [ __ ] up. Like really, that's it's a fair it's a fair point. You know, we don't know what the process. is while a baby is inside of a woman's. body. And there's people that are. working on this technology specifically. for humans. Like right now, we're. focusing on it for extinct species and. endangered animals. But what I the.

question was when this scales out, when. you scale out a 100 years from now, like. what did you just do? Well, I think I. mean my biggest thing that I think would. be helpful is if if we had a world where. we like that if if Colossal gets. ultimate success, I would say that we've. successfully rewalded animals back into. their natural habitat. We've rev. revitalized these mosaic ecosystems that. you know, including, you know, your your. picture of what did the Arctic look like. back in the day? Like how do we have. that? because that was actually a crazy.

if you look at the work that's been done. in Plyine Park by uh Sergey and Nikita. Zimoff they've actually shown that reing. northern Siberia with cold tolerant. megapana actually uh can re vitalize the. ecosystem it can add more biodiversity. it can actually uh uh uh keep the ground. temperatures colder in the winter so it. sequesters more carbon so I think this e. this idea of nature-based and living. with nature in a ecological. model is something that you know I hope. that we are successful at and I hope.

that you know Colossal is also. successful at you know removing animals. from the the endangered species list. So. what you were talking about you were. talking about mammoth specifically the. study that showed that it would help but. they've already done it with like um uh. muskox horses and a few other species up. there. So they're doing it they're doing. it right now. There's they've been doing. it for over 20 years and there was some. talk about eventually doing this with. mammoths and then releasing those. mammoths into Siberia. Yeah, that was.

one of the that was something that that. Larry or that uh that uh uh uh Sergey. and Nikita Zimoff wanted to do. How long. before some Russian oligarch hunts a. mammoth? Yeah. I I mean look given the. geopol you know we see going back to. your wolf example uh we see boundaries. and geopolitical lines right the animals. don't right and so we will probably not. rewild our first mam mammoth in Siberia. for many reasons. Um but you think you. will rewam. Yeah, I think you know our. goal like not to if you like if Jamie if.

you look at uh. colossal.comtasmania for example, we. actually build working groups with folks. around like everyone from academia to. private land owners to indigenous people. groups governments to understand like. like we don't have a thyloine. We I. think we'll have a thyloine in the next. eight years. I really do. I think based. on where we are, current course in. speed, there's 70 million years of. genetic divergence between a fat tail. done art, which is like a mousized. marupial, and a wolf in and in and this,

right? Um, but we actually, and if you. just kind of scroll through into the. people, so it's a wolflike marsupial. Does it actually have a pouch that it. does? It actually also has a backward. pouch. So most most pouches uh other. than like um the wombat are forward. facing. It has a backwards because it. was they think because it was a buring. burrowing animal. So that way you touch. the babies. Yeah. Like absolutely. suckate them. Nature's fascinating. But. if you scroll down a little bit further, you'll see uh and just like if you just.

do a quick scroll, you'll see that we. actually um have gone out and partnered. with all these different groups. Even. though we don't have thiocines, we have. quarterly meetings in Tasmania around. rewing the thyloine with and in and one. of the the groups that we have involved. in it is the logging commission. going. back to your, you know, how does how. does how do we live with nature? Kind of. like with your example with the. cattlemen and the ranchers. Well, the. biggest economic driver right now in in. uh Tasmania is actually the um uh. logging commission. So, if you think.

that you're going to reintroduce an. animal back without them or their. lobbyists having a into the forest. without them having a a perspective, then I think that's just a naive way to. look at the world. And so we going back. like the thiocene and mammoth and others. we try to build these working groups in. ahead of time so that people can get. excited about you know um you know what. are the challenges what are the. unintended consequences and that's not. our job to persuade them it's just our. job to kind of listen to them and then. figure it out and you know that that.

approach of like listening to our. critics and listening and being. inclusive in these communities has. helped us I think dramatically think. through what our rewing strategies are. So when you have a rewing strategy um. what experts do you bring in to have. this discussion of what kind of an. impact this could I mean you haven't. done any rewalding let's be clear to. everybody they're not releasing dire. wolves and the woolly mice are not. getting released right so this is all. theoretically but if you do have one. would be the per what would you look at.

specifically how do you take into. account all the different species the do. you take into account like with a. thyloine particularly because it's a. large predator. The amount of animals. it's going to eat. These animals are not. conditioned. They haven't evolved to be. around this thing. It's been almost a. hundred years since the last one was. there. So, on the evolve part, this is. actually kind of weird. We're So, so you. do ecological field studies. So, you. work with ecologists, conservationists, uh, uh, predator experts, like people.

that understand predation, people that. understand the land. So, you have to. work with these kind of big working. groups. We have a project going on right. now in central uh, Tasmania, which is. amazing. And this, you know, the old. school like Looney Tunes like like Wy. Coyote where he's like and he like goes. through a wall and there's like a hole. or the Kool-Aid Man, right? Uh well uh. if you had that cutout, we made a we. made cutouts and painted them of of. thylo scenes but also of cats and dogs. and and other and wolves and other. things and we put them out near camera. traps in central Tasmania. And uh when.

we've reviewed the data, you'll have. like a qual or a wombat or one of these. animals kind of walking through or or. even a walabe kind of walking through. and they'll see a cat, they'll see a cut. and they'll kind of look at it when they. see and remember to your point this is. hundreds. This is for them is multiple. generations, right? Because these. animals don't live hundreds of years and. so when they see the cutout and shape. and the coloration and size of a. thyloine, they freeze. They absolutely. freak out. Wow. Yeah. So we have we. we've been collecting this data for uh. 18 months and we're publishing a paper.

on it. That is so cool. There's there's. like generational trauma that is baked. in to their DNA to to avoid a thyloine. What's the only way they survive? I mean. without a language to pass down. information how what you know it makes. you wonder like how much of that isn't. us like what when people have aidophobia. you know or arachnophobia fear of snakes. and spiders like what is that from? Like. because it's crippling. I've seen people. that have crippling fear of spiders. where it doesn't even make any sense.

Well, they probably somebody got almost. killed by a spider and that's inside of. them. You know that those genes passed. on and you see a spider just they freak. out. Man, we when I was doing Fear. Factor, we had if we found out that. someone had a fear of spiders or a fears. of snakes, guess what? That was on the. show. That's on the show. Yeah. That's. like me in Heights. It's like every. every episode you had back in the day in. Heights. That's cuz you're smart. Yeah. It's like [ __ ] terrifying. I'm like, it's terrifying. Whenever I'm in a. [ __ ] hotel and I'm on like the 50th.

floor, like why? Why? Yeah. Why? So, I. don't have like road noise. I'm like, it's going to be really hard to get out. of here. It's so sketchy. It's so scary. It's just like the building moves a. little bit when it it's windy. [ __ ] all. this. I saw my toilet water shaking the. other day. [ __ ] that [ __ ] No. Here. Yeah. Jamie, he lives way up high. Jamie. sends me pictures from his house. I. freak out. Like, no. No, I can't. No, no, no. I wouldn't. I just I like to be. on the ground. I like to be on the. ground. Well, I hate flying, too, which. which sucks cuz I fly. I I fly all the.

time. Just counting on these [ __ ]. screws and bolts and [ __ ] Yeah, cuz cuz. like the worst is like when you're. sitting there and there's now been like. these renders of planes that have like. glass or plexiglass. I'm like, I don't. want to see that. I want like I get mad. if I get on a plane and the people don't. shut the window side. I like I don't. like I'm in the bowl. I'm I'm in the. tube. It's lit on fire. I just I just. want to go. Yeah. I get just think about. the point where you're sitting in a. chair and then you look down and you. have a floor. You're like that that's. not there's not that much. There's like. 10,000 ft, you know, 3 3,000 ft below.

me. When you see something like the one. that happened in Canada where the plane. flipped upside down, too. You just like. that. You can't get that one out of your. head. A Delta Airlines life. It wasn't. like Yeah. Whoopsies. Crazy airline. you've never heard of. Was a person who. was not that good at flying and kind of. recent. Yeah. Like, hey. Yeah. hire someone better. Yeah. And I go to. DC a decent amount and so like the whole. DC thing like absolutely freaked me out. Oh yeah. Yeah. Because I sometimes I I. stay at some of those hotels that are. right on the river and you see the.

choppers fly. You see the choppers fly. You see the choppers. But look how much the water is shaking. at this pool. Oh yeah. Did you see the. one in Thailand? This is This is where. it was. Oh. Did you see the water that's. flying off the roofs? In the uh in the. flying off the roofs where you see like. from the ground it looks like it's. raining. It's crazy. Anyway, yeah. Whoa. Those. that is that would be the last day I. would spend in that [ __ ] room. Yeah. You're out. Like that's it. It's like. Byebye. If I saw a ghost, I'm like, "All. right, I'm moving." Yeah. Bye-bye. Maybe.

maybe the ghost is cool. I'm not totally. scared of ghosts cuz I don't think. ghosts have ever killed anybody. You. know, I'm scared of thyloines. I'm not scared of thyloines. They start. off the size of a grain of rice. You got. to be really nice to them. So does. everything. It's kind of like AI. You. got to be really nice to it. Yes. Um I I. I I saw a great gift I saw this this. great image on on X the other day that. is like it's got all the robots lining. up to kill humans and it's like no not. this one. It said thank you in its. request. Oh boy. So I was like I'm going. to be very nice on all of my requests on.

