EXCLUSIVE: The End of Extinction is Here, A Historic Breakthrough | Planet Tyrus

Summary

Planet Tyrus – "EXCLUSIVE: The End of Extinction is Here, A Historic Breakthrough"

Date: May 19, 2026
Host: Tyrus (Fox News contributor / comedian / former pro wrestler)
Guest: Ben Lamm (Co-founder and CEO, Colossal Biosciences)
Episode Theme:
The episode explores the unprecedented scientific breakthrough achieved by Colossal Biosciences: hatching the first chicks from a fully artificial egg system. The conversation blends humor, curiosity, and deep dives into de-extinction, conservation biology, cutting-edge biotechnology, and the broader implications for planet Earth and beyond.

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Main Theme & Purpose

Tyrus welcomes Ben Lamm to discuss Colossal Biosciences' historic success in creating a fully artificial egg capable of supporting avian embryo development to hatching. This opens new frontiers in de-extinction projects (like reviving the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, and dodo), ecosystem restoration, conservation, and possibly future space colonization.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Blue Buck and the Significance of De-Extinction

• Interest in Extinct Species:
  Ben Lamm recalls public excitement for the revival of the blue buck, an antelope extinct for 230 years.

  "So many people... were excited about this antelope that went extinct 230 years ago... I was so happy with the feedback." (01:14 - Lamm)

• Ecological Roles:
  Tyrus highlights the blue buck’s importance—"the lawnmower" of its ecosystem, indicating de-extinction isn’t just about spectacle; it’s about repairing disrupted ecological functions.

De-Extinction Candidates and Cultural Complexity

• Giant Moa and Indigenous Collaboration:
  The giant South Island moa project required years of building trust with the Māori (Ngi Tahu people), as the bird’s remains are culturally sacred.

  "To them [the Maori], [the moa] is part of the Tonga, part of their sacred species..." (05:23 - Lamm)

• Dodo and Other Species:
  Other candidates include the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, dire wolf, and dodo. There’s ongoing debate and technical challenges, including what species to use as parent surrogates.

• AI and 3D Modeling:
  Advanced 3D modeling and AI systems help reconstruct anatomical and functional aspects of extinct species, like feather structure or behavioral predictions.

Technology, AI, and Ecosystem-Level Restoration

• Breakthrough: Fully Artificial Egg System (00:30, 27:14, 31:03)
  Colossal Biosciences has successfully hatched chicks from an artificial, shell-less egg ("an engineering marvel").

  "Colossal Biosciences hatches first chicks from its fully artificial egg system. The first ever shell-less incubation system..." (00:30, 24:59 - Tyrus reads announcement)

  Key design features include:

  • Imaging ports for real-time embryo monitoring
  • Custom polymer materials to create precise pressure and oxygenation
  • Adjusted curvature for correct atmospheric conditions
  • Ability to handle development stages impossible to observe in sealed natural eggs
  • Potential to scale for large, extinct species (moa, dodo, etc.)

• Artificial Wombs for Mammals:
  Parallel work is progressing on artificial wombs for placental mammals, using synthetic placental interfaces—though these are much more complex than avian systems.

• Digital Twin of Earth (Vision):
  Lamm envisions a "digital twin of Earth"—models of species, ecosystems, and bio-banking, all feeding into a system for real-time conservation and reintroduction.

Applications and Impacts

• Conservation and Ecosystem Repair:

  • Artificial incubation could enable countries to mass-produce threatened species, manage genetic diversity, or rewild landscapes.
  • Example: Bison hooves shape plains ecology; reintroducing extinct keystone species has cascading benefits.

• Biomedical Spin-offs and AI:
  Technologies developed for de-extinction may yield advances in cancer research or disease resistance, such as:

  • AI models (e.g., through Lamm’s AstroMech spinout) analyzing "conserved genome segments" for clues about cancer resistance (e.g., elephants' p53 gene), pandemic prediction (avian influenza vulnerabilities), and drug discovery.
  • "We’re trying to use AI in evolutionary trends... can we use that to extrapolate for livestock, for things like birds, for poultry, for humans." (22:47 - Lamm)

• Space Colonization:
  Artificial eggs or embryos could facilitate transport and rapid species establishment off-world.

  "Could you just imagine you find a planet similar to Earth... and you got frozen embryos in eggs in artificial system." (29:49 - Tyrus)

Ethical Reflections and Criticisms

• Animal Welfare:
  Colossal emphasizes a thoughtful, not "shots on goal," approach; certified by American Humane and working through incremental steps to ensure healthy animal development.

  "We’re not trying to just do... the Island of Dr. Moreau." (37:18 - Lamm)

• Responsibility to Right Past Wrongs:
  Both Tyrus and Lamm argue humanity is obliged to undo ecological damage it's caused, especially when extinctions are driven by human activity or commercial exploitation.

  "It is our duty to right the wrong." (50:03 - Tyrus)

• Invasive Species:
  The hosts discuss the complexity of labeling "invasive" species, noting how humans are the most invasive species of all, and arguing that ecological disruption isn’t always negative or artificial.

Future Prospects and Big Picture

• Scaling and Next Steps:
  The artificial egg system makes it possible to work with species both large and small, and could bridge the gap for especially difficult cases like the dodo or moa, whose closest living relatives are only distantly related.

• Science Culture and Inspiration:
  Tyrus reflects passionately on the need for more science heroes and a culture that celebrates innovation and curiosity, likening de-extinction to the next "Disney," inspiring future scientists for generations.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "This is the greatest thing I’ve ever been just being able to talk about... you could literally right so many wrongs."
  (24:59 - Tyrus)

• "If we look into places like... there will be opportunities to reintroduce species and reintroduce ecosystems. Maybe we can preserve that 30% [of wild land] or even get to a... 45%. You’re going to need to be able to do something like this without having to be a mad scientist."
  (26:30 - Tyrus)

• "When you see the video, it’s cool, it’s great. And it’s also cross-functional science... five different teams coming together to make this thing."
  (46:00 - Lamm)

• "We are the most invasive anything that's hanging on."
  (40:58 - Lamm)

• "A world void of life is bad."
  (30:11 - Lamm)

• "If you guys could bring back a horse that doesn't cost money, that'd be awesome."
  (57:50 - Tyrus, humor)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:30] – Announcement of Colossal’s artificial egg breakthrough
• [01:14-02:00] – Blue buck’s ecological role and public interest in de-extinction
• [05:11-06:40] – Working with Māori to access extinct species remains
• [13:20-14:44] – Freshwater sharks in the Amazon and unexpected discoveries
• [19:29-22:47] – AI, evolutionary genomics, and unexpected biomedical advances
• [24:59-27:15] – Reading the official breakthrough statement and conservation potential
• [31:03-35:52] – Technological explanation of the artificial egg’s inner workings
• [37:56-39:14] – Discussion of dodo revival, Nicobar pigeons, and current progress
• [44:53-45:52] – Health and development of chicks hatched in artificial eggs
• [50:03-51:21] – Why humanity has a duty to fix anthropogenic extinctions

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Tone and Language

• Tyrus: Casual, energetic, story-driven, sometimes irreverent but always enthusiastic about science and the future.
• Lamm: Technical but clear, optimistic, open about unknowns and chance discoveries, passionate about both scientific rigor and creative vision.

