150-Foot Prehistoric Leviathan Discovered Inside a Nevada Dam - it Extinct 1,5 M Year Ago..

[00:00:00]What do Paris Hilton and Chris Hemsworth have in common?

[00:00:03]>> Well, apparently they both want to bring animals back to life. But we're not talking about making your favorite pet live forever. Nope. These celebs are actually helping a science company bring back animals that no longer exist, like the mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, and even the iconic dodo.

[00:00:23]If everything goes according to plan, these fascinating creatures could be walking among us again by 2028.

[00:00:31]This groundbreaking effort is led by a company called Colossal Biosciences.

[00:00:36]At this very moment, they're working on a way to revive the core genes of animals that disappeared from Earth ages [music] ago. The idea is to replicate those genes using DNA from a close living relative. If that's all Greek to you, don't worry. We'll break it down a bit later.

[00:00:56]So, [music] the mammoth is one of the animals they plan to bring back, and people are especially hyped about it.

[00:01:03]These incredible, massive creatures roamed parts of Africa, [music] Europe, Asia, and North America until about 4,000 years ago.

[00:01:13]Some people might mix them up with modern elephants, but there are some key differences. For starters, they had huge curved tusks that curled inward and were used to dig for food. They also adapted to survive in freezing climates, like having two layers of thick fur to keep their blood warm. But mammoths and elephants do have a lot in common. The woolly mammoth shares 99.5% of its genes with its closest relative, the Asian elephant.

[00:01:42]That's huge because it means that mammoths are genetically closer to Asian elephants than Asian elephants are to African elephants, for example.

[00:01:52]The company's bold plan is to create a living walking [music] elephant mammoth hybrid that looks just like the ones that used to roam the planet. This animal will look like, walk like, and even [music] sound like a woolly mammoth. But most importantly, it'll be able to live in the same ecosystem that the mammoth left behind. If the scientists succeed in bringing back enough of [music] these creatures, one of their big goals is to help restore the Arctic tundra [music] ecosystem.

[00:02:20]But how do they actually plan to create the mammoth? Here's their plan. First, they [music] need to find wellpreserved samples of woolly mammoths in places like Alaska, for example. Then, they'll need to sequence [music] the mammoth's genome and the genome of its closest relative, the Asian elephant.

[00:02:38]The next step is to identify the important genes that made the woolly mammoth perfectly adapted to cold temperatures like its shaggy hair, curved tusks, [music] and dome-shaped cranium. In other words, they need to identify which genes make the mammoth well, the mammoth.

[00:02:56]Now comes the interesting part. They will use top-notch gene [music] editing tools, kind of like scissors, to cut the Asian elephant DNA and replace those [music] spots with the mammoth sequence.

[00:03:09]This will allow them to create a [music] new cell line and later an embryo.

[00:03:14]This embryo will grow inside a healthy female [music] Asian elephant who will be the surrogate. And just like that, a new cold adapted elephant will be born.

[00:03:24]Or at least that's what scientists hope.

[00:03:28]Specialists predict that this mammoth 2.0 could be on Earth as early as 2028.

[00:03:35]The reason it will take a while is that their gestation [music] period is around 22 months. But if that deadline feels too far for you, [music] there is actually a chance we could get a surprise a lot sooner. That's because some of the other animals they plan to revive have a much shorter gestation period, like Australia's thyloine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger. The company is [music] also doing whatever it takes to give this animal a second shot at life. And the good news is that the process seems to be well advanced.

[00:04:08]Recently, the group announced that the Tasmanian tiger's genome is about 99% complete. This animal was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. A big part of the Tasmanian tiger population disappeared [music] over 3,000 years ago, but about 5,000 of them kept roaming around until pretty recently.

[00:04:31]It's believed that the last thyloine passed away in 1936.

[00:04:37]To revive the Tasmanian tiger, scientists first need a sample of the ancient animal. So, they took RNA molecules from a 110-year-old preserved head that had been kept in ethanol.