Croc. Well I have a weird situation. going on at my house cuz I have chickens. but I eat chicken. and I don't eat the chickens that I. have. I eat their eggs but they're cute. I'm like hey girls, what's up ladies? Like I have no desire to harm them. I. try to protect them. If I'm driving on. the driveway and one of them is in the. middle of the driveway, I have to be. very slow and let her cross and but I. eat chicken. Did you see that study that. that came out um a couple weeks ago that. having two eggs? I I'm going to get the.

numbers wrong, but you have two eggs if. you have at least two eggs a week that. it lowers the probability of Alzheimer's. by like 47%. Yeah. It turns out. Alzheimer's connected to a lot of stuff. that's in Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, they're saying that uh. Gary said it was um uh I think it was. Gary that was telling me that he thought. it was like it's now becoming a more. popular belief that it's diabetes type. three. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard that. which is really weird to think of it. that way. Um but it's just so much I.

mean obviously you know this now because. you're on a a health path, you know, and. you you feel much better. I feel. incredible. I mean I Isn't it nuts how. many people are just running around out. there feeling like [ __ ] Well, I was I. was I mean, part of the reason I started. Colossal, I mean, I told you the story. about how I got with George, but before. that, uh, I I built a handful of. different technology companies. My last. company was a satellite software and. defense company and was building it, running it, and um, this was in early. late 2019, early 2020. Uh, I had to be.

in Tokyo and I had to be in Shanghai. So, I came back. I went to CES, the big. consumer electronic show in Vegas. Saw. everyone in the world, right, that's. there because it's stupid big. Uh, week. and a half later, I'm in NASA Marshall, um, uh, with the director there, uh, cuz. we're doing some work for NASA at the. time at my last company. And I was with. one of, uh, my number two, my number two. at the company, this guy named Greg, who's our chief strategy officer. We, he. was coughing, he wasn't feeling well. We. both were kind of feeling like [ __ ] I. was like, we've been on the road a lot. We've been drinking. We came back uh, on. a Friday. On Friday night, we had we.

were going back on Slack around talking. about aliens and [ __ ] And then the next. day, I got a call from his wife that he. had a sudden cardiac event. Oh Jesus. And so that for me was a big wakeup call. cuz I got really sick during COVID. Like. I was on that early strain of of COVID. And there's definitely multiple strains. I don't care what anyone tells you. There was definitely multiple things. that came out of that thing. And um and. and so I got super super sick. And uh. you know I I I now rarely drink. I. rarely have caffeine. You know, I've. kind of try to cut out stuff. I exercise.

regularly and looking at all these. things that people think are weird or or. that used to be weird or alternative. like, you know, a dry sauna, a uh cold. plunge, red light. I I do that every day. now. Every day. Every day. Yeah. That's. beautiful. That's awesome, man. You're. lifting weights, too? Yeah. Lifting. weights on a regimen, everything. That's. so important. Yeah. So important. And I. tell people, it's not even a vanity. thing. Don't do it cuz you want big. muscles. Preserve your tissue. Preserve. your bone mass. Why? I don't want to be. like I now have a nine-month old son, right? And he like wants to hang out and.

uh you know, he's going to get bigger. And if I can't pick him up, that's a sad. day, you know? And I I I've kind of got. in this mindset of like, you know, I see. people that are older that are in. wheelchairs or can't walk. It's like. it's kind of a blessing to walk. It is. So, so like why why would I squander. that blessing? Why would I not like lean. into it and make sure that when I'm 90 I. can walk? Yeah. It's a blessing to be. healthy. It's a blessing. I mean, it's. just we're we're so concerned about our. day-to-day existence that we lose track. of this big picture. Yeah. You have the.

opportunity to do something that if it. wasn't possible, you would wish it was. possible. And that is get healthier. Like if it wasn't possible, if we just. existed in a state and whatever that. state was, there's no medicine that. could fix it. There's no exercise that. can fix it. Diet doesn't change it. This. is just who you are as a being and it. goes away. But that's not even remotely. true. It's actually the opposite. There's there's friends that I have that. are my age and they look like they're my. dad. Yeah. And that's that's because.

they've been drinking and smoking and. and sleeping late and [ __ ] off their. whole life and no exercise at all and. your body deteriorates. Yeah. And I'm. I'm not like I'm on the journey. I'm not. at the end. Right. It is a constant. journey. I'm on the journey. We're all. on the journey. Since I started working. with Gary, like I did have you have you. seen this function test? Have you done. the function test? What is the function. test? It's like function health. It's. like a It's just a s It's just all if. you go to your doctor like I do. quarterly blood work, but then I also. then do this uh the function test which.

is just a massively all-encompassing. test blood. It's like two tests twice a. year. And um so I I do that test and uh. after working with Gary for a while, you. know, now my my biological age or my. actual age is is 43. My uh my biological. age is 35. That's amazing. But and it's. just been working for a year with with. Gary taking the right supplements, getting the right routine, giving myself. nutrients. You know, I buy and you can. actually taste a difference, right? Like. if you go to a store and get it steak or. chicken, you and and you even if it's.

like free range and all that [ __ ] it. tastes great. It it tastes better than. like something that you buy just that's. that's terrible at at a store. But when. you order from some of these like true. like Amish places and in places that. have actually like grown the food like. completely natural that is doesn't have. just a fake pre-purchased certified. organic. You can taste the difference in. the nutrient density. It it's it's. insane. And you a lot of wild game. Yeah. So that's what I order now. So I. order a bunch. So I do elk steaks. I do.

I do a lot of steaks uh from uh this. farm that that Gary uh recommended to. me. It's just great. Is it bison? Do. they have bison? They do have bison have. bison, too. Yeah. It's Parker Pastur. They're just But like when I have a. steak from these guys, like it's been. like you can taste it. And I've had I've. had like my brother-in-law and my my. father had friends. I was like I was. like, "No, no. We're going to try these. steaks out of the freezer." I was like, "We're not like we're not just going to. buy something." It looks different. It. looks different. Yeah. It looks like the. color. If you get a pink steak from the. grocery store, which is fine. You cook.

it, it tastes great. But if you get a. grass-fed, grass-finish steak, like. grass, a lot of ranches out here, you. know, there's Texas is a great place and. there's a lot of ranches out here that. use regenerative agriculture and they. sell the animals that they kill and it's. like a dark red meat. Yeah. It looks. completely different, but the taste. tastes different. The ta You want to eat. more of it. Like I feel full, but I want. to finish it and I also feel like I'm. like my body likes this because it's. getting [ __ ] that it hasn't been. getting. You feel better when you eat.

it. Like you literally feel energized. You know, I've given people elk before. and one of the things I say is like, "Dude, I have so much energy." I'm like, "Yeah, welcome to my world." It's. awesome. It It is. It is so great. But. that was in the early days of of. Colossal, that was one of the things. that we got asked by by like heads of. state, like not not by like, you know, just random people, random people on the. internet, too, but mostly like like some. people at large uh at different. locations. They're like, "Can we eat. them? Can we eat a mammoth? What's it. taste like?" That was like that question.

came up faster than we thought. And this. was in the I know that was in the first. So weird. They like they just don't it. imagine want to eat something that's. been extinct for 10,000 years. You just. bring it back. Not even yet. Yeah. And. and that was the first question. Can I. eat this? Yeah. I won't leave my. mistake, my friend. It was also domestic. that the question happened domestically. Oh, domestic. Yeah. Like people people. in very states, they have too much. money. [ __ ] psychos. Yeah. It's It's. been It's It's Go buy a car, you. retards.

It's been Stop want to eat a mammoth. That's so crazy. We get the D We get. that We get We get so many weird. questions. We get the dinosaur question. The probably the number one question we. get is uh is the dinosaur question. Do. you think if they brought if Jurassic. Park if Spielberg did it today, they'd. have feathers? Uh we know that some. dinosaurs had feathers. We know some had. hair like hair like kind of precursor to. feathers. And we know some that were. just scaly. We we have preserves of. them. We we can see in the fossil record.

whether they had it. Right. Have you. seen the one that's in the Montana. University? There's a university in. Bosezeman uh that has um a museum. Isn't. the university? It might just be a. museum. Um but when I was visiting there. a few years back, they have a like a. raptor and one side of the raptor is. feathered and the other side is like. Jurassic Park like scaly. And you know, you look at it, you go, "Oh, it just. like, oh, that's a [ __ ] it's a bird.". Yeah. Like, now it makes sense. Like, makes more sense with it. Little stupid.

arms. Like, makes more sense. Have you. seen the Watson? No. Can we Can we pull. up a Watson? So, this is a bird that. lives today in the Amazon. And it it is. It's called Orson. I think it's called I. don't know how you spell it, but it's. like H O A T Zen or something like that. We We can find it. Yeah. Apparently, it. also smells terrible. But if you click. if you type in uh uh oh yeah it's the. hoen and then if you click in uh and. find a baby picture it's got these. little creepy hands. It looks like a it.

looks like kind of like a birdlike. dinosaur. We we did the genome on this. for fun. So Oh yeah, you can see it's. like it it climbs. So before it ever. flims it actually climbs up everything. Well and you look at an eagle's talon. you're like what the hell is that? And. then it evolves like if you uh the u the. first kind of like quote unquote. dinosaur bird out there um it actually. uh yeah it crawls. It crawls like it. doesn't fly. You know most birds just. sit there with their little like wing.

nubs and just don't do anything. These. guys actually climb. What about terror. birds? Oh yeah, those are scary. That's. a crazy animal. Like what the hell was. that thing? And that was what was that? How many years ago did those things go. extinct? Oh, those were millions. Millions, right? Yeah. So, the oldest. DNA that we have is about 1.5 million. years old. That's it. Yeah. Dinosaurs. are out of the picture. So, so you can a. guy you should talk to about not that, but that's interesting is Kenneth. Lakavaro. He discovered the four largest.

dinosaurs of all time, including. dreadnaugh, which is just it's the it's. the craziest thing ever. And going back. dreadnot dreadnotis and going back to. the issues that What is dreadnotis? Oh, donuts is amazing. So, I don't know if. it looks like that. Uh, what did Yeah, go to that. What cool colors? Yeah, it. was. So, it's a planet. Yes. Yeah, it's. a. plan 7. But, but going back as big as a. 737. That's so crazy. Going back to this. crazy notion of museums. He found it in.