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Summary

This episode of Planet Tyrus chronicles a genuine milestone in bioscience with Colossal Biosciences’ success at hatching birds from a fully artificial egg—an achievement with vast implications for conservation, ecosystem restoration, and even off-world colonization. Tyrus and Lamm combine scientific nuts-and-bolts, pop-culture humor, and thoughtful ethical discussions, providing an engaging look at how reversing extinction could shape humanity’s future as both protector and steward of life on Earth (and potentially beyond).

Listeners walk away with a nuanced understanding of:

• Why de-extinction matters and how it can repair ecosystems
• The scientific and cultural complexity of reviving lost species
• How advances in AI, genomics, and bioengineering interconnect
• Broader, sometimes unexpected uses for these technologies—such as cancer research
• The ways science can–and should–inspire the next generation

One of the most optimistic, idea-packed, and accessible explorations of de-extinction to date—with plenty of laughs and real talk as only Tyrus can deliver.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[B]

This is like some Einstein stuff. Colossal Biosciences hatches first chicks from its fully artificial egg system.

[A]

Our thought process was we don't want to just redesign the egg, we want to completely re engineer it.

[B]

This is unbelievably historic. Real quick for if you didn't see the first time he was on if you have not been anywhere in place with a TV or news thing. Ben Lamb is co founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences and you had two major announcements. One, I was the blue buck is phenomenal.

[A]

Is it cool? I get, you never know. Like we like, we get really excited about the conservation, the science, the inspiring the kids. But then like you don't, you don't know how people are going to react. I was really super happy and surprised how many people like leaned in on the blue buck because I was like I think it's cool because. But I'm an ancient DNA nerd. But it's like the fact that so many people like were excited about this antelope that went extinct 230 years ago. I was, I was so happy with the feedback of people like tell us about antelopes. Tell us like that because it's the.

[B]

Well it's now the oryx was the one that everyone thought was the unicorn because the super longhorn and the narwhal. But the blue buck is the probably I would say especially if you would see it in its natural habitat with the sun out when, when it hits the. Its coat is one of the most beautiful animals on the planet. I know Obviously that's why its pelt was so valuable to where it was hunted to extinction and it had such a valuable role in the plains because it was a lot different because it basically was the lawnmower. Yeah, I mean it was a huge blow to the ecosystem when you lose this and it's not a small animal, it's not a small, it's not like a spring buck. This is one of the bigger ones. This is one of the big boys. So. And they look I hope we could put lots of pictures of it up. Oh, awesome. They're giving me a thumbs up. So while I was in Yosemite, I was with my family and we were looking at rocks in the streams. Flipping rocks, looking for stuff. They were looking for crystals, not fossils. My daughter and wife were not on the same page that I was. But I did find this hat, ironically, in a shop in Yosemite. Hats never fit my head. And I was like, this is my horse dad hat and my Jurassic park type hat. Like, I think I could pass. So I will only wear this hat whenever you come on. We talk about cool stuff because the. For those people look up the blue buck and you've. I mean, you got an amazing array of things. We have the woolly mammoth, the. The thy or the. The Tasmanian tiger wolf or the Tasmanian wolf, whatever you want to call it. The dodo, the south island giant moa, which a lot of people, if you have not researched this animal, it's awesome.

[A]

Right.

[B]

First of all, you want to talk about sexism. You want to talk about toxic womanhood or femalehood. The female MOA is like 9ft tall and the male is like almost 4ft, maybe a little less than.

[A]

I think the.

[B]

That might be pushing it.

[A]

She's big. Yeah.

[B]

So. And it's actually more this. Greg Gutfeld will love this. It is more fashionable to be the shortest MOA male you can be. I don't know if that's for just better all egg protection. I'm. I'm curious. I would be curious to see one day what that dynamic looks like.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because there also it could be. Since you're protecting the eggs, you have to be smaller to hide in the woods and you know. But it's in a cr. It's. I don't. When we see that in real life, I think.

[A]

And they had like. So we. And what's great is there are preserved feathers. And what's interesting is that the feathers were. They're not hair, but they're not like exactly. Like when we think of feather, like if you saw like an eagle feather or whatnot, it is kind of this, like, weird. It is kind of this weird kind of like evolutionary hair, like feather.

[B]

It's like a. It's like stuck in the middle.

[A]

Yeah, it's stuck in the middle. And it's. It's really cool. Right. And they've now done like 3D models and stuff like that where they. And use like all these AI systems to like make them. And it's pretty cool. Like, I think this. And you know, while it's a Flightless bird. You know, lots of flightless birds, like, they don't have, they still have wings.

[B]

At least you didn't do the terrible bird.

[A]

I know, we, yeah, there's not, there's, we're not working on.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, he's, he's wingless too. And again, look, if you don't want. I'm talking about. Look it up. His, his name. When they saw the beak and the size of the head, they were like, this is a terrible bird.

[A]

This is a terrible bird. Yeah. And you know, you know, the moa is awesome. We're very, we're, we're very, very excited about it. And you know, what's fun is like one of the things I love about my job is every day is hard and there's always interesting things. But so much of it exists outside of the lab. Everyone thinks it's like we're just in the lab. Right. But it's like, you know, we had to like, just to have the honor to work on the south island giant moa, which is one of nine species of moas. We had to spend years working with the Maori people because that to them is their, like part of the Tonga, part of their sacred species. Right. And so, so, and not everyone has the same. Right. Like every country works with indigenous people groups a little bit differently. And so we were able. Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings fame, like, you know, helped us, you know, as a proud Kiwi, always talks about how this is like, he literally jokes that making movies is his day job, but this is his passion and excitement. Right. And so we get to work with creators like that and then also go sit down with like the Ngi Tahu people of the Maori and understand the cultural importance of, of them just letting us like touch the bones like it's right. So, so there's so much of that that most people don't realize about our day to day work.

[B]

Did that help in terms of scientific discovery that they kept bones and they were tremendous because that's less time in the field digging and.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Trying to just find the map, you know, depending on, you know, it is.

[A]

And they know and they know where there's different pockets of moa bones. In which case, like, because they're still, we're still pulling out bones from different caves, they know which caves have the bones. So, so working with them outside of the fact that it's, it is their, you know, sacred species, one of their sacred species is that they do have that, not just that institutional knowledge and whatnot. So. And I'LL tell you, you'll like this. Not everyone will like this because they'll, they, they'll say that's dumb and controversial. But. So I've been in New Zealand with, with the Maori people and I can't say where, but I've seen all the, you know, I get, I also get to see the, the archaeology and, and you get to see the anthropology and you get to learn all these cool things about them. But I've seen a lot of like, cave art there and of Moa is right, because you went to Moas. But I've also seen, I've seen some weird cave art in New Zealand.

[B]

Oh yeah, I've, I've been there.

[A]

Like straight up, like, you see it and you're like, wait, that's a Moa. That's a ufo?

[B]

Yep. Yeah, I, I was in, I did a few tours, a couple of tours with Snoop and I did some wrestling stuff. And then I, my son's family is over in New Zealand in that area. But I did do some, some stuff and I've read some books and some of the totem pole tattoos are inspired from there.

[A]

And there's some crazy stuff on those rocks. They're like. And they don't show it to everybody? Like, no, it's, it's crazy. And it's like you say they're like, like I was sitting there in the south island, just staring at it. I'm like, well, that's about as plains day. Like, I mean, you don't need an imagination. You're just like.

[B]

And that's what's, that's, that's what's crazy is because there's just been a recent discovery, I think it was in China, where they found underground caverns which were some type of crazy storage facility. These giant facilities with perfect artwork and all of the top people are ascending. So it's like. And they look a little different, you know, and we're still.