[00:04:50][music] The team was really lucky because it's rare to find old samples that are so well preserved, [music] allowing scientists to use advanced DNA analysis techniques. And by that I mean they did a full complete analysis.

[00:05:05]By studying RNA samples [music] from important tissue areas like the tongue, nasal cavity, brain, and eyes, experts were able to learn a bunch of interesting things about the Tasmanian tiger.

[00:05:18]They could figure out how its [music] brain worked and also what this beast could smell, see, and taste.

[00:05:26]By the way, these semi- nocturnal animals had a special appetite for small rodents, lizards, and birds. After finding the perfect sample, the process of reviving it will be pretty much the same as with the mammoth, but with an elephant as a DNA donor, of course.

[00:05:43]In the case of the Tasmanian tiger, [music] its closest living relative is a small marsupial called the fattailed dunard.

[00:05:50]Even though this animal is small, it is [music] a ferocious carnivore. So experts believe the whole DNA editing process will [music] work just fine with its sequence. Their goal is to turn a fat tail done cell into a thyloine cell.

[00:06:06]To accomplish that, they did more than 300 unique [music] genetic changes into a Dunard cell. So there is no doubt they're pushing all the boundaries [music] to make the dream of reviving animals a reality.

[00:06:21]This project also plans to revive the iconic dodo. You know that funnyl looking bird from the paradisia island of Maitius in the Indian Ocean. And here [music] things get a little trickier since we don't know much about this creature which has origins that go back about 23 million years.

[00:06:40]Basically, the only clues we have about what dos looked like when they were alive come from a handful of [music] drawings, paintings, and written descriptions from the 17th century. But since those pictures are all pretty different from each other, and only a few of them were based on real live dodos, we're still not 100% sure what they actually looked like. And as for how they behaved, well, we don't know much about that either.

[00:07:08]That's why reviving this long absent legend will be super interesting and really enlightening. The sample they used to extract an old dodo genome came from a skull in the collection of the natural history museum of Denmark. And the dodo's closest living relative which [music] will provide the host cells is the nicobar pigeon, a gray bird with colorful features found in the Andaman and Nicobar [music] islands in India.

[00:07:34]If everything goes smoothly, in a couple of years, we might see the fabulous and iconic [music] Dodo with our own eyes.

[00:07:44]Reviving animals [music] might sound impossible, but science and technology together can be a real gamecher, not only by protecting today's animals, but also by restoring species that disappeared from the planet long ago.

[00:07:59]Actually, [music] we've already pulled this off. A wild goat called the bukardo, also known [music] as the Perennian ibeck, went extinct in the year 2000. But 3 years later, scientists managed to bring it back to life using a method pretty similar to what [music] we've talked about in this video. It took 57 tries, but one of them finally worked and a Bicardo clone was born.

[00:08:24]Unfortunately, the animal only lived for [music] 10 minutes. You might think that wasn't a success, but it was actually a huge step forward in the whole animal revival field. Now, specialists can only hope the project to bring back the dodo, the mammoth, and the Tasmanian tiger go a bit better.

[00:08:50]It's a [music] perfect summer day.

[00:08:51]You're relaxing on the beach, dipping your toes into the cool water, when suddenly, bam, a 56- ft aquatic nightmare rockets from the waves. It's the size of two London double-decker [music] buses, sporting about 60 razor sharp teeth, including bonus chompers on the roof of its mouth, because why not?

[00:09:12]This aquatic beast isn't picky about its diet either. Sharks, turtles, other sea monsters. Yep, they're all on the menu.

[00:09:21]Meet the Mosasaur, [music] a group of marine reptiles that ruled the oceans millions of years ago. If you've seen Jurassic World, you'll recognize them as the stars of that epic moment when a massive creature leaps out of the water to snatch a great white shark like it's sushi.