Argentina and he he like he's amaz. Kenneth Lakavar. He's amazing. Uh, he. found it in Argentina. um discovered the. species, named the species, and um he. brought it he he brought it uh to uh New. Jersey to do all the modeling and all. that. The government changed and they. yanked it back. You know, the old school. like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, that's where it is. It's basically in a. warehouse, so it's not on display for.

people in a museum. It's literally this. this goes back to some of these these. governments in these museums. It's. literally like not on It's in a bunch of. crates in western Argentina. Really? Yeah. And it's like the coolest thing. ever. This is Yeah. So, yeah, that's. Lavaro's lab. And so, um, but it but. it's it's truly truly amazing. So, with. these, like that's one of the things. about dinosaurs in museums, right? Like. a lot of them, they've created. artificial bones to fill in the blanks. Fill in a lot of the blanks. Sometimes.

they'll get like a jawbone and they're. like, "And here's the reconstruction.". Right? It's weird because you go to see. it and you think you're going to see a. dinosaur bone when it's only a. percentage complete. Yeah. And sometimes. they're real clever and sometimes. they're not like sometimes they'll it'll. be different colors for the real bone. versus and you're like how much of this. do you have? And they're like 4%. Yeah. How did you guess what it looked like? Like and a lot of the images like of. like the soft tissue overlay like when. they take the bones and then they create. an animal out of it. Like have you ever.

seen like what like rabbits look like if. you take away their Yeah. They did this. with like whales and stuff and they look. absolutely if you look at they look like. the scariest things ever and then you. put a whale in there and you're like, "Oh, that's not the worst thing." Yeah. For whales, you you see them and you. look at them, you're like, "Oh, they're. sweet." Yeah. Just chilling in the. water, but if you see them with the. teeth and everything and just the. skeleton, it looks like it looks like an. alien monster. Yeah. Like an alien. monster. So, I wonder what we were. looking at. There was a there was a uh. one species that we don't have DNA for.

that would be amazing to bring back. because the ecological benefit is there. was a giant beaver. Yeah, a giant beaver sounds amazing and. stupid. It's When did that thing die. off? I don't know. It'd probably have to. be it it would probably be in the late. plyine. One of the things that I learned. through Reanella is that uh at the. founding of this country in the early. days, the richest man in the world was. selling beaver pelts. Oh, really? It was. the richest guy in the world. Yeah. Here. at the plea scene. Well, on the dinosaur.

battle. So, this beaver, giant beaver, enormous bearsized beaver that lived in. North America during the ply scene. Wow. So, when did these die off? What year? What was the plyine officially? So, about 13,000 years ago. Could have. been the same thing. 12,000 years ago. Wow. So, it probably died off with. during that same American lion and all. that other stuff. And you know the the. prongghorn, you know the whole story. about that? Yeah. That's why they're so. fast. Oh, for because American lion. No, American cheetah. American cheetah. Like.

they're the last of these animal. They're a bizarre animal. Have you ever. seen one in real life? I've never seen. one. I've only seen them through. binoculars. I've never seen one, you. know, on the ground real close. I've. only seen it from a few hundred yards. away. But when you look at images of. them, they have insane eyesight. They. have almost 360°ree vision. Their eyes. are on the side of their heads like. literally way by and they can run 55. miles an hour. And the reason why they. can run so fast is because they were. getting chased by cheetahs that don't. exist anymore. So the cheetahs died off.

in the younger dus impact theater or. whatever happened. But these prongghorn. analopes remain and they are there's. nothing like them in terms of speed. Like it's really bizarre because they're. a remnant of an older past where they. had to be that fast to avoid the. predators but the predators are gone and. they remain. Yeah. Can anything catch. them now? Nothing. Once they're done, like once they're grown, good [ __ ]. luck. They have insane eyesight. But you. know, one of the ways that people hunt.

them, they're really dumb. One of the. ways people hunt them is on horsebacks. Like that dog has zero chance. But the. cheetah, the cheetahs were chasing these. [ __ ] down. So it's like. another, you know, different kind of. antelope, but a super fast. They're. quite a bit faster, I bet, than these. antelope. They're crazy fast. There's. like nothing like them in North America. It's awesome. But the vision that these. things have, you give me a a photo of. one of their heads, uh, Pong Horn's. eyes, they're so weird looking. They. look archaic. Like if you if you see.

their face, they don't look like they. looks like they're from another time. Looks like from a Star Wars movie. Yeah. They look like they're from another. time. Yeah. And they are. They're. literally on the side of the air. Yeah. They This is what would have been so. amazing to like look at what the Earth. looked like, you know, 12,000 years ago. It is It is cool like America like to to. your point when you travel and you go to. these different places where you have. that are truly more remote, right? Right. And I'm not just talking about. like Yellowstone, but you know, like. when you've said like going to Krueger.

National Park or looking at some of. these places in Africa, when you go to. Central Tasmania, it's almost like a. weird Disney movie like like at dusk, you've got like a kidney running around. and you've got walabes jumping jumping. through it and they all just come. through and you're like like is it's. like that scene in like Ace Ventura, right? Where he sings and like. everything [ __ ] comes to him and I. and like I remember the first I was like. this isn't real. Like are these. animatron? like there's no way there's. this much life in biodiversity and it's. all and it was all just like you know. the akidnas are running the walabeees.

are are jumping you've got like uh. wombats like kind of uh like kind of. scurrying along and you're just like. there's all these weird dumb animals. that are just excited you know they're. so strange to us right in terms of like. how we think about them because you. never see them but then there's just. like this insane plethora of them. they're just so many it's crazy well I. wonder what would be different had the. thyloine survived so they say that was. kind of The only thing that it was the. only apex predator for Tasmania in lower. Australia. And um have you seen a.

Tasmanian devil in person? Not in. person. They're awesome. They're They. look cool as [ __ ] They're cool as [ __ ]. They're awesome. They pack They eat in. these little packs. And the reason why. they call them Tasmanian devils is. because they make the weirdest I mean. they make If I heard the sounds that. they make, if you're out in the woods. and you hear that sound, you're like, "This is a this is Sasquatch. This is. crazy." Yeah, they're crazy. ientist refer to asaredvils. A little cute face. If you find them. eating, they just sound terrible. Find a.

Tasmanian tiger noises. I don't think you know what they make. Or excuse me. Tasmanian devil noises. Sorry. Sorry. Not Have you seen this. video though? I have. Yeah, we can go to. that in a second, too. I just want to. hear this. Look at that [ __ ]. Look at his face. So cool. And so they so they're they're. part of the reason why they're But that. that isn't that terrifying. You know, they give each other cancer. Yeah,

that's what I'm saying. That's And many. of the researchers in Tasmania and. Australia think that if the thyloine was. there because this is where people give. wolves and thiocines and predators bad, but they go after the there's an energy. expenditure ratio, right? They're not. just sitting there grazing. They're not. getting sedentary. They have to go make. the kill. They have to decide, I'm going. to go kill stuff. So, they kill the. young, so they're thinning out the. weakest. They they kill the old, then. they kill the sick. A an environment. that has uh the right balance of.

predator and prey is a healthier. ecosystem, including for those prey. species. And um all data that we've seen. on the thyloine suggests that they. actually ate uh kind of that mezzanine. level of of marsupials. So many people. believe that the facial tumor disease. would not if you've se it's a I don't. know if you saw it's disgusting. It's. really gross. Yeah. But that what are we. looking at here? A feeding frenzy. 360. Give me some volume. It's doing it right. in front of people too which is crazy. They might be talking all the time. Yeah. I fed them like this. It's crazy.

They just not scared. Watch how fast. they are capable of. They're like. piranhas. These are Tasmanian devils. the only carnivorous marsupial that we. have ever featured on camera. And next. to Tasmania, it's so cool that they're. not remotely scared of people. Yeah, they they don't even notice you're. there. It's crazy. So, if you feed them. like this, you can put a a piece of. Whose video is this, Jamie? Uh Coyote. Peterson Brave Wilderness is the. channel. Look at these little [ __ ].

go. And then they just make these. sounds, but they often get into fights. in that fighting is when they that's. when they uh do the transmission. Oh, right. You saw the devil fight. No, I mean like Wow. But they literally uh. scratch and bite each other and then. they they transmit this. It's the only. transmissible cancer that we know of. So. then it latches onto the next face. through biting and and the th and if you. see an animal with a a Tasmanian devil. with the facial tumor disease and you.

see them like they can't walk well they. can't really see well those are the. animals that would be picked off by. predators first and so they so there's a. big movement within Tasmanian and lower. a uh southern Australia that if we could. reintroduce a predator being the. thyloine it would eat I can't even look. it oh god we're looking for people. listening we're looking at tumors on. Tasmanian Devil's faces. Yeah, they're. just terrible. What? That was a perfect. uh inspiration for a comic book. character or for a cartoon character.

rather. The Tasmanian Tasmanian Devil. I. mean, they're they're like they'll be. sitting there not making those sounds. They start eating or they get threatened. and they make those death sounds you it. is a terri because it if you've never. heard it before in person, it just. catches you by surprise and it like. blows you away. So, I was it was a. pretty weird experience. First time I. had that. Yeah, I'd imagine. That's such. a cool little animal. So, the idea of. ultimately eventually releasing. thyloines. How would that be done? And.

what kind of study would have to be. done? Because you're talking about all. these animals that come out. Look at all. the animals. That probably won't be the. case. If you reintroduce, they'll start. thinning it out achieve a balance. It'll. balance. So, they've done a lot. Let's. just like keep people up to date on. Australia. Most people don't know that. they've introduced cats. So, house cats, uh, you want some water? Yeah. Um, they. introduce house cats, like just feral. house cats in Australia to combat. certain.

species and they start decimating all. the other species. Brown nest. It's. literally the worst. It It's literally. the number one mamian um extinction rate. in Australia, cats, and it's because. it's an invasive species. Would that be. a problem? That would be would there be. a similar problem if you reintroduce the. Tasmanian tiger? Would there be. potentially would you have to. reintroduce other species if they make. them extinct like. the good news about the uh Tasmanian in. the southern Australia ecosystems is.

they're mostly intact, right? Hopefully. they'd eat the cats. The a if you talk. to most people in Australia, they hate. cats outside of the cats that they. actually own. Yeah. They actually hate. cats because of what they're doing to. small marsupials. are actually looking. at technologies like gene drives and. others to get rid of to fully eradicate. cats that are that are wild. non-domemestic cats. Yeah, people hunt. them. Yeah, people hunt them. Like you. have u I have a good buddy of mine, Adam. Greenree, and they have this magazine. It's like a bow hunter magazine in. Australia and he gave me a copy of it. I. was reading on a plane and this guy's. holding up a dead cat. He shot with a. bow and.