[A]

I always just, I like to think when people push me on this because I, I'm a pretty curious guy. I like to just think that, you know, I'm okay with the mystery. Like, I'm okay. I'm okay saying, like, I, I can go to like my job and like, kiss my kids at night and be like, hey, we don't know every. I don't fall in that category of like, we have to like, the Encyclopedia Britannica got everything right the first time. Like, I'm kind of like, we really probably don't know a lot of stuff.

[B]

No, but that I Think I always say. I always hypothesize stuff. That's always. The magic word is like, if it. There's evidence to suggest that this could have been a thing, but I'm okay with it. If you show me the contrary. I'm. I don't. I'm not set in stone. Because that's the part of the. That's what's so fascinating about this is like, you think you, like, oh, they're making a mammoth. And then, you know, and then you see the first woolly mouth, and you're like, what? And then all of a sudden, there's a blue buck. And then you start thinking about, man, maybe they could bring back the African ass that went away. That was. Had the. In the front, was tan and had the stripes in the back.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because I think that was the first extinct animal that I learned about in school that I got fixated.

[A]

That was the quagga. Quagga's a great species. You know, it was one interesting thing about the quagga. Maybe we should work on that. The. The quagga was the first ancient DNA specimen ever sequenced. So not only was it the first that you learned about, but it was like, it was the first thing that people got ancient DNA from was from a Quagga Peltier.

[B]

And that's where I was. I remember as a kid going, no, there's some out there. Those are too cool. Like, there's no way. There's. There's no way, you know? And then I had a genius idea. I think I was. I wrote a paper. If you. If you bred a horse and a zebra, you would get. Again, my science at that time was limited to. It's like one of the first.

[A]

The science is limited to, like, random roles. At the time, Yeah, I was thinking.

[B]

I was like, 10, you know, but I just. I had formulated it. I was pretty proud of it, and my teacher was like, well, you know, it maybe. Who knows? But she should have said no.

[A]

Did you? Did you. Did. I got a text, like, so Kenneth. You got to talk to Kenneth Lakavar, right? Yeah, he's the best. Like, did you like how crazy his story is about finding Dreadnought and the Bone?

[B]

First of all, he has the greatest business card ever made.

[A]

Oh, no, not challenge accepted.

[B]

No, no, no. I believe I carry it with me. And I'm not a guy to carry business cards, but I'm telling you, I. If I ever discovered anything or of his business card, I don't know if I'm going to hold this Up. See this looks like a normal card, right? Like hello, my name, I'm a learned doctor but you have to open the card up.

[A]

Right? I do have that card.

[B]

That card is amazing. And it's him right there next to his discovery top. That can't, you just can't.

[A]

Large dice are unbelievable.

[B]

Unless I can find like the red whale, you know, or something that we haven't discovered yet. But like that was, but he was awesome and he's talking about, you know, fossils and stuff. We got, we went down the rabbit hole of, of the, the connection and this is something too. I, we, we both were in agreement and again, I'm just from a novice and perspective that Antarctica is a gold mine because we forget whatever you're finding in Australia, there's a good chance you're going to find it in our Antarctica. Probably better preserved because of Pangea, because at one time they were connected. Now in terms of what you're doing, that's a little bit further down the path. Land bridges were already up by then, but still there could be, given that it was a rainforest at the time, a lot of different things that we don't even, haven't even discovered yet. And with it kind of having a little bit more time in the summer over there now with the way the Earth's weather patterns change, there might be some crazy discoveries in the next few years from Antarctica that we were like,

[A]

yeah, and, and, and I think that we're getting better at not just the lidar stuff, but also the, we're, we're getting better at different types of satellite imaging and in all of these different multispectral analysis type work. So, so yeah, I'm hoping that, I mean you're seeing that even in places like the Amazon where they're discovering entire networks of not just cities, but networks of cities and paths that are abandoned. So it's going to be interesting. I don't know how far some of that technology goes.

[B]

I'm all pumped because they found the freshwater shark in the Amazon and I'm an avid fish collector and I was just like they just found a couple. But I was like, but it makes sense. And we're seeing bull sharks, tiger sharks are able to, A lot of them are reproducing in rivers now. So. Yeah, and that's crazy because it's the most, one of the most ancient fish. Well, the, one of the top most ancient fish species and that's the species that's able to cut between salt and fresh water. I mean, I know we see salmon and trout, but it's a one way. They can't go back and forth. They have to basically change the biochemistry in their body, you know, and then the salmon eventually die. Go up there. So it's, it's just. There's so much fun stuff to discover and you got to go outdoors to do it.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

The tablet down, grab a little brush and a hammer and a shovel and just go explore. Just get out there. There's so much out there. And with this, I think especially something. And again, you do things in the name of science, but also we live in a world of commercialism. And you got to a blue jacked. I mean, this could be the next unicorn, you know, in my unicorn. Because it, it's, it's. It looks magical. Yeah, it really does. Like, the paintings and, and stuff don't really do it justice. No, just like the, your direwolves, the drawings and stuff.

[A]

And you know, like with the direwolves, like, one of the things that people ask me, like, what was the biggest surprise? There's two things that were surprising because, you know, one, some of the edits that we made affect the hair and affect the follicles. And we in Rogan saw and Rogan will say the smell. They have a distinct smell. When I came back. When I come back from the preserve and my dogs, it's like they go insane. And it's not like you've gone out in the mud or hunting or like held a cat or something and they're. Or been around another dog and they kind of sniff. But like, the. My dogs are like. But I've never seen any reaction of an animal towards a smell before like this. And like, Rogan talked about this with me, but I think he even talked about on the podcast where he's like, he's like, man, the. The. They have this o. Like, it's like. It's crazy. And then also, while we knew from a genetics perspective it was highly likely that they were white based on what we understand about the genomes and the protein and what. What what we. In what we engineered in. But when you said we had no idea what it looked like or felt like, and so we didn't know that when we made it, they would have a main. We didn't know it have this like Rhodesian Ridgeback kind of vibe of like this hair. We're like, like, we, we. We didn't know till we saw it. Right. And so that is. That is kind of the, the. There are. No matter how good we get at some of these Prediction models and the editing. Like, there is these moments where when you see it, when. Or in the cases like Dar, you smelt it, you're like, this is so unique. And like we. And you can't predict for them. Right.

[B]

They're jacked with a fur coat on. You don't understand. Like, that's the reason why guys with big biceps. Tyrus, they wear short sleeve shirts. Because if you. If I wore a fur coat and Puny Harry wears a fur coat, you can't tell who's jacked and who's not. The fact that their muscles are popping with that thick hair is. And you. I believe last time we talked, you said the trainer used to go in there was like, we ain't going in there anymore. Yeah, they just, they just hit different now. I think that's. I would again, sometimes you just kind of go off life experience. I think that is a smell that any smaller species that's related to them, that would be like a cat smelling lion. Wow. Or like, I need to breed with that because I'm gonna change up. Because that is. That is an alpha being smell. Because.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

I mean, but he were on the menu back then.

[A]

Yeah. Because I thought. I mean, we experienced it. Right. But it was kind of lost on us. It was really him saying Joe's like, I just. That, like, really hit me. I was like, they do have that. Then it like. Because I've always thought it was interesting when I come back, the. When I held them or touched them and my dogs, I. And then. And I fly back and my dogs, they're like, my dogs just lose their minds. Like. Like, not like anything I've ever seen before.