[00:09:38]That's a mosasaurus, and it's every bit as terrifying as it sounds.

[00:09:43]Recently, scientists stumbled upon a fossil of one of those marine monsters in, of all places, Mississippi. Yes, Mississippi, the land of magnolia and catfish. Turns out it's also home to ancient sea dragons. This discovery was a happy accident. A team of geologists was mapping the terrain in east central Mississippi when they noticed something strange poking out of the ground. It wasn't a rock or a sea shell. It was a vertebra and a massive one. In fact, it was so large it barely fit in the hand of the scientist who found it.

[00:10:21]The fossil likely belonged to the largest known species of mosasaur, the mosasaurus hoffmani.

[00:10:27]Now, the biggest mosasaur ever found [music] clocked in at a staggering 56 ft long. This new specimen hit a solid 30 ft at least. And while it might not break the [music] world record, it certainly makes the crown for the biggest mosasaur ever discovered in Mississippi.

[00:10:45]Fun fact, that's still longer than the average RV and with way [music] worse gas mileage. To be fair, the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science already had a couple of Mosasaur fossils in its collection. But this newcomer might just steal the spotlight.

[00:11:02]And this isn't an isolated incident. In 2015, paleontologists unearthed the skull of a 24 foot long mosasaur in North Dakota.

[00:11:12]Years later, a private fossil hunter, yes, that's [music] a thing, found an equally huge mosasaur in Texas. Well, [music] its jaw at least. These sea monsters, also known as sea dragons, by [music] the way, actually have one of the wildest origin stories in paleontology.

[00:11:29]The very first skull was found way back in 1764 in [music] a chalk quarry in the Netherlands. And at the time, scientists thought it was a whale.

[00:11:40]Then came a second skull, which was so impressive that French revolutionaries literally looted it during the siege in 1794.

[00:11:48]Legend [music] has it they swapped it for 600 bottles of wine. Doesn't sound like a fair trade to me.

[00:11:55]That fossil actually helped pioneer the concept of extinction [music] and got paleontologists buzzing for centuries.

[00:12:02]Since then, Mosasaur fossils have popped up all over the world. Like ancient scaly celebrities leaving their mark.

[00:12:10]From the Mississippi backwoods to the deserts of Morocco, from New Jersey to Belgium, scientists have uncovered everything from teeth to full skulls.

[00:12:19]Sometimes even misplacing them in museum drawers for centuries.

[00:12:24]So, what exactly were these terrifying titans of the deep? Well, let's just say if ancient oceans had a most likely to eat everything in sight award, the mosasaur would win it. Picture a gigantic, scaly torpedo with a mouthful [music] of about 60 razor sharp teeth, including some growing on the roof of its mouth [music] like dental overkill.

[00:12:46]It had a long, muscular tail for propulsion and four [music] paddle-like limbs that worked like turbocharged oars, letting it cruise through warm, shallow seas like a reptilian speedboat.

[00:12:57]Scientists believe they were close relatives of modern monitor lizards and snakes, which honestly just makes both of those animals way more terrifying.

[00:13:07]Some mossaurs even might have had adaptations for sensing vibrations [music] in the water, allowing them to detect movement from a distance, similar to how sharks use electro reception today.

[00:13:20]Their eyes were [music] welldeveloped, too, giving them sharp vision in the dim ocean depths, a key advantage when hunting fast [music] or elusive prey.

[00:13:30]But what really makes moasaurs the stuff [music] of prehistoric nightmares is their attitude. They were apex predators [music] and they knew it. Those sea monsters weren't picky eaters. Fish, turtles, birds, sharks, other mosasaurs.

[00:13:45]Basically, anything that moved was dinner. Fossilized mosasaur stomach contents [music] prove they practiced family dinner in the most metal way possible. If they were around today, your beach day would be a lot more exciting and probably shorter.