ar they it is they hold them up like. trophies. Well, because it's it's a huge. problem, right? It goes back to the. invasive species. One of the projects. that we're working on uh with the. thiosene because we like to pair every. deextinction with a species preservation. is have you ever seen a northern coal? No. What is that? Northern coral. It it. it kind of looks like a mink or like a. ferret but way prettier. It's amazing. How do you spell it? Uh qu u o l. Yeah. Oh, I mean they're they're absolutely. beautiful. They're absolutely I mean. their coats are beautiful. Uh but.

they're another type of car carnivorous. marsupial. But, you know, a hundred. years ago or so, uh, they got, uh, we as. humanity introduced cane toads. Uh, have. you ever seen a cane toad? It's like the. job of the I mean, it looks [ __ ]. evil, right? They're monsters. And so, we introduced we as humanity introduced. cane toads into uh, Australia and um, and they have a neurotoxin. Well, guess. what? Most quals and small marsupials. love to eat frogs and toads. And so, this is actually, I think, about our.

work. This actually is about our work. And so um uh no this may no actually I. think this is part of our work and what. what we've done is if you go back to to. your point about co-evolving and. evolution if you go back to southern a. uh to South America where canads uh. evolved along snakes and mice and and. and other you know small mammals they. eat cane toads all day long and they. don't die of the neurotoxin they don't. like completely like stroke out and die. which is what happens in in uh northern. Australia and so the cane toads are They.

reproduce in an insane rate. They're. having like thousands of babies. They're. making more and more of them. So guess. what? More and more cane, more and more. coals and others are eating these can. toads and dying. So what we did is we. actually did a study where we understood. what are the genes in uh the mammals and. snakes even uh in in South America that. make them can toxin resistant. And and. here's what we found. This is this is. amazing. One letter in three and a half. billion base pairs. So one letter a.

onelet change uh conferred had no other. you know deterious had no other effects. that were negative and it uh created a. 5,000 times resistance to cane toad. Wow. So we so because you know coals are. endangered and we don't want to work in. endangered species first. You want to. start with a more model species. We. worked in the fat tail dunart um which. is our model species for the thyloine. and uh and we engineered dunarts that in. dunart cells and dunarts that can eat. cane toad uh tissues and have zero.

effect has zero effect on them where it. would typically kill them. And so now. we're in the next phase of trials. showing that we want to inter we like to. engineer in uh this gene this one edit. into coals because if coals would have. would have most likely through this. concept of convergent evolution uh if. you would have put uh the qual next to. the canad they would have co-evolved. together they probably would have had. that um resistance already built into. them through nature. Wow. And so that's. showing the power of this concept of.

genetic engineering in in biotech in. conservation. And so then you could like. make these super coals that eat the cane. toads. And then not only does that help. the population, lower the population of. cane toads. It has this and help the the. population of the coals, but also has a. halo effect to all these other. marsupials that we don't know how many. are dying from eating cane toads. I hope. you don't have to bring in big toads to. eat the coals if you know a bad. Have. you seen those those toads and frogs. that like latch out and like they'll eat.

anything in front of them? Yes. Yeah. They're terrible. I've seen There was a. giant There was a giant one of those. toads back in uh like I don't know. thousands of years ago. How big was it? I don't know. You I've seen a p a 3D. render of it and it like grabs like you. know deers and stuff. It's crazy. Whoa. We've played videos of toads eating. mice. I had no idea. Yeah. Before I saw. those videos only a few years ago, I had. no idea to just eat mice. Yeah. It's. crazy. So they put them in this bin with. a bunch of mice and this toad is just. going ham just snatching mice up and. swallowing and it'll just and and you'd.

think that they're just sitting there. docile and then they just absolutely. they throw their whole body. They sit. there they they have the creepiest dead. eyes. They're just machines to eat. You. ever seen them fight with each other? That's pretty wild, too. They bite each. other's heads and they throw each other. through the air. Yeah. I've seen I've. seen them toss each other. Imagine. you're fighting with a dude and he. literally bites half your torso and. throws you through the air and they and. they don't even look like it bothered. him. That's just that's just part of the. fight. That's totally like within the. rules. That's what creeps me out about. reptiles. There's this lack of emotions.

Like at least a wolf has emotions, you. know? It's like there's something going. on there. There's an intelligence. There's something really creepy about. getting eaten by something stupid like a. crocodile. Yeah. Like like a crocodile. or like a toad. There's a thing about. crocodiles that people were suspecting, but it turns out to not be true. um that. they would lie on their back and put. their arms in the air to simulate. drowning. Yeah, I saw that video. Apparently, that's not what they're. doing. Apparently, that's a normal. characteristic that they do. But stupid.

but from a natural selection. perspective, stupid people were like, I. have to save. Yeah, I got save that. dude. And then we credit the crocodile. for being super smart, but in reality, I. just got a free meal. Yeah. Well, you. would think though if they have gotten. those meals before that that would be a. learned behavior. I mean, it just makes. they do have some learned behavior. Um, I have a friend, uh, his name is Jim. Shaki. He's a professional hunter and he. was actually hired to go into Africa and. hunt crocodiles that were killing all. these people in this village. Like, they're actively targeting people in.

this village. And when he went to the. village, everybody was like missing a. foot, had a chunk taken out of their. leg. And while he was there, a crocodile. took a woman who was uh, washing. clothes. So, what they had done was. they'd set up this area by the water. where they had driven these stakes in. the ground that would prevent the. crocodiles from getting in the water and. getting really close to the edge, you. know, because you can't see them in the. water and then they just explode out and. snatch you up. These [ __ ] crocodiles. went around the fence. They walked.

around the fence and slid into the. water. So, they figured out that these. people are in this area that they can't. get to. So, they they hunt people. Yeah, they they absolutely do. And it's it's. weird how some of those um it's very. strange as we start to study because. like one of the things that Colossal is. doing is we're studying a lot of what's. called non-model species. So we're. learning a lot about weird things that. we just didn't know. There's some things. that are known like in ele like. elephants get cancer a fraction of what. they should due to an overexpression of. a gene called p-53. So there's this.

thing called PTO's paradox where based. on age and body weight both blue whales. and uh elephants get cancer a fraction. of of what they probably should based on. how old they get and what their body. size is. And they actually that actually. makes our lives very difficult. And. that's why we had to create um stem. cells for elephants because anytime we. try to we had to figure out how to. regulate p-53 because anytime you go to. edit that one uh cell it just says looks. like a mutation could be cancer kill. cell right it's like programmed in. So.

we have to be able to we had to be able. to turn that down because we're in the. editing phase on the mammoth project. right. So there's about 85 genes. But if. you turn that down does that make them. more susceptible to cancer and so you. got to turn them back up after you make. the edits. So, yeah. So, so these are. the things that you just that we are. learning. I'm with that lady doctor, that lady scientist. You guys are doing. something you shouldn't be doing. No, we're learning about things, right? We're learning about things, right? I'm. kidding, but I'm not kidding. If I was. her, I would probably have the same. opinion. Yeah. I'd probably say, especially if I found out you guys. weren't really scientists, like, what. are you doing? Yeah. Why are you doing.

this? Well, I I mean, the good news is. about Colossal is that, you know, outside of our 17 academic partners and. and our 95 scientific advisors, 90% of. the company scientists. There's very. few. Like I like I fall in the very. field. I'm kind of kidding about you're. not scientists. But I'm not I'm not. kidding about the technology getting. into someone else's hands. And this is. where it gets weird. Like China, Russia, some and it is it's it is getting weird. Like crisper and these genome. engineering tools are outside of the. they're out. It's it's like the genie. out of the bottle, right? It's like it's. out there. You can't put it back in. Um.

I think that more and more people in. other countries are going to be doing. things with these two these technologies. for humans. That's why Colossal just. said, "We will never do anything for. humans. If someone else wants to use our. technologies for humans, we'll evaluate. it." That gets so weird, right? Like the. China story. Can you explain to people. what what they did? They they they said. they were inoculating them from HIV, which is Yeah. They they actually were. engineering they were engineering uh uh. babies uh in in editing their embryos uh.

to confer a resistance to HIV. now still. to this day. Uh so they they were. cloning them and then they were uh. genetically modifying them and so. they're doing lots of things that are. there's a general moratorium in the. world on some of these things around. humans. Anything that's considered a. germline edit. So anything that could be. um passed on to the next generation, right? So things so if you if you if you. engineer something into the genome, the. fear is uh you know from a germ line. So. any all your cells in your body are. sematic cells except for your like egg.

or sperm. Those are germ cells. So, anything that could be affected into the. germ line so that you pass it on to the. next generation, that could be like, you. know, umbrella corporation type moment, right? So, we don't want that. Well, this the scary thing was they didn't. just do that. They also edited something. that would allow the child to have much. higher intelligence. Well, so that. part's like uh that part's quote under. under debate. There's people that say. that happened. There's people that say. it doesn't happen. If you look at BGI or.