[B]

Like, because that was a. Well, you had the. You had the direwolves and you had the different sabers, but there were some other. The other bears. But I think the wolves with that in those large packs at that size had to be a hard out. Yeah, that had to be a really hard out. That's just the best way I can put it, you know, because it's not one. Yeah, I know they said that. And a lot of. You see a lot of the program where they show this. I think a lot of predators at that time were packing up because of the large. The large herbivores. I think the packing system probably died out because of man's presence where big numbers meant easy to track. But the wolves still didn't do it. And that says a lot about. They were. They kept that mentality.

[A]

Yeah, they kept that going. Which is crazy.

[B]

You know, I'VE never, I've never. I think I met Joe Rogan once when I was bodyguarding with Snoop and we did something with Fear Factor. But I've. If I ever sat down and talked all I would want to talk to him about. I don't want to talk about any politics, just talk about the, the animal stuff because I'm down. Like, I'm absolutely down because I just finished. Well, I didn't finish. I probably watched it 300 times. Sir David Attenborough's new documentary, the Gorillas with.

[A]

Oh, yeah, I haven't seen it yet.

[B]

Phenomenal how it goes, it, their, their system, the work that Fosse did and, and how, like, it's two, what, three generations down, but everything they know about them that they thought they knew, they didn't know anything. And that's an animal that's present here today.

[A]

I think that's true. You know, like, you know, we, that's something that, you know, I think there's so much to that and I think it's, you know, I think that it is law, especially with the kind of, like, onboarding and proliferation of AI and all these models. I think that if humans can still stay creative and curious but be open, we're going to, we're going to discover a lot of stuff.

[B]

Because here's the other thing in this, a lot of times when you set out to do something in the scientific realm, perfect example, the birth control pill was supposed to be for acne, you know, and looking and learning genomes and bringing back and extinct. There is a possibility that they'll be like, whoa, wait a minute. We just discovered a way to predict cancerous cellular development. There's things that will come.

[A]

We're doing that. So I mean, we're not doing exactly that, but like, so check this out. We launched a company, you know, we launched a company, I guess it's now been 10 or 11 months, called AstroMech, and, And we spun out of Colossal was based on some core attacking some core. You know, we, we love all the big AI systems like Grok and Claude and others, but like, you know, they've not yet built like comparative genomics, ancestral state reconstruction models. We still have to do that. The old. We still have to do that, right? But what we found, exactly what you said is we built, like, when you look at like drug discovery and stuff, people are like, they look for a drug, they look for a compound, a small molecule, and they say, oh, it affects this. Let's go testing this. Oh, in has this other effect, right? And so that, that's how it's kind of done today, right? But it's around kind of established, I'd argue they're established discoveries and then applying those established discoveries. But to you nailed it. One of the things that we're doing and we don't know if it's going to work, just so you know, we don't know if it's going to work, but we're trying it is we've been feeding in, into this evolutionary prediction model. Like you look at these prediction markets and all these, these markets that these AI systems that are coming out looking at, trying to look at prediction trends from elections to, you know, fights to whatever, right? And so we've taken that kind of tech and gone really, really deep and fed it a bunch around what we know about the tree of life and what genes are conserved. So I'll give you a great example. Elephants have an overexpression of this protein called p53, right? And it, and it, it kills cell, it just kills cancer. It just, it like if a cell. And we, and we've had to learn a lot about this because when we try to edit an Asian elephant cell with a mammoth, with the mammoth allele, it looks like it's a mutation, right? Because it's a forced mutation, right? So guess what? It looks like a cancer. So it just, the cell just senesces and dies, right? It kills itself. And so we've actually had to figure out how to regulate that so that we can turn stuff down so we can make the edits but then turn it back up because you don't want to have like cancer. Extra cancer prone elephants, right, they get about 3%, about 3% cancer where humans are in the, in the mid-20s. And so it's, it's a very. In. Mostly people believe it's because of this P53. But not all big animals had that overexpression of P53, right? And even certain animals and certain species like bats and other, certain bats have certain overexpressions. And so what we're doing to your, to your point is we're actually trying to map and leverage AI to think about. Not like what molecule could you use to go apply to this, that could also be applied to this. But how can we predict and understand what parts of the genome were conserved across large forces of time? And why? Because if we can do that, maybe we can forecast vulnerability. Things like bird flu. Because like birds, you hear about bird flu and I go man, birds are just weak. But birds actually have way Better immune systems than us. Yeah, but. But they're susceptible here. But why. Why are they susceptible here? But then they have all this. So. So we're trying to use AI in kind of these evolutionary trends to then predict why did certain genes get conserved where vulnerability points. And then can we use that to extrapolate for livestock, for things like birds, for poultry, for humans. Right. And that could give us the exact inverse way of looking at drug discovery,

[B]

which is phenomenal because again, the. If there was. And I don't worry about. I don't deal with negativity because this. This is awesome. But there's always someone who's like, well, you know, this is a waste of, you know, like, they should be working on other things. And when I hear that and I'm like you, we're getting a chance to look not only to undo some of the mistakes that we are earlier brethren did shoot everything, stuff it, make it an asteroid and then wipe it out because you want to put cattle on the land or whatever. And then the land, but now the lands, the desert doesn't grow. Well, you took out. And we're learning that certain key species are important for the entire ecosystem. So in a way it's like, hey, you want to. You want to have help things. When you reintroduce an animal that was his major thing was basically fertilizing and keeping the grass plains going, that's a good thing.

[A]

One of our board members who's genius, Tom Chi, he has this fund called AT One Ventures, and he can literally explain to you like, I don't come from. I come from technologies, you know, but I'm now passionate about its application to these ecosystem modelings and geoengineering and all these things. But what's interesting is Tom can literally explain to you the micro environments and cosms that are created over the hooves of bison.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And. And how if you've got to have enough bison so you have enough compressed dirt so that it can hold water when it rains in the plains so that songbirds can spread seeds. Like, you're like, that's amazing.

[B]

Yeah. They were basically plowing the fields for you. And I mean, it's. Now I think we're getting to a point where we can look back and we haven't even got to the main event because this what we're. Spoiler alert. This is unbelievable. This might I. This is the greatest thing I've ever been just being able to talk about it. You know, I've been bragging quietly about what we're about to talk about, but when, when you have a major advance. And I would say this is pretty major because the last time we talked about this, you were still like, if we get this, we're thinking about this, hopefully be this. Either you were just being coy, setting this up, or it's literally happened. And I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna say. Colossal Biosciences hatches first chicks from its fully artificial egg system. The first ever shell less incubation system to support complete avian embryo development, enabling nest generation, conservation and de extinction. This is like some Einstein stuff. It really is. I mean you're being humble, but this is, you could literally right so many wrongs. And if we look into places like I think David Attenborough, and this was maybe what, seven, seven, maybe seven years ago, five years ago. Time flies when you're working all the time. He talked about we were down to like less than 30% of open wildlife land in the United States. Right. And most of the biomass of is, is birds and I mean chickens, cows and us. There will be, if we continue with conservation and there'll be opportunities to reintroduce species and reintroduce ecosystems, maybe we can preserve that 30% or even get to a, you know, a 40, 45%. You're going to need to be able to do something like this without having to be a mad scientist. And it's absolutely. So the last time we talked, you were, you were, you said you were close.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When was, when were you to the point where you're like, this is, this is happening. A lot of trial and error. Was it?