[00:14:02]These guys were so intense they dominated the whole world. It's safe to say mosasaurus were the undisputed rulers of the late Cretaceous oceans.

[00:14:12]And like today's orcas or great white sharks, they probably used ambush tactics, sneaking up on prey [music] from below before striking with explosive force.

[00:14:24]Bite marks found [music] on the fossilized bones of turtles and even other mosasaurs suggest intense underwater battles worthy of a blockbuster movie.

[00:14:35]But how did one end up in Mississippi of all places? Well, rewind the clock about 80 million years and you'll find part of North America underwater. A vast shallow sea known as the Western Interior Seaway split the continent in two. Running from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean.

[00:14:55]It was warm, teeming with life, and yes, crawling with sea monsters. This prehistoric seaway was a watery wonderland.

[00:15:05]Imagine long necked plesiosaurs gliding through the water, birds with teeth diving for fish, and oysters the size of car tires clinging to reeflike structures.

[00:15:16]Even giant fish like this weird guy over here called it home.

[00:15:21]This ancient inland sea stretched over 600 m wide in some places, but it was no more than a few hundred ft deep, making it ideal territory for predators like measaurs to thrive. The shallow depth also meant that their prey had few places to hide, turning the seaway into a prehistoric buffet.

[00:15:41]But the western interior seaway wasn't a permanent [music] fixture. As the Rocky Mountains rose, the seaway slowly disappeared. Over millions of years, it transformed from a shallow ocean to swamps and then to dry land. Today, what was once an [music] ocean is now the Midwest, complete with cornfields, cows, and the occasion mosasaur vertebra hiding in the dirt. Now, this wasn't exactly the end of the mosasaurs.

[00:16:09]Sadly, even these monsters couldn't outswim extinction.

[00:16:13]Those massive sea beasts [music] met their watery grave around 66 million years ago when Earth got an unwelcome visitor, a 10m wide asteroid.

[00:16:23]When that space rock slammed into what is now Mexico's Yucatan [music] Peninsula, it unleashed destruction on a planetary scale. The impacts triggered massive tsunamis, set forests ablaze, and shot so much debris into the atmosphere that sunlight was [music] blocked out for months, maybe even years.

[00:16:43]This impact [music] winter plunged Earth into a deep freeze. With sunlight gone, plants couldn't photosynthesize and the food chain [music] collapsed like a house of cards. On land, planteaters starved and predators like T-Rex [music] soon followed. About 75% of all species on Earth disappeared. But don't think the oceans were a safe retreat. [music] The seas were hit just as hard, if not worse. First came the mega tsunami that devastated marine life along coastlines.

[00:17:13]Then the real villain arrived. You see, [music] without sunlight, phytolanton, those tiny microscopic plants that serve as the foundation of the marine food web, perished.

[00:17:26]With them went zoo plankton, small fish [music] and filter feeders. And when the buffet dried up, the big predators like the mosasaurs went hungry. No food, no future. With plunging temperatures and ocean [music] acidification, even the ocean's top predators couldn't survive.

[00:17:44]Mosasaurs along with plesiosaurs and ammonites were wiped out in the blink of a geological eye. So ended the reign of sea monsters. The good news is that you can now swim at peace knowing that no sea dragon will ever come at you. I [music] mean, it's a bummer that they went extinct, but let's be honest, beach days are way more relaxing without 56 ft lizards crashing the party.

[00:18:11]Now, [music] if Earth's history were a movie, we humans would only take up the last second of the end credits. Our planet has been around for about 4.6 >> [music] >> 6 billion years. But our human story began about 300,000 years ago in Africa.

[00:18:27]Now, our ancestors had some wild adventures in nature. They could have run into creatures so big they'd make today's elephants look like puppies. The woolly mammoth is a pretty famous animal. Sure. His cousin though, the Colombian mammoth, not so much. This giant used to roam places from Canada all the way down to Mexico. Unlike the furrier woolly mammoths which hung out in colder places, these animals had shorter hair resembling huge elephants, they also had incredibly large tusks, like 12 ft worth of spiraling, sturdy tusks. And they weren't just for show.