Beijing uh Genomics Institute, right, they did this thing that uh from an. affairs perspective was brilliant. From. an affairs perspective is also. terrifying. During COVID, they're like, "We'll do all the COVID testing for you. free. We'll do all this CO testing for. you for free. No worries. Just send us. your data. We'll do it all for free. You. just want to help the world, right? We'll work with the World Health. Organization. Just send us all your. samples from all your countries, everything." And publicly the CEO of uh. BGI has said uh which is funded by uh.

the CCP has said um that uh they would. that they are looking at genes with. humans. They are looking at what makes. humans more intelligent. They they don't. shy away from this. This is not like. some you know conspiracy like theory. like is it a Sasquatch or is it just a. man in a suit. This is something that is. very real. They are openly saying we are. sequencing as much as we can of the. world population looking for genes for. intelligence and we will act on that. like that's not a hidden thing. So that. that is the problem supposedly did with.

these children. How old are these kids. now? Uh I mean that would have when did. that happen? Yeah. So they've been like. six or seven. Are they already winning. chess championships? Yeah. So I'm not we. should find out. Yeah. We should find. out. Kids are probably in a lab. somewhere with a headset on. Yeah. I I. teaching him how to be psychic. What? I. don't know how public it's like cuz it. was also one of those weird things that. was like he's in trouble. He's going to. jail. Yeah. And then he's like And then he's. out. Yeah. All forgotten. Yeah. But.

meanwhile, if you go to jail in China, you [ __ ] vanish forever. Yeah. Yeah. Except for this guy. You're making. iPhones until you drop dead of. starvation. Yeah. It's It is It is It's. 100% true. And and so it is weird that. like he got in trouble for a few months, right? And he got in trouble for. something they probably told him to do. in the first place. Well, they funded. his lab. His lab was his lab was uh was. funded by the And this is what we found. out about. I guarantee you there's some. [ __ ] that they're doing somewhere that.

we haven't found out about yet. And if. you were going to do something with. human beings and create a super soldier, you know, we know that um Russia uses. what Russia was attempting to do during. was it World War I or World War II? They. were trying to make a chimpanzee human. hybrid for war. Oh, I saw that. I read. that war. Yeah. A chimp human hybrid for. war. Well, there's been a recent. publication out of Japan where they're. allowing uh Japanese sold or Japanese. scientists to edit human cells in. embryos with mamillion genes with other.

mamillian genes. Like what kind of. genes? Like woolly mammoth genes in a. person. No, we are not doing that. People ask us. if we could solve bald uh hair loss with. woolly mammoths. That would be the first. thing people want. Hair loss. Next thing. bigger dicks. Yeah, those are. consistent. You can't engineer once a. person's already born, right? Well, you. current technology with the current. technology like so so being able to send. stuff to spec gene therapies and. targeting of being able to deliver.

specifically to cells is an area that. we're getting better at. Uh like I think. one of the probably the most I think the. one of the pro the uh projects that's. the furthest along is around like cickle. cell anemia. It's a single crisper. knockout, right? So it's a single. knockout. It's not multipplex editing. And now it's about can you target that. in all of the tissue types that are the. most affected. And then over time, how. do you deliver that gene therapy to. everything? And you could do that to a. person who's already born. To someone. that's already born. It's obviously much. easier to do it at the embryo stage.

Could you envision a world where the. gene editing technology becomes so. powerful that you could do it to a. person who is already fully formed? Yes. Whoa. Yeah. So, this is what I. predicted. Everyone's going to look like. Thor. It's going to be a bunch of Chris. Hemsworth and Jason Mimoas and no more. people look like you and me. Yeah. Wait, so Chris is one of our investors and I. always think we look just like each. other. He So he invited Luke invited me. to go to uh I'm from another planet. I. think a different species is. Yeah. They.

they invited me to go up to Byron Bay. and go surfing with them. And I was. like, "Yeah, I'm going to go take my. shirt off next to you nerds. That's. exactly what's never going to happen.". And I just made up an excuse of why I. couldn't go cuz they were like, "We want. to go surfing." And I was like, uh, sure. you do. You want to? Yeah. I'm not going. surfing with you, too. Measure Cox, too. I'm I'm going as far away from you with. my shirt off as possible. But you got to. imagine if that becomes a reality like. what we're doing today just with plastic. surgery. Yeah. Right. Like, let's take.

for example. Yeah. GLP1. But that's. that's achievable, right? What they're. what GLP1s are doing is achievable. through hard work. Yeah. But but like. what they're doing in South Korea with. eye surgery, like it's ubiquitous. Like. so many people are getting this weird. surgery where they have these K-pop. eyes. Yeah. You know, it's just it's a. strange thing. It's a strange thing. And. if that's just primitive cutting and. sewing tissue artistically, right? But. if people can decide what they're going. to look like, what their intelligence is.

going to be like, it's a eugenics world. Now we're really playing No, no, no. That's playing God to another level, right? And that's like that's this. eugenics world where we know right like. I just had a child and you know. typically I'd say if you go through the. IVF process which we went through um you. uh typically can test for certain types. of uh issues like along the pregnancy. right and when they put the embryo in. they look at kind of the morphological. grade well now there's new tests new. companies out there uh one of which I I. used which after I used it I was so.

impressed I invested in it called orchid. health and they actually take cells from. the developing neuro on the very outer. derm, right, on this thing that doesn't. affect the embryo development. They. culture those cells and then they're. doing full genome sequencing, right? And. so we had a handful of embryos. Um, and. so not selecting, they don't let you. select for like eye color or height or. anything. But outside of the kind of the. core, you know, is there a mental issue. or is it compatible with life, which is. what most people test for, you can now. uh, you know, ethically and. transparently go figure out does it have.

any predispositions to certain things, right? So like you know if diabetes or. can certain types of cancers or. Alzheimer's ro in your family you can. now get a lot of that's environmental. but you can still get a distribution. score so you can understand are there. genetic factors in that so that's today. so that that's not like 20 years in the. future that's not gataka that's today. Wow. And I mean we did that we did that. because I have a I have a I found out. during that sick period that I have a. gene mutation which affects the Titan.

gene and I create a truncated protein. So I have I am more susceptible to. diseases including the first true round. of COVID uh that was a lab league uh. that in that attacked my heart. Wow. And. so so I didn't want to be able to pass. that on. So we've screened for that. Right. But that's not a standard thing. So but but that's a today thing like. like you know two years ago that. technology existed and is now prevalent. and people are using it. So you. understand the technology better than. most. conceivably what what could be. done that would in the future allow.

people to change their very shape and it. literally like change everything about. them, change their intelligence, change. everything. I think it starts with um. you know neuroenhancers and I think it. and and this is the biological. perspective. This is not even the com. you know computer brain interfaces. merging with AI that that whole world. which I think that world has a lot of. traction and is scarily getting a lot of. traction pretty quickly. Um, but I think. it starts with things like uh health. span where it's like the the very vain.

stuff. So like um you know skin skin. elasticity, hair, uh all of that eye. color. I think all of that is changeable. and and not in like there's a company. right now, I forgot the name of it that. spun out of Harvard that is making uh. patches using uh micro needling uh. patches that you can't even feel the. needles, right? and delivering a custom. stem cell for you that can help like uh. replace your melanocytes for hair and. for skin. So, so you can have.

30-year-old looking skin when you're 85. years old. What? Yes. So, and the same. thing for hair, right? The reason why. our hair that's going to be real soon. Yes. I mean that's the speed of which. the the big I think the biggest I think. the two biggest barriers for health care. around genetics and longevity is going. to be the FDA process and not the not. the technologies. I think it'll be a a. process problem. We saw that with. operation warp drive right we we saw how. fast things could move if people really.

wanted them to. So I I think that's. number one and I think that you're going. to have the ethical push backs on this. So regulatory and ethical, those are the. two hurdles, but right now the. technology exists. Yeah. Well, the other. biggest thing, and this is kind of on. for the folks that are deep in. longevity, their biggest they'll tell. you the biggest issue with longevity is. that it's not currently classified as a. disease state, right? It's just and so. they're not getting NIH funding. They're. getting all that funding is going other. random stuff. Um, you know, but people. aren't focusing on longevity. That's why.

you've got like if you've seen anything. that like Bob Nelson's done, Bob started. um Arch Ventures and he's like arguably. the number one biotech uh in the world. and he's working on epigenetic resets. So resetting your clocks at a cellular. level. That's what uh Jeff Bezos and. them have. They're doing at Altos Labs. George Church has another company called. Rejuvenate Bio. They're doing the same. things. And they're smart. They did it. in dogs first because people love dogs. and they can also collect a lot of data. that then they can then apply to. clinical trials. Yeah, I know there's a. lot of people cloning their dogs now. Yeah, there's people that are cloning. their dogs. They can do it even easier.

now with with this. Yeah, I didn't bring. Marshall to the studio. Um, we did we. did clone one person's dog. I couldn't. do it. I love him too much. I couldn't. do it. I would I would feel so weird. around this fake Marshall. Yeah. I. wouldn't want to do that. Yeah. And. that's how people feel about us. Some. people Dogs are unique little creatures. They have their own little. personalities. I know. I've got two and. they're amazing. And you know, uh, I. did, my wife is closer to one. Uh, and. so I did I did just full disclosure, I I.

did we did do a blood sample on that one. just cuz I I just don't know what the. meltdown could look like. So So but but. but the other one we haven't. And so. because you're right that you have you. have environmental factors, you have. personalities. We don't understand all. of that. But um I I I won't say who it. is, but someone that's very well known. in the world. When I was showing him. some of our direwolf and red wolf tech, uh his kids were devastated because his. dog was dying and they didn't want to. they didn't want to put her in any harm. They didn't want to go to one of these.

dog cloning companies and do like uh ear. they didn't want to put it to sleep. They didn't think she'd wake back up. So, we did a drug uh a blood draw. He. called me over uh Christmas uh or before. Christmas last year and told me that, you know, that they think the dogs got. weeks, days to weeks to live. Could we. could we do it for him? And we and we. and we did it for him. Um we're not in. that business. That's not our our. business. But he was just happy because. his choice wasn't he didn't want this. other dog or didn't want another dog. His biggest issue was they want they.

they they couldn't let go of that dog. number one. And number two, but they. didn't want that dog to suffer. They. didn't want to to say, "For our selfish. means, right, you're already suffering. We want you to go be put to sleep and. have pieces taken like Frankenstein. pieces of you." And so the fact that we. could just take a blood draw, the dog. didn't even notice we took the blood. draw was like totally awake, just. sitting right there while we did it. Um, you know, he was happy with that. So I. think these that dog is going to be. reincarnated into a higher level of. existence and you stop it and put it on. this like Yeah. So that's not exactly.

our business. So, you know what I'm. saying? I do. I We don't really exactly. know what life is. No, we don't. We. definitely don't know life. And here's. one things that his his assistant told. uh my chief of staff. He said to her, he's like, "You know what's weird? I. didn't think it was the same dog at. all." And I It's definitely not the same. dog, but he's like, "It goes and sits in. the same place, which isn't like it's. not like in front of a window on its. bed, right? I I don't know the exact. place, but it would always go sit in the. exact same place the other dogs." So, there's weird stuff. We We don't.

understand this. That would creep me. out. Cuz Marshall has very specific. places where he sleeps. And if that. happens, Yeah. I It would creep me out. Yeah. So I have had other dogs stay at. my house. I had my older daughter's dog. stay at my house and that dog didn't go. to that same spot. It's not like this is. one spot that's warmer or cooler. Yeah. Like same thing. I was like my dog Ken, he if he like gets on like he only wants. to sleep on my feet. If if I fall asleep. on the couch, he's cool. He won't sleep. on my feet. He just wants to sleep on. me. And that's not comfortable for him. cuz I'm like kicking him and everything, but that's just where he wants to sleep.