[A]

Yeah. So, so we try to think about things from it. So in addition to all of our computational work, our biobanking conservation work and our genome engineering work. Right. Which, which are scaling quite well for our de extinction projects, there will be, we have this vision which when, when people always ask me like, what's the craziest thing about colossal. What I really see a world as, and this is like literally the vision that, that we have is that I think that eventually we as humanity will have like a digital twin of Earth. Like to your point about ecosystems, not just like what we have like with NOAA and like why and like, you know, climate patterns and whatnot. But we will understand like how these ecosystems work, how the, how we have to live with them. Right. Because and then how we can change and affect them. And I think when you have that type of model, you have bio vaults where you're backed up species, robotic process automation, cloning, Technologies and then eventually artificial wombs for many for different types of animals. Right. So placental animals, non placental mammals, aquatic animals, birds, in the case the artificial egg construct. You eventually that will be a complete supply chain and we will be able to give that to countries where countries can manage and in near real time mass produce species. They're like, oh, this is trending down the genetic bottlenecks here because of these wildfires. We need to pull these from the frozen. From our, from our internal little frozen zoo. We need to like take them off ice. We need to thaw them in the media conditions. We need to clone them because we need this distribution. And if we put them in different populations, therefore they won't breed with each other. And we need to grow those fully extra. And then you have animal care teams that are then putting back in the wild and reintroducing them. And I don't think you'll ever lose the human in the loop.

[B]

And I mean it'd be completely like just go sci fi. You're making a trip to Mars, flying to Mars and let's say you got the air down there or whatever. Flying to Mars. A bunch of chickens in a coupe's probably going to be messy and they're not that idea.

[A]

It's bad idea genes. Yeah.

[B]

Horrible. Yeah. It's going to be about what's going to take like 700 generations of the chickens to make it there. So hopefully there's not a sex strike with chickens because you'll but you with frozen embryos in eggs in artificial system. It's like the end of. It's like the end of that aliens one where homie had the little draw. He pulled the draw out and was all the alien embryos. We're not doing that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean who knows? But I'm just saying.

[A]

But eventually we will be, be able to do.

[B]

I mean that'll be all. Could you just imagine you find a planet similar to Earth.

[A]

You're colonizing it and you got like, like Elon and. And those guys are. They're gonna get in, you know, Gwen who runs like they're going to, they're going to take, you know, us to start. We will have moon and Mars and whatnot. And you know, I think what's one of the things I love about Colossal is that it's very, very bipartisan in the sense that like both sides the aisle in America don't agree on anything except that like a world void of life is bad. Right. They have different views on that. Right.

[B]

A world void of Life that we need to stay here is bad.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because when we're gone, the Earth is kind of weird like that how they just shake off and restart.

[A]

So it's, it'll be just fine. Yeah. Like the world's gonna hand just fine. Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so, but the idea that then you could just take these systems and then scale them off world is very, very interesting. Right. And so, so that's kind of. And so you've got to have different components of that. And so for us we've been focusing a lot on the AI and now we started rolling out the bio vaults. So we're building pulses parts of this stack. But then you've got to have multiple different types of artificial wombs. And an AVEN is the first one that very excited about.

[B]

Now people who are thinking this, you're automatically going to think of the Jurassic park scene with the raptor. But the egg is not like an egg. It's. Is it? I don't want to say. When we were a kid we used to call people test tube babies. It was like an insult. I'm sure they'll see a picture because I'm looking at it and some of the photos here and I will have all these up. I will.

[A]

And we'll send you the video. The video is sick. Like the video is unbelievable.

[B]

So when they're in these eggs is. Is it. How do they hold? What is holding it all together?

[A]

I guess it's a great question. So, so there's this three. So we design, we've literally engineered. Because our thought process was we don't want to just redesign the egg, we want to completely re engineer it. So if you're going to re engineer an egg for mass production ex utero. Right. Or to scale, like another reason is

[B]

not going to fit an ostrich egg.

[A]

No, it's not.

[B]

Or what's the biggest?

[A]

Eight times bigger than an emu.

[B]

Yeah. And emos are the biggest ones that we have. Right.

[A]

And so, so your choice if we're going to be successful in our, in our pursuit of south island mo, which we are. And this. Yeah. I love, I love that you said this earlier because I'm the same way. I'm an eternal optimist. Very grateful for the plan. I'm grateful for my life and my family and everything. But what's crazy is that like, and I don't listen to the, the, the neg. But one of the things when we launched the moa, people weren't like of that small hater crowd. They, they weren't like, oh, this is great for education. This is great for the MA people. They're like, how are you going to grow? And they're like, everybody want to just argue with this.

[B]

Everyone has that person. Like with us it's.

[A]

But our view, our view is like, we weren't like, oh no, you got us. We.

[B]

Oh, we're not. Yeah.

[A]

It's like, oh no. How did we miss the one thing that we didn't know, who didn't said we needed. So our view was though, is like, so your choice, if you're going to make a South island giant moas, you got to engineer something bigger to hold it, which is kind of insane itself. But we could do it. But in. Or you could have it born through the size of an emu with something like an emu, transport it into an entrance for, into an artificial egg, supplement it, and then you've got the size volume that you need to grow it to term and to grow it at scale. And so, and so that's something that, you know, so that's part of the reason why we did it, which we think is really interesting. But we actually engineered the system itself. But like what most people don't realize is that eggs breathe, they're porous and there's air and there's, and there's contained atmospheric concentration. But if we're going to reimagine it, we should completely re engineer it. Our eggs you can attach to a microscope. We actually created different imaging bays at the bottom of the artificial egg that perfuse the different, that are actually slanted at different angles so that we can perfuse different types of wavelengths of light so that we can look through the developing stack of the embryo so that we can ensure that we are getting all of the right developmental milestones. And you can't get that in an egg because it's just a sealed egg. Right, right. And then we actually. What's crazy is when you look at it, you look at the picture, you'll see it looks like in that artificial egg construct, there's like plastic, but that's actually a polymer that we had to have our material science team design the. Think about designing like it looks like shrink wrap, but it's like what design.

[B]

I'm seeing it. It's. It honestly, it looks like a little planet. Like it looks like there's continents in there. And then it's like the inside of the. I mean this is just unbelievable.

[A]

And then, and then, and then also we wanted to make it in a way because remember, You've got to preserve the shape because there's actually, you know, you know how the people do those things where they'll hold an egg and they'll apply the right of pressure and they can't crack it because, I mean, you probably crack it, but because, like, you know, they've got it, you know, you know what I'm saying? Like with all the right pressure. So you've got to have like this atmospheric pressure. You've got to have the right developmental pressure for the embryo. It can't just be kind of loosey goosey on like a table. Right, right. And so all of that had to go in. But at the same time, we wanted to see can we do it in a way where it's totally flat at the top. So that means that we actually. This is going to sound crazy, but we actually had to change the curvature. So you. So people, the average person will see the egg and say, oh, well, it looks kind of like an egg that they chop the top off. It's like, no, we actually had to change the angle of the curvature at the right stuff so we maintain the right pressure and we can maintain the right atmosphere.

[B]

Develops the chick. Develop. Develops the way.

[A]

So that gives you the entire top layer so that you can image and see it. It's crazy. It's an engineering marvel, but most people won't even understand that. Just the effort and thought into the side curvature, while it isn't overly visible to us, measured over time would be vast because we had to do that to ensure that we get that integrity.

[B]

And again, you're doing something that took 300 million years to perfect.

[A]

It took a while.

[B]

Yeah. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't like, you know, they just said, hey, I'm crawling out of the water, let me lay these eggs. You know, I'm saying it was a lot of. And some are still now.

[A]

It doesn't matter what came first, the chicken or the egg.