[00:19:03]They came in handy when facing predators. That includes our ancestors.

[00:19:08]If you think about sloths these days, you're picturing these adorably slow creatures. They couldn't possibly be in your list of most dangerous animals.

[00:19:18]Well, their grandparents might have. For starters, we [music] call them ground sloths, and they vary a lot in size.

[00:19:25]Some were as big as rhinos, [music] and others, like the mgthetherium, were as colossal as elephants. Imagine seeing a 20ft long sloth, which doesn't mind chewing on some meat every now and then.

[00:19:37]At least in theory.

[00:19:40]Ever heard of Bigfoot? [music] Well, our next animal kind of looks like him, but is a distant cousin to orangutans. Meet Gigantoopythecus, the largest primite to ever call our planet its home. Standing tall at 10 ft and weighing more than 600 lb, these animals were amazing to look at in real life. Unlike Bigfoot, they weren't constantly hiding. In fact, it's believed they were peaceful and gentle creatures. Sadly, they faded away about 100,000 years ago, mainly because their food sources [music] slowly became unavailable. Those lush, fruity forests they called home eventually turned into dry grasslands.

[00:20:20]Next on our list is the cave hyena.

[00:20:23]Weighing a chunky 250 lb and standing 3 ft tall, these beasts were as long as a grown-up lying down. What's even more interesting about these creatures is that they love hanging out in groups. A pack could be as big as 30 of these animals, which meant they could easily take on even the biggest, heaviest mastadons. Our ancient families would have needed to stay alert around these hungry specimens. Sadly for these hyenas, about 20,000 years ago, their numbers started going down. Soon enough, they completely disappeared from the planet. Quick pop quiz. What's called a tiger, but isn't really one? It's the saber-tooth tiger. I mean, sure, they belong to the feline family, but they aren't technically tigers. First appearing around 42 million years ago in July, I think many of their kind were gone before we even showed up. However, early Americans might have bumped into a couple of specimens from this group. If that really happened, it would [music] have been quite the encounter. Think of the biggest wild lion today or the hefty Siberian tiger. These big cats also had some incredible features hidden in their fur. They were good at sneaking around, hiding, and pouncing on mammoths bigger than themselves. Their bite wasn't that strong, but they could open their jaws wide, like twice as much as a lion. And although their teeth were a bit on the weak side, they had buff forearms [music] to pin down their dinner, giving those big fangs a purpose. Not the kind of kitty you'd want to play with.

[00:21:59]Dire wolves made their debut about 250,000 years ago. They were like the greywolves we know today, but a lot stronger. While wolves these days stretch out to about 6 ft and tip the scales of 170 lb max, dire wolves were about [music] 5 ft and about 150 lb.

[00:22:19]Found all over North and South America, they had admirable jaws, biting nearly a third harder than their modern counterparts. Also, their favorite snack was horses. But just like many other majestic beasts of the past, they faded away around 10,000 years ago.

[00:22:37]Now, names can be deceiving. Take the American lion for example. It's not really a lion. It's more of a panther's big cousin. The other part of the name is correct, though. They did live in America about 330,000 years ago. This feline was no lap cat either. They were at the top of the wildcat pyramid, weighing a colossal 772 lbs. That's like stacking four grown men on a scale. Even the mighty African lion would look a tad bit shy beside these beasts. With the muscle to take down a bison, you wouldn't want to accidentally interrupt their dinner. They parted ways with this planet around 11,000 years ago, right after the last ice age. Now, down in Australia about 50,000 years ago, I wasn't around then, [music] there lurked a relative of the Komodo dragon, the Megalania. Experts love to have debates on how big it [music] was. Some say it stretched out to 23 ft. Others think it was just about 11 ft long. Either way, they were basically megasized Komodo dragons with a dangerous bite. If you think bears are already big and fluffy now, let's introduce the short-faced bear. While this big creature stood on its hind legs, it towered at [music] 14 ft. With long limbs, they could outrun today's bears, hitting speeds up to 40 mph. These ultra bears sadly disappeared around 11,600 years [music] ago.