They want to be in contact with you. My. dog watches TV with me. Yeah, that's. awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I taught we the. best. Yeah. And we didn't even teach it. this, but but when we say security at. our house, our our dogs just lose like. Ken just lose his mind. He just runs to. the door. He runs the front door, runs. the back doors, runs the side doors. Yeah. What kind of dog? Uh they're just. muts. So I have Barbie and Ken. They're. just two little weird muts. Dogs. But we. named them before the movie. It's just a. weird thing to take that dog. And I. think also for kids like the thing is. like kids the loss is so devastating.

Yeah. But it's also good to teach them. things. Yeah. I think loss is important. I think loss is important. I don't want. to you know I only I'm new to this whole. father thing but you know I think it's. important that they understand like. there's real there's real things and. there's consequences to decisions and. we're going to age and we've got a a. limited time. I think that in his. lifetime it will be massively. accelerated. Um, but I I think that's. important and you know that is one of. the things though I think having a kid. you know and also all of these kids and.

parents that have been sending us. pictures of mammoth and thyloines and. dodos and hopefully now direwolves uh is. is something that's exciting because we. get these handwritten notes from kids, right? So, like on our shittiest day at. Colossal, when someone says whatever or. or whatever, um, and we get or an. experiment doesn't work or or or. whatever bad happens and you look at. this pile of kids photos and teachers. like we have this this there was a. teacher named Katie from Florida who. sent us a letter and and literally like. like 40 pictures of mammoths. And in.

that letter, she goes, "My kids won't be. quiet. We're in this like attention war. with everything. My kids won't be. quiet." I start talking about Colossal. I show the woolly mouse stuff. They all. want to just talk about it. They just. zone in, right? Because it's. interesting. It's interesting. And and. kids and and so I I think this is a time. that we can use technologies for human. healthcare for good. We can use. technologies for conservation for good. And we can help ecosystem with bringing. back extinct species. But I I think that. we can also like inspire the next. generation. Like don't we want to preach. hope? We're on this 247 psycho news.

cycle, right? like that wasn't around. when I was a kid or you know CS Lewis. first started talking about this like. what what year was CS Lewis. alive but he had a quote about I might. have saved it. He had a quote about the. just getting all the dire information of. the world all the time sent to you all. the time which at his time back then. that was very new that was a completely. new thing and this idea of these 24-hour.

news cycles right you know like there's. actually a law in the UK you'll this is. this blew my mind there's a law in the. UK that they cannot tell they cannot. report on a piece if it has any degree. of social impact that they don't tell. the negative side. I was like, "So, what. happens if it's like, so if if there's. someone saves a kitten from a tree, you. have to get the dog's perspective?". Like, it's like, and they're like, "Yes." And they're dead serious. Oh, that's so ridiculous. So, it's like it's. like, there can be stories that are just.

negative and there can be stories that. are just positive. That's okay. Yeah. I. think you're going to have very lively. debate that's always going to happen. with something that's so groundbreaking. like what you're doing. But I also think. it's inevitable. I think human beings. have this inescapable desire for. innovation, right? And it's going to. apply to biology just like it applies to. electronics and you can't do anything. about it. You can have debates about it. and we should we should have you should.

you know what you guys are doing is. great. You've got the direwolves fenced. off and you're very careful. You're. monitoring them. It's great. It's going. to happen. It's going to happen and at. least you're transparent about it. Yeah. Like at least this is not happening in. Russia where they're making super wolves. that only eat Americans. Yeah. And they. and they train and they they train them. with DNA to only eat. But that's. probably going to happen too. This is. just we're going to face unique problems. no matter what we do because technology. is allowing people to do things that are. unprecedented including change what it. means to be an actual person. Yeah, it's.

synthetic biology and really kind of the. intersection between compute AI and. synthetic biology being able to engineer. genes, engineer life. I think that we're. at the doorstep of, you know, everyone's. very very worried about AI. Um, but I do. think that synthetic biology is in that. camp. I think it's it's like discovering. fire. It's the god camp. It's all it's. all falling into the same thing. And. then when you add to that incredible. computing power that's going to be. available with quantum computing. Yeah.

And then you have new technologies that. going to emerge from AI using quantum. computing. Like it's and then and then. the interface of it all like the neural. stuff and everything. It's just going to. get, you know, the interfaces are crazy. cuz we had that gentleman Noah, the. first guy who got it. And he said he has. an aimbot in his head. So like when he. plays games, he's he's like got a crazy. advantage cuz where he looks is where. the cursor goes. Yeah. Like. instantaneously. So he could shoot. things like he's not going to miss. Yeah. I mean, we are living in a weird. time. Yeah, it's the weirdest time. It's.

the weirdest time that people have ever. been through and we're at the door. We. haven't even gone into the No, no. That's what I say wild. That's what I. say about synthetic biology, right? So, like the ability to like engineer. droughtresistant crops or a vaccine or. grow regrow our hair or, you know, make. mammoths. That's today. We can't even. think about what's tomorrow. We spun out. a company from uh Colossal called. Breaking uh last year and this. incredible group at the Vis institute. discovered an enzyme in u from the.

Amazon that actually breaks down any. type of plastic you give it to and and. not making smaller plastics, not making. microplastics which are [ __ ]. terrible, but actually breaks the. chemical. That's why I ended it. breaking. It actually breaks the. chemical bonds of plastic and just. produces biomass as as a thing. Well, guess what? you know, so it takes things. that have uh broken down never and has. got it down into years. We have used now. computational biology and uh synthetic. biology to engineer it. So now that it's. in, you know, 22 months and I think that.

we can get it down to two weeks and so. that will be huge for the plastic. problem because we can all say that. we're going to change hearts and minds. and use different types of plastics, but. we still have the existing plastics. here. We have to do something about it. So, so I do think there's even. industrial use cases coming out of. synthetic biology that like 10 years ago. if someone said we can give you a magic. m uh a magic microbe that can you can. put in a vat and you can just throw any. of your plastics in there and you can. throw you know uh salads and other stuff. in there and it won't even touch it. You. know, that would have sound like science. fiction 10 years ago. That's so crazy.

And so now it's you said it's down to a. couple months. Yeah, it's 20 it's 22. months right now. So, and we're talking. about like not just like your like water. bottle, your water bottle, but you're. also talking about things that are like. industrial defense plastics that are. like, you know, radiation hardened and. whatnot for space. Like, we're throwing. some pretty hard stuff at it. What about. those stupid [ __ ] windmills that they. have to change every They actually have. a for windmills. And they also have a. bigger ne a negative carbon impact than.

they make. Yeah. And they barely make. any electricity. Yeah. Yeah. They kill. livestock or they kill they kill. animals, kill birds. They they disrupt. uh they disrupt They also disrupt. migratory patterns of birds. Of course. they do. Yeah. Yeah. You can't fly into. that. Yeah. And they're all And they're. all made with plastic and and plastic. polymers and then they have to get rid. of them and then the only place to put. them is in a landfill. Yeah. Exactly. So. break So that's why we started breaking. So Wow. So these microbes would be able. to break that down. Yeah. I mean, we. haven't tested on that specific, but. like one of the biggest ones that we. tested on was was nylon, just because.

there's so much uh if you look at like. what's in the ocean, a vast majority of. it is nylon from just discarded fishing. nets. Oh, that makes sense. So, we. looked at nylon as is one of our first. use cases. And then we're doing water. treatment plants and a few others. So, if we could if we get to the point that. we could do filtration on microplastics. at at the treatment level, right? Because all that's passing through right. now like in our drinking water and. everything. That's why you have to have. these massive you have to have like the. the three layer osmosis devices and. whatnot for water. You've got to do Gary.

got me a new a new water machine. So, but you have to do those types of things. because the microplastics and then um. the chlorine and other stuff still. passes through a lot of the existing. materials. So, when you're doing this, is this something that you could release. like in the ocean itself or would you. have to worry then about the effect like. bringing the house cats to Australia? No, it it dies like it it only eats this. like this is what they always say right. before it [ __ ] up. But we but with but. with the distribution in the wild of.

something like that, you have to go. through EPA, there's a lot of testing. that you have to do, right? So, but you. could do that testing and then. conceivably dump it on the Great Pacific. garbage patch. I So, I don't know based. on heat and and salinity and whatnot. Right now, it's working in bio reactors. So, I don't want to overpromise and say. we could just go sprinkle it and call it. a day. Um but that that's the long-term. goal, right? Wow. So but but that's the. power of you know we used AI and. computational analysis of this microbe. that's found in nature and then we said. let's supercharge it just like.

supercharging the coals right and so but. that's but the the process of using it. outside of contained uh systems like a. bioreactor has to be done uh very. thoughtfully and measured just like. rewalding right like this is where. sometimes people get confused about like. the yellow stuff they didn't just open. the gate and throw some wolves in there. I mean it sounds like they did more of. that in Colorado But they were there's. typically a very thoughtful and measured. process that you have to go through, right? Because there's intended. unintended consequences which you get. excited about, but then there's a [ __ ]. ton of unintended consequences if you're.

not careful. Yeah. But synthetic biology. is is that is that it's it's an AI level. thing that we need to be worried about. And how many different nations are. working on this stuff? So I think that. the US is by far the most advanced from. a synthetic biology perspective. It is a. major directive of China, you know, um. not just sequencing and biioanking. because they're bio banking. We we we do. not have a nationalized biioanking. process here. That's one of the things I. I um I was meeting in Washington about.