[B]

Yeah, now. Yeah. So how far apart is. Is in growing a chicken and egg, obviously, or a chick of whatever species, depending on the size, how, how distant is that from. Let's say if you're going to have a placental mammal develop.

[A]

It's a great question. So you learn. I think that you learn key kind of like first principle ideas of like, how do you measure, like oxygenation. Right. In atmosphere? How do you measure pressure? How do you measure. They're very, very different biological development systems. So we have a placental mammal project that, that we're working on and we have had Successful hatching from the embryo of a placenta. And it's called invasion. This isn't just us saying this. It invades into a placental wall and we built that synthetically. Right. So we've had success there. We've not had success yet. We have actually tried yet because we're trying to, we try to, from an animal welfare perspective, we try to work with the cells, then we work at the different stages of the embryos. We don't put it to together until we know we have a, you know,

[B]

you got a good shot of growing something healthy.

[A]

Exactly. We're trying, we're not trying to just do.

[B]

Yeah. Island of Dr. Monroe.

[A]

Yeah, it's not, it's not a shots on goal thing. Like we try to be, we're pretty thoughtful on how we do that. We're certified by American Humane and so we're very, we try to be very mindful of that, of that purpose. And so, so, so even the, the imaging systems, how we track the nutrient and supplementation for the placental side versus what you supplement into the avian side, like those are things that you get these core constants. But the systems are very, very, very different. But I think it teaches you the things you need to think through in those processes.

[B]

I mean it's just fascinating. So at some point now with you having the ability to grow, size is no longer an issue. Will you look at some of the more recent extinctions like in terms.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean we, we like I, we have two huge avian projects right now, right. We've got the south island giant moto project and then the dodo. And the dodo is actually doing quite well. We've got, we do not have dodos. We don't have baby doors, chicks or anything and we won't for a while. But, but we, we do have a couple, we, I think like the artificial egg. We have some novel approaches of how to s. Solve some very big. What people I think thought could have been gaps in the project. And we, we, we, we have some announcements.

[B]

Dodo's nearest relative, Nicobar pigeon. Yeah, and that's, and that's a far, that's far. That's a long line on the family tree between them.

[A]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And they're beautiful. And you know, they're, they, they're, they're. The Nicobar pigeons are all, are iridescent. They're beautiful birds. Right. And we have a colony of them because it's cool. So part of like one of the things that's fun about what we get to is we get colonies of these temporary animals, Right. Like, while we're studying them. And so it's cool, like, to. To. To see the Nico Bars. Right.

[B]

I've never seen Mike Tyson. Know about him. He's absolutely obsessed with pigeons. He's as bad. As bad as pigeons as I'm with fish.

[A]

Oh, really? Really?

[B]

Yeah, I. I do. I got a lot of little crazy hybrids. I'm kind of the island of Dr. Monroe. I got some. I'll send you some pictures of some of my monsters. But, you know, there's.

[A]

There's doing there. There was this thing I found out about. I just joined the National Fish and Wildlife foundation, which. Which. Which is the largest conservation organization I just got. I just got appointed to the board this week. So I'm very excited about it. And, you know, they're there. It's like a $5 billion endowment. It's, like, done more for conservation than maybe anything else. Right. It was chartered by Congress. It's not a part of Fish and Wildlife, but it's separate and is nonprofit. But I was. I was just at the board meeting, and they were telling me about that in. In Florida being. You know, because so many people, like, throw their fish.

[B]

I literally went fishing with my son a couple months ago. I caught two of the Hartwig. They're very expensive rainbow cichlids in the yard. I'm like, why am I buying these fish for 500 bucks when they're literally.

[A]

There's now. There's now like an Instagram. This is telling me that there's now this Instagram thing where. Where. Where these. Where kids will go into the canals and catch mostly fish that are. That. That are invasive species, and they, like, relevance, the rank, the. The rarity and stuff like that, because it's.

[B]

It's just gotten so I was sitting there, I watched the clown knife swing by. I was like, okay, that's 45 bucks in the pet shop. Like, yeah, I think there was a breeding facility that got flooded out. Yeah. And, you know, snakeheads and. And stuff like that. I just. I always push back when I hear they're invasive species, and I laugh. This coming from the most invasive species to ever have been created.

[A]

You nailed it. We are the most invasive anything that's hanging on.

[B]

You have my respect, bro.

[A]

So I look. I look at. I agree. I agree with your. Your view of that, right? Because I think that, like, I look at invasive species aren't necessary. Species that aren't that weren't, quote, unquote, there. I Look at. And many people disagree with this. I look at invasive species are things that are, that weren't supposed to be there, that are doing harm. Right. And so, you know, it's unclear what certain.

[B]

It's like the great. Like within California. Growing up, I saw more red squirrels than gray squirrels. Now it's really. Especially in Yosemite. I was up there and said, hey, maybe we'll see some red squirrels. The gray squirrels in Yosemite are jacked. They're. They're different than the ones you see in the parks. Like these, these dudes was jacked. I think the only thing more ferocious was the ground squirrel. They just come up and just check your wallet and see what you got on you. But that was a natural kind of a selection thing. And as the gray squirrel spread, it's just like when I was talking about earlier with Australia, Antarctica, and of course when we had the land bridges, there were situations where a wandering cave bear ended up in a rainforest, you know, and it completely changed the, the ecosystem there because it kind of a natural thing. An iguana stuck on a raft ends up in the Galapagos and finches come there. So it's invasive species. It's a. It's a thing that happens, you know,

[A]

and it just definitely a thing that happens naturally on some level.

[B]

I, I just speed up the process because we tr.

[A]

But I do think there's. I do think there's a fork. Right. There's certain things like, you know, where we, where we are to your cattle point. Like right now, a big issue that, that we are going to face in America is the screw worm. Well, the screw them. They're saying it's an invasive species coming. Well, it's coming up from Panama and whatnot. But part of the reason is it's going in and affecting cows. But that's because before there weren't so many cows here.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That poor. Right. And so, so it is kind of this like give and take. And I think that there are certain locations that have very unique biodiversity, like island of Komodo, that are way more susceptible. Right.

[B]

Insensitive.

[A]

Yeah, you go put like. I mean that's like everyone talks about like people eating the dodo, but it's really the introduction of like pigs and rats and stuff like that.

[B]

And rats eating all their eggs, cats.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because they had no fighter, they had no fear because they didn't have a natural predator.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

And then a simple thing like a rat shows up. It was a thing in Florida where they were crying about the, the Burmese python. I was like, yeah, alligators are going to take care of that. It said there's. There are things in place because they're. Although they don't reach the size of an alligator can deal with a snake, a bird will. There's enough predatory birds to knock off. So it's not going to be as damaging as opposed to if the. The environment had never been exposed to a snake at all to where that a rabbit wouldn't even hop away from it because he has no. There's no instinctual fear.

[A]

We see that in. And we see that in Guam where. Where we have. Where there is a. There was a mat. They had no snakes. They got the brown.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And now I forgot the number. It's like 22. We're talking to different parts of the US government about this. These effects. Our military base fix all these. There's like 22. Some insane number of snakes on this island.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because like snakes on a plane on a super island. Right. Because it. Because like there was. To your point, there was nothing like it just was never ready for it. But it's the exact person perfect environment for those guys. Right. So those. So they've taken over and that's what you. We got to be mindful of. But we also have to be realistic that we are in this world that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.

[B]

30 is not much.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know and I, we kind of. I just with. I'm not going to ask for any predictions but with the successful and obviously how. Okay. The chicks that hatch. How old are they now? Are they.