[00:24:09]Now, imagine a crocodile. Okay, imagine that same crocodile, only superersized with sporty legs doing [music] its thing in Australia about 1.6 million years ago. Well, say hello to the Quincana.

[00:24:23]These crocs were extremely large, reaching 23 ft. And no, they weren't lazy river loungers. [music] These creatures really love spending time on land. They evolved to have strong legs for their chases and razor sharp teeth designed for slicing, not gripping. When did we stop sharing beaches with them?

[00:24:42]About 40,000 years ago. The name elephant bird might not sound familiar, but try to picture a bird that stood tall as high as a basketball hoop at 10 ft and weighed as much as a small car, 1,500 lb. Their eggs were equally huge, like 150 chicken [music] eggs bundled up into one. Now, as amazing as these birds sound, there's a lot we still don't know about them. They're hard to study [music] as most extinct animals are.

[00:25:11]Still, some recent studies have given us some clues. Scientists [music] have been examining ancient molecules from their fossilized eggshells. It's an awesome piece of evidence since these birdie shells were thick, preserving precious DNA inside. Plus, there are tons of these eggshell fragments sprinkled all over Madagascar's beaches. Because of these findings, we now know these birds were herbivores and loved eating leaves and seeds. We also know the tiny kiwi bird is its closest living relative.

[00:25:43]Now, dodos were these amazing birds we also used to share the planet with.

[00:25:48]They're like distant cousins to pigeons.

[00:25:51]To give you some perspective, imagine a chunky bird weighing about 50 lb.

[00:25:56]Similar to chickens, turkeys, and ostriches, dodos were also the types of birds that couldn't fly. Their wings were small, and they had the muscle strength of, well, a wet [music] noodle.

[00:26:08]Now, you might have heard the word dodo used as a name for creatures that aren't that bright. Don't get confused, though, by this name. These birds were, in fact, intelligent. Scientists were able to figure that out by studying their fossils. It turns out that they were good at smelling stuff. Unlike most birds that are all about the visuals, these creatures aren't around for us to study anymore, but that might change.

[00:26:33]One evolutionary biologist is on a mission to fully understand [music] these amazing ancient birds. On that note, she revealed that the [music] dodo's DNA has been completely sequenced. There are even talks about potentially bringing dodos back to life.

[00:26:48]They would make a nice addition to the lovely beaches of Mauritius, the place they used to call home many, many years ago.

[00:27:00]In the near future, humans extract ancient DNA from a long extinct creature. They patch up the missing pieces with genes from a modern-day animal. Then, in a high- techch lab, they bring the species back to life.

[00:27:14]Sounds familiar? Well, yes. That's actually the plot of the original Jurassic Park. But the thing [music] is, we're now living in the timeline where researchers are doing exactly that.

[00:27:28]Although this time, the star of the show isn't [music] a raptor or a T-Rex.

[00:27:33]Believe it or not, scientists at Colossal Biosciences want to bring back the giant moa. [music] Think of it as an ostrich, only twice as tall and way bulkier. It was a massive flightless bird that went extinct [music] almost 600 years ago. The moa once roamed the forests of New Zealand, towering [music] up to 12 ft tall with its neck stretched. This makes it the tallest bird to ever walk [music] the planet. It weighed almost 500 lb. But funny enough, that doesn't make it the heaviest bird that [music] ever lived.

[00:28:06]That crown goes to Madagascar's elephant bird. But still, [music] 500 lb of bird is not something you want running at you in the woods.