Um but China does China is is going like. we we see them in Africa where they'll. make donations to a university or school. and say, "Oh, but we're going to take. blood samples from all of your animals. around here. You guys are cool." Right? So they they are doing this, right? So. they're looking for insights in animals. They're looking for that data. They're. also trying to build like today's Noah's. arc. And so, so China is for sure. Uh. there's some countries it's harder like. the the European Union's harder to do. anything because they they've kind of. put a moratorium on GMOs, genetically. modified organisms. But, you know, we've.

been making GMOs for a long time. Like, have you ever seen a pug? Like, we've. just done it pretty inefficiently, right? We we can be smarter and actually. have a better understanding of those. intended consequences now through AI and. software. Bro, people are going to have. direwolves guarding their house. No. In. 100 years, they're not open to 100%. They're going to get your technology and. they're going to sell it and people. going to be eating woolly mammoth steaks. while the direwolves guard their house. Yeah. That's not the future that I that. I hope for. I'm more of an optimist. So, I kind of believe in the general good of.

humanity. Of course, it's your company. Your company's [ __ ] the whole world. up. You have to think that. I'm just. kidding. But it is a weird It's a It's a. weird venture. I mean, you're you're. going down a very bizarre path, but it's. so fascinating. I'm so glad you're doing. it because it's it's so interesting and. we're learning a lot, right? And the. application of that learning could allow. us to save many species, right? And and. I think that Do you think there could. ever be a time Well, there's no DNA from. the dinosaurs, right? So, would it be. possible that with future technology. there would be some way to get around.

that? So I so you there the closest you. get from a dino DNA perspective uh is. that uh there is ways that you can do. demineralization of bones and get amino. acids. So like the smallest building. blocks possible. You don't know where. they go, right? I think that it's not. possible to deextinct a dinosaur. I do. think at some point you could use AI and. software to do an ancestral state. reconstruction looking at kind of what. we know about birds, what we know about. reptiles and kind of where they branch. So you could make one. I think you.

could. Wasn't that one of the things. they did in Jurassic Park? They made a. dinosaur that that didn't exist before, the big giant one. The uh the uh Adomus. Rex, right? That was something they. created. That's something they they. created, right? And so I think from a. genome engine from a technology and. genome engineering perspective, that is. eventually possible. So they could. easily make a T-Rex without I would say. easily. Yeah. But but they could. potentially at some future state. At. some future state, I think we'll have. like, you know, the CAD software biology. where you can engineer almost anything.

Oh my god. I mean, that that's just. where the technologies go, right? The. better, and you said it best when you. brought up quantum, if you know, quantum's only two years away, every two. years, I hear, but eventually when it. works, um, and works at scale, uh, and. you have that coupled with, you know, where some of these companies like X.AI. AI and and others are taking it. I think. the merger of that plus synthetic. biology will allow us to do all kinds of. stuff and it will be in and look it will. be in nefarious hands. Like let's let's. just be real be real. Nuclear weapons.

are in nefarious hands, right? Yeah. Nuclear weapons are in good guys hands, right? And so this is nuclear weapons. and I think that you have to be just. because it exists. We can't put our head. in the sand and say, "Oh, we just can't. let it be." Because it does exist. And I. don't know if you saw this, but this was. like this like five years. No, no, longer than that. It's like seven years. ago. Uh people in China, uh companies in. China and the government in China were. using facial recognition technology to. profile people, right, of of a certain. subset of of race, right? And they were.

they were doing bad things with facial. recog. Well, the San Francisco. government where a lot of where a lot of. the funding cames from Silicon Valley. for a lot of tech startups, they said. not not glo not at a nationwide level, but but in Silicon Valley, San Francisco. says, "We will not at all um uh support. any technology. We're going to ban. investing in facial w technology." Well, that's just dumb, right? Because we now. know there's things like deep fakes and. all this stuff, but it's like that's. setting American innovation back because. someone's doing something bad with it, right? That's like saying, "Oh my gosh,

they have guns. we should never develop. guns, right? Like it's just it's a it's. a bad philosophy when it comes to. technology. And so, um, you know, I. think the same way about synthetic. biology. The world is currently the. United States is the leader in synthetic. biology. And we've got national. treasures like George Church, my my. co-founder, and others. And and I hope. that we continue to be the the world's, you know, leader, but I do think other. countries have different ethical. boundaries than we do, and they will. experiment on kids. But it's interesting. also that you're a company. You're this. isn't the government. This is just a.

group of people and investors that have. decided to do this and you've been able. to do it here in America. But do you. know what is going on in other countries. or is this a tightly guarded secret? So. I mean we know obviously you're you have. people I'm sorry to interrupt you. You. have people in your company as well and. I'm sure there's an understanding of. what they're doing. Yeah. So it's good. it's you're you must be being studied by. other countries. Yeah. We definitely and.

we have uh investment by Incel, right? So I'm sure that makes us more of a. target. So yeah. So I mean we we do work. closely with the DoD and IC frequently. It just when you think about it aundred. years from now, thousand years from now, when you scale this out, it's there's no. limit to what could be done with life. That's so strange. Yeah. It's so strange. to think that for four plus billion. years, life has evolved in a very. specific pattern on the on rails. Yeah.

Yeah. And then one day and now we say we. can take the rail where we want. Oh boy. And you know that's the the grandest of. all conspiracy theories is that that's. that's how humans were created. Yeah. Pansper. Yeah. Well, either pans or that. we were engineered in the great one is. the Anunnaki, right? It's the Samarian. I will Yeah. But I will say that if you. look at, you know, not to get too weird, but if you do look at the uh it's like. Cuckoo Khan and folks in in if you if. you look at some of the carvings from. all over the world resembling their sky.

gods, there's a lot of weird similar. I. mean, you can't you you can't. objectively. It's like the guy with the. py with the uh with uh the Sphinx, right? Was like, "Yep, that's water. I'm. an expert on erosion. That is water.". And then they're like head of the Sphinx. like that's not water, right? Uh it's. the same thing at this. You cannot look. at some of the stuff and say that's not. weird, right? You got you can't look at. like, you know, the uh the the. incredible pyramids we have all over the. world that seem to now there's like more. and more discoveries and then they get. silenced out of you. It's like you you.

can't see all that stuff and not wonder. more. Especially the stuff around if you. look at Mayans and then you look at um. you know stuff in the Middle East and. how it looks exactly the same. It's very. weird. It looks exactly the same. Have. you been to Peru? No. So that I would. put out, you know, because I don't I do. not want to take you away from going and. visiting the boneyard. You should. totally do that. But you should also go. to Peru. Peru if you like you can see. Peru and you can it's like standing in. the Grand Canyon versus seeing on Google.

Maps, right? If you go to like Alen to. Ali and Tombbo or whatever it's called. and you see these blocks that you can't. uh uh like put a piece of paper between, you know, you can't see like and and you. see it and they're all put together in a. perfect jigsaw. Oh, and by the way, they. came from a type of rock in a quarry. that's 2,000 miles from me or whatever, however many thousands of miles. You. can't sit there and say, "Well, that's. weird." If you don't say that's weird, then it's like like you're like one of. those like, you know, people that are. just like, "Huh, you're a denier." Like, you can't say it's not weird. Yeah. To.

not say to say it's not weird is. actually denying science. Yeah. It's the. weird. So, you should put Peru on your. because when you see it, there's nothing. like it. I' I've I've been fortunate and. been able to travel over the world. Uh. you see it and you're just like that. that just doesn't make sense. The. coolest thing I've ever seen is Chicha. Yeah. I've been and you you go there and. you're like what did you do? What did. you do? How did you do this? Yeah. How. did you guys do this? You know what's. crazy about Chicha? They don't let you. go there anymore. But um I don't know. where but you know you've got all those.

paths with all the vendors and you see. Chanita. Well, there's in the jungles. there on the Yakan Yakutan Peninsula. There's actually other older pyramids. But the carvings that they have on. Chetsa and the carvings they have there, they're actually the older ones have. more precise carvings. But but but now. guess what? It's not open to the public. I've seen that. I've been there. Oh, it's so frustrating. But all it is is. just it is such a weird world, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm talking to you. about like hardcore genetic science, but.

then when you start to look at all the. craziness in archaeology, it it is we. don't know a lot. A lot. Yeah. And. there's no way you can know a lot. And. anytime you suggest something new, you. get, you know, [ __ ] for it. Yeah. You. get a rash of [ __ ] and people try to. connect you with the worst people in the. world. Hence Graham Hancock. Yeah. But I. think Graham Ham I think Graham Hancock. in the end I don't know if there were uh. you know uh kind of this uh advanced. civilization or whatnot, but I think. really smart people said things like.

Plato and others that were probably. real. Yeah. I don't think they were just. like playing around and like oh we're. going to write something that's going to. be in history as a joke forever. You've. seen the rice art structure. Uhuh. You. ever seen that? This is what uh there's. a lot of people like Jimmy Corsetti. who's this famous YouTube I guess you. would call him. uh I guess he'd be like in Canc. Sure. He'd be like an ancient history. enthusiast. He's a guy who's like. studies these things and does YouTube. videos on them. But the riceard. structure is essentially Atlantis. Oh, this is in the desert. Yes, it looks.

like Atlantis. There's salt all around. it. It has the It has the rings that. Plato described. And at one point in. time it was connected to the ocean. I. mean it literally looks like Atlantis. and people disputed it. A lot of people. have people gone and studied it there. like well it's a very difficult place to. get to and it's also very dangerous. Um. so people have studied it but it there's. there hasn't been like large scale. archaeological digs there or any the. whole subsaharan Africa thing is so. fascinating. They find whales there you. know. I mean they know that there it was.

lush rainforest while human beings were. alive. Yeah. And there hasn't been like. largecale exploration of what's in that. ground and there and it's immense. I do. think that the younger dry stuff is also. um a combination of I think generally. speaking if you break in break down the. the younger dest period into that rapid. cooling I think the vast majority of. people will say some of it some of the. uh destruction was or some of the. destruction around me was was. anthropologic which I I'll give it some.

percentage then I think a lot of people. agree on this flood theory anthropologic. meaning human beings killed yes that. humans had some impact on on it Uh I. think that that even more people agree. that there was this massive flood that. occurred uh and that was a could have. been a global level flood with sea. rising uh with rushing waters and sea. rising uh whatnot. And then you've got. you know what caused that that flood. most likely meteor you know astrological.

meteorological and then they combine. that with core samples that show large. levels of aridium. Yeah. which which. only exists when you have certain levels. of heat at certain at at impact. It's. like that it's like that uh nuclear. glass or whatever you find. That's. Aridium is actually different. Aridium. is actually very common in space but. very that's this and there's a layer. Yeah. Silt. That's right. The micro. diamonds is what you're talking about. But they have those too as well. Trinitite. Yeah. Trinitite. That's what. Yeah. That's the stuff from the Trinity. explosion. They discovered it there.