[A]

The oldest ones are a couple months.

[B]

So they're starting to. They're like get teenage. They're starting growth.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Did you notice any. Was there anything. Was there a little faster growth? Did you know any?

[A]

No, they're. They're. No.

[B]

I mean if you put them in a bag with a bunch of chicks of the same color.

[A]

But that's good. Like it's kind of like that's what you want.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

It's kind of like going back to direwolves. Right. Like now I can't bottle feed them anymore and they're behaving like wolves. But you want them to behave like wolves.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And so. Yeah. You can't. There's, there's. We didn't. We didn't do anything. We. From a developmental biology perspective, we've not tried to unpack anything. From a acceleration perspective. Right. What was the ask that question. Right. With things like mammoths in 22 months, like can we get this done like six. But, but, and so we didn't do anything on the event. So yeah, they're indistinguishable, which is great

[B]

from an animal health perspective and behaviors and stuff like that.

[A]

Yeah, behaviors, yeah.

[B]

I mean it's a chicken. It's a chicken, It's a chicken. But that, but that in itself is pretty amazing.

[A]

No, it's amazing. It's awesome. And like when you see the video, it's cool, it's great. And it's also cross functional science. Right. Like we had to have material engineer scientists, we had to have computational biologists, we had to have developmental biologists, we had to have our avian team, we had to have the engineering team that engineered the eggs, our exo dev team. Like it's five different teams coming together to make this thing, which is also really cool.

[B]

Now just to switch gears a little because I was recently I'm, I always support the dolphin project. And there is a small porpoise. I think it's down to like six maybe.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now obviously a sea mammal, even though it's placental is got to be. That's got to be. Again, would be a completely different thing than a. Yeah, but I think, I

[A]

think that the same system, the fundamentals that we are solving on our placental interface in our other exodev systems will be applicable to that.

[B]

Would that, would that porpoise be a candidate?

[A]

Yes, 100%. So we're not currently working on any marine mammals, but we do, we are, our foundation, the colossal foundation that we raise $100 million for separate. Has been funding bioacoustic research and other things to help isolate and identify those populations. And we'd love to have. Do what.

[B]

It's like a needle in a haystack. The ocean. I mean, what's that?

[A]

And we do know the mouth of the river that they predominantly are in. And it's somewhere between seven and 13 individuals that we know of.

[B]

And, and there's no evidence of another population anywhere else.

[A]

No, that we have. We did do this, which, which is controversial, but I did, we did. I did have the teams do this. I did look at temperatures, salinity, kind of to your point about math of rivers. I did look, I did have the teams on, look at. If you ever had a redundant population in another part of the area, could you, could you create similar. Are there areas that could create similar conditions that they could thrive? Because the biggest issue of why they're going extinct is because of. They're a byproduct of catching Another endangered species. Like this is like. This is like the. The worst store. Like this is like this story couldn't write itself. Right. It's like you've got, you know, Mexican drug cartels illegally fishing for the tataba, another endangered fish. So that you could. They can sell the. The swim bladder from it that has like cocaine like effects to Chinese medicine. Right.

[B]

What is with the Chinese medicine? What is their deal? Bear. Was it bear nuts? Like urine bladder? Like who. Who was the quack in China who

[A]

the emperor just wanted Somebody had to go test all that.

[B]

Must have been like I'll do. We must have been batshit crazy to where like what's gonna make me taller Quick. Some bear urinary bladder. Go find me one. Okay, sir. It's gonna take me 10 years. Maybe that's where it came from. Or a doctor was just trying to

[A]

like I kicked the can down the road.

[B]

Yeah. Like hey, yeah. Because that is when we. Again I have. If something is just like Mosasaurus for example. Eventually the water changed, the animals got smaller and faster and his main food source, the whales got a little smarter and they were. He was unable to continue to eat at the amount. So therefore they die out. That's kind of a natural thing that happens and something kind of takes its place. That if someone was like, you need to let Nate. I could hear that argument and be like, I understand that. But there's the other side of it. When it's man made. Encroachment for something so ridiculous is that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I kind of feel it is our duty to right the wrong.

[A]

I do. I do too. Right.

[B]

Just from that premise, period. It's not about anything else than like we know better than our forefathers did.

[A]

If you really simplify it down, right. Like early human colonization and industrialization didn't look at nature and they just assumed, oh, I see antelope for as long as I can see. So therefore it's just overabundance.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They never see or balance. And so. So like if you really look at it, you know, technologies, the technologies at the time, rifles, ships to take people places. Those technologies got us into some of the positions that we are in today. Deforestation, so that we could have houses and paper products. So. Or for. Or for crop farming. So to feed cattle. So it's like there's all. So. So technology got us there on some level. Right. Like in human ingenuity in different technological advancements in time created the certain climates that we have around some of these species loss. So we might as well Use the same ingenuity that we have and the creativity that we have to build new technologies to kind of prevent and also undo where we can.

[B]

And, and just because, you know, we live in a weird world now. I just want to clarify. It's not just one particular species of man that is responsible, say it that way, that is responsible for this because the mammoths were not being butchered by Englishmen. Okay, Just putting that out there. The mammoths, the woolly rhino, the sloths, rhinoceros, giraffe thing. That, yeah, that wasn't, that wasn't on.

[A]

It's all in our DNA.

[B]

That wasn't on King George's watch. You know, it was just the behavior of man for whatever reason. I get it. That's a lot of competition. And waking up every morning with the idea that I have to share a cave with a cave bear or a cave hyena cat, cave lion, who I think are absolutely like that. That's an interesting looking animal.

[A]

Yeah, we, we funded a, we're not working on it. But I love people's passions. And one of our ancient DNA experts out of Germany who's like. And this is what I do, I do love, I love people like this. I love the curiosity people. And he's a traditional academic. Right. Which it's about 50, 50, whether they like me or not.

[B]

But your average is better than mine.

[A]

Yeah, so, so he, but he is, but his super passion is cave, is migratory patterns of cave hyenas. And he's worked his whole life and he could never get any capital for it. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like we're not going to work on, we most likely aren't going to work on cave items, but we'll fund it because it was an interesting study. Right. And I like to fund and find projects like, like this where people, even if they're obscure, but they're just so passionate about it. And him understanding the interbreed ability and the migratory patterns of modern day cave hyenas to our modern hyenas is really fascinating.

[B]

Well, here's the thing, here's why I would argue and fight for hyenas because they're such a unique species anatomically. I mean. Yeah, they're, they're not, they're not a dog, they're not a cat. They're actually, I think a giant mongoose is basically what they kind of are. That the females have very dominant body parts. You know, like they are interestingly unique and they're, and their, their social life, their, their clicks and Sounds and is there's a very interesting animal.

[A]

You hear that stuff in Africa at night. You're like what it.

[B]

What was it like? You know and with. Because again I always. The giant sloth or any member of that family. We don't have any. The previous people did a good job of making sure that that wasn't coming back. Now with having an artificial uterus you would be. If you had the right enough. If there was enough. I think we're finding more and more of their bones.

[A]

Yeah there is. There is. Hendrik Polnor is one of our scientific advisors. We find a lot of the research he's been doing around Colombian mammoths and some other stuff. He's a great dude. Spark. Really. Really. He's actually done. He's actually done a lot of research and has very good genomes of ground sloths.

[B]

And again we'll put a picture of what one looks like. You couldn't. And they were. And we assume. Because I think the one thing we would be and I'm just hypothesizing here is we think of sloth. We think of this slow moving thing.