Yeah. They find these little micro. there's 100% there was impacts. That. that's a fact. And they also know like. when the meteor shower and this is a. thing that they study like when we go. through this comet shower and that. that's uh but do you remember like. probably 10 20 years ago people if if. you brought up the idea of a worldwide. flood they would just be like oh you're. a fundamentalist Christian can't talk to. you ever again. Exactly right. Oh water. canopy you're weird don't talk to me. again. I know. And and now it's like. well maybe there was a giant flood. Maybe it wasn't just a regional flood. Right. May it was done by impact of.

comments. Right. That's what brings me. to the weird ones when you go back to. like the the Vadic texts and you're like. what was the Vimmanas? What were these. flying vehicles that they had? What was. Ezekiel talking about in the Bible? Did. you have you seen that stuff when have. you seen those videos in the last um. that have come out in the last year when. there was the the most recent UAP um uh. craze and they'd show it and it looked. like crazy ball lightning. It almost. look like those things that used to put. your hand you'd put your hands on your.

head and stand up, right? And then they. compare some of those to paintings uh. from like you know from like 500 700. years. Let me stop you there because a. lot of those crazy balls of light no you. can just zoom in on Venus. Yeah. And. that's what you get. Cool. You zoom in. on stars and you get this sort of. bizarre distorted image. Have you seen. those? Go find uh zoomed in stars. I.

think they did it with the North Star. They've done it with several stars, but. if you zoom in with the highest level of. these telephoto lenses from Earth, you. can get that sort of distorted weird. effect. But so cuz you're looking. through the I have I've always seen the. stuff on the internet until I was in. Wellington, New Zealand when I was with. Peter. Peter cuz his house in. Wellington's like on a a body of water. I won't say where. And uh and we were. talking of course like the conversation. went to ghosts and UFOs cuz like Oh, you've seen them? Why not? No, I haven't.

seen them in person. I've seen them on. his iPhone. Like these are This wasn't. like a telescopic lens. This is an. iPhone and it looks exactly like what. you see, I guess, on the zoom ends. But. that's the thing about zooming in. See, is the thing is like these are planets. that people have zoomed in on, but. there's weirder ones where like there's. video of it and so it looks like it's. moving. Yeah. Here we go. Like look at that. I'll have to see. But you see what I'm.

saying? Yeah. Like this is a perfect. example. So this is a star in the night. sky with a Nikon P900. So is that 900X, Jamie? What is that? That's the model. number. Can you talk in the mic? Just. the model number. I have no idea what. that means. So what would you think that. the amount of um I don't 10x 100x? I. have no idea. Okay. So So but do you see. how they're having a hard time zooming. in on it because this is a it's a. handheld, I think. But look how weird it. is. looks so weird. It's It's how it's. moving around like you say, "Oh my god,

you found a UFO." But it's not. It's. just a star. Well, I do I do hate that. every UFO video is is blurry or star. Well, you know, I mean, that could be if. you want to get into the whole how put. off uh perspective who's this brilliant. physicist. Yeah, he's on a lot of. papers. Yeah, he explained it to me. He. thinks there's some sort of gravity. distortion that's around this. So, this. is Isn't that the This is that. particular camera. So, this is is this. not a very um It's like a handheld. So. that's a 77 $749 camera on Amazon 83x.

opt. I'll see if Peter will give me the. his I'm sure he would and I'll send it. to you cuz it's just weird to see. Oh, they're weird. No, I'm not saying this. was like not zoomed in. His wife's next. to him and stuff. I am not denying that. people are seeing things. I'm not. denying that they're real. What I'm. saying is that kind of evidence of that. that star, if you didn't know any better. and someone sent it to you, oh my god, they found a UFO. You'd be like, "Holy. [ __ ] [ __ ] it's real. Look at that. It's undeniable. Look at the energy.

around it." With how put off believes is. that there's some sort of distortion. around these things that's allowing them. to be transmedium to go through the. ocean. That's all the uh Yeah, that's. that's all their like zero point energy. and and moving and uh in gravitational. wave type stuff. Do you go deep on this? I get down that rabbit hole. I get a. little bored. It gets boring because. there's no real resolution. You could. lose your mind, but I had dinner with. Jacques Valet and how put off once and a. couple other gentlemen and they were.

explaining the state of the technology. like what they think is currently. available and what they think these. things are using. these guys. I did a. call with I did a call with I got into. that crowd for a while um and before I. started Colossal and uh you know I I. knew a bunch of um th those folks. So I. talked to Lou I talked to H how did I. did a zoom with how or. what we are now where we are what you're. describing in terms of technology that's. emerging right now and we have. direwolves today in 2025. Yes. And now.

imagine this 5,000 years advanced and. you're probably looking at that if if we. are being visited that's what you're. probably looking at. Yeah, it's not. And. if you look at the exponential rate of. our technology curve, it's it's not that. far. Now imagine the monkeying that you. guys have done with direwolves. I. wouldn't say it's monkeying the. selective precision genome engineering. Amazing stuff you've done with. direwolves. I'm just being silly, but. imagine doing that to primitive. hominids. Now, if you were an insanely.

advanced species from another dimension, another planet, whatever it is, and. you're a million years more advanced. than human beings, and you come down. here and you see Australiathecus, you. know, trying to figure out how to make a. spear. Yeah. And you say, "Listen, let's. uh put a little bit of this, edit, a. little bit of that." I told you in. there. Yeah. One edit makes 5,000, you. know, confers 5,000 resistance to. neurotoxin. So, it's like couple little. edits here does a lot. And then there's. the other theory that what we're looking.

at is human beings from the future. And. if you think about what's happening to. human beings, we're becoming less and. less stout and muscular and we're. becoming more and more less and less. reliant on muscle. Yeah. And our heads. are getting bigger. That's them. Yeah. I. mean, I've read that. I read that. theory, too. It's a bizarre archetype, right? It's a very strange thing that. people keep seeing over and over and. over again. very weird that there's a. bunch of different versions of life that. they allegedly see. I go down those.

rabbit holes cuz I mean I just think. once again going back to like the stuff. of like cuckoo and and uh Anunnaki and. all like just all this stuff. It's the. Anunnaki stuff the most. It's just so. strange and how and how you have certain. things that are aligned to celestial. thing and you're like yeah but they. could have picked a lot of. constellations. Why do they all pick the. pleades or whatever it is, right? Like, why did they do that? And also, how did. the [ __ ] ancient Sumerians have a. detailed map of the solar system? Insanely detailed from 6,000 years ago.

How? Yeah. And also be able to predict. well enough of where it was going, knowing that we were moving through. space. Yeah. And also have these giant. things with little monkey people on. their laps. Yeah. Like, what are you. saying? Yeah. There's there's weird. there. The cool thing about this, but. think take a step back. the even though. a lot of times people like Graham. Hancock and others are ridiculed about. it like and we get ridiculed even for. the actual science that that we're doing. and proving every day the at the end of. the day it is still cool and it's.

interesting like I want I don't want to. live in a society or a universe where. everything's figured out every day is. amazing and we're figuring out amazing. things. Well, unlike you, I don't have. the burden of being taken. seriously. And that's great for. discussing. ridic. It is great. I love it. It's. super interesting. But I think I think. that's why so many people subscribe to. your podcast is because one minute. you'll talk to a comedian in a in a UFC. fighter, the next time you're talking to.

someone that knows more about like the. ancient flood than anyone in the world. And that's cool. It is cool. It's very. fascinating. And we want to have. conversations. Yes. And the world is. filled with so many fascinating things. that are all happening at the same time. Yeah. And it's almost. impost like we were talking about with. the CS Lewis quote. Did you ever find. that? No, I don't I couldn't. He talked. about getting the news. What What year. was CS Lewis alive? Uh 1898 to like. something. I I started tracking down. like there's a bunch of misqued CS Lewis.

quotes. It could be one of those. It. could be one of those. Figure it out. Um, but we are being inundated by the. worst news of the day because that's the. news that's gonna ensure that you watch. it. And there's so many cool things that. are happening at the same time. And I. think it gives people a distorted. perception of the hope that we have for. mankind. You hear about wars like, oh my. god, but most people aren't going to. war. Most people are cool with each. other. Most interactions between human. beings are positive and they're. fascinating. And human beings are a.

fascinating creature. And we're so lucky. to be alive at this time where the. innovation is reaching this bizarre. tipping point where we're, you know, I. mean, I love it. I I I'm having I'm. working more hours than I've ever worked. in my life and uh and I've been. fortunate before this business and I. will just tell you I I just love it. I. every day I wake up, it's awesome. It's. just it's the coolest thing in the. world. Well, I'm glad you're doing it, man. I really appreciate you. Um uh and. thank you so much for coming in here and. and showing people the direwolves and.

and the red wolves and I hope I hope. more I hope more we'll keep you please. on fun stuff and I want to go see them. I want to see them. All right, we'll. talk offline. Okay, we'll talk offline. Thank you very much. Oh, if people want. to find more information, find more. about you. Um it's just we're colossal. colossal.com. We're colossal.com and. we're uh it is Colossal on YouTube and. uh X and every and we're at Colossal on. X. So [ __ ] cool seeing that um CGI. one walking through the snow. Yeah, I. can't wait to see that one day. Yeah,

it's cool. It's cool. And I mean, look, the cool thing about Colossal is it's we. have so many people that, you know, we. have 170 people, over 135 scientists. just that wake up and they work 24/7. Like we've got four labs. People are. just, you know, in love with it. That's. amazing. Thank you very much. You got to. go see the lab. I will. Thank you. Thank. you. All right. Bye everybody. [Music]. [Applause]. [Music].