[A]

I don't think.

[B]

I don't think that's. I don't think they move like that. I think they.

[A]

No no, no. Pull trees out the ground and can like take down a tree. Like I don't think you're like no.

[B]

And. And outgrew. I'm gonna give it took packs of dire wolves. Not one. So just. And I don't.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think if you move slowly I think that would be just.

[A]

I don't think they. I don't think that because the ones that. Because a lot of times the the are the ones that move slow a lot. Today it's like this today. That's also metabolism related. These things bury like these things make giant like you know, like boring. They changed. Well they actually hire them very similar

[B]

to what elephants doing forest today. Like the forest elephants in Africa. Like I said chimp empire. Where's the sequel? What are we doing guys? It's my. When I go to sleep to that documentary all the time. Like I just. I. I look at chimp and gorilla societies and I see a lot of like if I'm looking for a conniving person, I'll just watch chimp society facial expressions. It's a mirror. I always tell people you want to learn about people. I'm not talking about how we body language manipulation. It is. It's not as bad. The silverbacks are a little nicer about. At least they Include women in the conversation. Chimps don't. But, like, you get a good. You get a good.

[A]

And those hunting parties where they go kill other monkeys, you're like, what the. Like, it's, it's terrible.

[B]

But the thing is, it's not for food. They do it the most when, when they're fruit, when they have. When they're all their stocks are up, when they're all fat and feel like, hey, what do you want to do? I don't know, let's just go kill. And these monkeys for half the year are like, hey, buddy, good morning. And then, yeah, they don't. Here's the deal. The one nice thing. Well, the one nice thing about the big cats, at least they go for your throat. It's over. Crush you a couple seconds. Done. Chimps just start eating you, much like wild dogs in Africa and wolves who can't, you know, they. It's a rough. It's a long day. It's a long. It's a long day that you don't want to have. But you see, when you see, like. And my point is like, that a lot of the trails and stuff they use to do all this are forged by the forest elephants. Sloths did the same thing. They changed and they changed. That'd be another key species to where obviously their time is gone in terms the environment's changed and everything else. Food, the food that they need was probably not the same anymore. But just to see that, I think would be something, maybe something in our lifetime with.

[A]

I would look, I mean, we are not working on giant sloth because I think there's a lot of, like, limiting technologies.

[B]

But I think we don't have any reference point. I think.

[A]

But I do think that it's a function of time that we could do giant slots. Like, I believe. I mean, I'm very optimistic and bullish on technology adoption and trend curves. I think that we will, I think colossal could do the giant slots at some point in time.

[B]

You guys are growing in leaps and bounds. I mean, you guys, you know, it's great.

[A]

I feel like we're just getting started, like, every, like, as, like, I literally, like, I feel like, like, I feel like we haven't even gotten to the, like, starting, like, we're in warmups.

[B]

I'm. I keep telling myself, because I'm a horse dad. Yeah, if you guys could bring back a horse that doesn't cost money, that'd be awesome. So I keep pushing my retirement off, but, like, I see stuff like this. I'm like, man, I cannot wait to get away from all this just so I can see some of this stuff and be a part. Like this stuff is just. I look at this and I. If I was. When I was a kid, it was a, it was a book with a, with a triceratops and a. I think it was an allosaurus. And I was done. And the first time I heard David Attenborough's voice on the world we live in, it was over. It was just. It was a whole spiral of stuff. And I took it for as far as I could. But then sports and other opportunities and the zoology labs were brutal. I didn't like the dissection stuff. I did. I just, I didn't have the stomach for it. I hated it. You know, I drew the line at the big, at the puppy. I'm like, I'm done. I don't want to. I just want to watch and observe, man. I just want to, you know, is there, is there a.

[A]

But I think you need, you got like, that's the beauty, right, of life and all the people you get, you get all these people that have, you know, like, I like. You know, when you watch the time lapse of, of the avian, our artificial egg system, and you watch the. It grow, you're like, it's magical. It's amazing. It's a little creepy, but it's amazing. Yeah.

[B]

And I think that this could be a cure for a lot of things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm in this, like seeing life grow, seeing we always hear about how horrible mankind is and seeing projects like this that are going to inspire young scientists and archaeologists and people that are. That don't want to sit on their tablet all day, that, you know, that don't want to. We need to stop having it to where you need to play in the NFL and you're a singer or some, or an actor or some ridiculous, you know, some 1 in 1% chance you can change the world and you can make the world a better place and you don't have to be on TV to do it. You know, there's a whole world out there.

[A]

Yeah. We just need, we just need more people doing big, interesting.

[B]

I mean, this could be the next Disney. I really. And I say that Disney was this one man's dream of something. And it turned into something to where? Because if you have a society that's into science, you have mathematicians, you have

[A]

scholars, you have all of engineer, you

[B]

have all of it.

[A]

Right. Rising tide lifts all boats, you know,

[B]

and it maybe we'll see in our lifetime now I always heard the joke. You don't see people paying a million $10,000 a year to go see, go see a scientist do an experiment. They might see a scientist reveal his. The latest, the new tree sloth. You know what I'm saying? You might have, you might fill a stadium up for that if it builds it.

[A]

I just, I think that, I think you would, I think people would be like, I think that's.

[B]

I don't, I don't think there'll be you, me, Rogan, the couple of interns waiting for the reveal of the mammoth. And you can hear me go, is it pulling the curtain yet? No, it'll be a worldwide event. I mean, the discovery, I remember the Russian scientist that discovered the frozen mammoth, baby. That was like a whole two part episode. It was amazing. And that was a frozen one.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

So again, man, the. This, this is obviously, you know, this is going to be. Everyone's going to find about. We have a big day. It's the 18th, right? 19th, 19th, 19th,19th, 19th. So is when the big reveal is. And I, I could not wish you any more success. And, and thank you so much.

[A]

Oh, no, we'll keep coming back.

[B]

Oh, yeah. No, no, no, you ain't going nowhere. I'm still gonna, I'm gonna keep pushing, yo. I am like, we're working on it. We definitely want to. The whole team's like, yeah, not you. Maybe you. Only if you, Only if you wear. Would you wear a sheep costume and just. All you gotta do is just run by the direwolves.

[A]

Just, just test it.

[B]

Just test it. Hey, worst case, we'll put you in an egg embryo, we'll bring you back and what, what was it, 22 months gestation? You'll be fine.

[A]

Yeah, 22 months for those. For our mammoths.

[B]

Yeah. Which I don't think speeding it up that would be maybe not on the first one.

[A]

No, no, we're, we're not, we're not working on anything that now. It's just. But I, but I, I do want to think, you know, because you do have certain big animals that go much faster than others. So it is going to be, I think over time the world will understand the, and be able to unpack the science of why certain things gestate longer whatnot. Is it because of like, brain? Like, are there certain. Yeah, so it's gonna be interesting.

[B]

Well, this is always interesting, man. And I appreciate you and thank you so much for allowing me to come and talk about this, man.

[A]

This is, I love it. Thanks for having me I. I love you. I'm excited.

[B]

I can't wait for this, man. Like I said, I can't wait for the. The 19th. This is going to be phenomenal. So. And eventually I'm. At some point. I was looking for a fossil this weekend. I came up short. I came up short. But eventually we'll find something.

[A]

We'll sample it.

[B]

We'll do the whole thing. I'm going to find something awesome. All right, man. Appreciate you, man.

[A]

Awesome. Thank you.

[B]

Yep. Till next time.