[00:28:16]The giant moa didn't have [music] wings or a beak built for battle, but it didn't need them. For thousands of years, it lived in peace [music] because it had no natural predators. Literally being the top bird. Well, almost. The only thing that could take down a moa was the host eagle. A giant bird [music] of prey with a 10-ft wingspan and claws like steak knives. That was the balance of nature until people arrived.

[00:28:45]Around the 13th century, [music] the Mauy settled in New Zealand. And as humans do, they adapted quickly. The moa, [music] big and slow as it was, became a crucial and probably delicious food source. Within just a few generations, the moa was gone. [music] And not long after, so was the host eagle. No more moa meant no more meals.

[00:29:09]It's just how nature and survival work.

[00:29:12]The Mauy [music] were skilled hunters making a life in a new land. But their arrival marked a turning point in New Zealand's ecosystem, [music] one we're still talking about today. The moa wasn't just big, [music] it played a huge part in keeping forest healthy.

[00:29:28]Now, 600 years later, scientists [music] want to recreate it using cuttingedge technology and ancient clues.

[00:29:37]But why go through all [music] this effort to resurrect a bird that's been gone so long? Well, according to Colossal [music] Biosciences, the same company behind those geneedited direwolf cubs [music] that we talked about before, it's not just about the wow factor. They say moas help shape the landscape [music] itself.

[00:29:57]In New Zealand, moas helped control vegetation and spread native plant seeds. They kept [music] forests from becoming overgrown and unbalanced.

[00:30:05]Without them, some plants lost their main seed carriers and invasive shrubs [music] started to take over areas once kept in check. So, the idea is if we can't rewind the clock, maybe we can reboot the system. Introduce an animal that fills the same job that can help restore what's missing.

[00:30:25]Okay, but how do you bring back an extinct species? [music] And is that even possible? Well, sort of, but not in the sci-fi clone a complete dinosaur way like in a movie.

[00:30:37]The original MOA has been gone for centuries, and its DNA is damaged, degraded, and full of holes. So, instead of making a perfect [music] copy, researchers are going to remix, so to speak. They'll take whatever usable MOA DNA they can find and patch the gaps using genes from its living relative, probably the emu.

[00:31:00]With a tool called Crisper, which is like a Photoshop for genomes, they'll stitch it all together, tweak the embryo, [music] and grow it in a lab. If all goes well, the result will be something that looks, [music] walks, and stomps like a moa, but not exactly a genetic twin. It won't be a clone [music] and it definitely won't be 100% authentic. However, Colossal Biosciences says that's fine.

[00:31:26]If it behaves like a MOA and fills the same job in the ecosystem, that's mission accomplished. So, no, we're not recreating the past. Not literally.

[00:31:36]We're building something new that plays the same role. But here is where it gets interesting. Colossal Biosciences seems to be just getting [music] started.

[00:31:46]They've got an entire extinction comeback roadmap in place. In addition to the giant moa, the company is also working on reviving the woolly mammoth, the dodo, [music] and the thyloine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger. Each one vanished under different circumstances, but the goal is the same. [music] To create a modern version that can fill the ecological gaps those animals left behind. Woolly mammoths were ice age elephants. They were befriending ground sloths and shaking the Arctic ground with each step, [music] knocking down trees and flattening snow. During the ice age, this region wasn't the frozen wasteland we know today. It was called the Mammoth Step, a dry, windy grassland stretching from Spain to Siberia to Alaska. Filled with cold, hardy grasses and [music] scattered shrubs, mammoths helped keep it that way. However, some scientists think that their disappearance [music] may have turned open ecosystems into soggy carbon trapping wetlands. So now [music] the idea is to mix mammoth DNA with Asian elephants to create a fuzzy coldloving hybrid that could help the Arctic stay grassy instead of swampy.

[00:32:59]Maybe even help slow down climate change by keeping the perafrost frozen a little longer. The dodo bird is probably the most famous extinct animal in history.

[00:33:10]It lived on the island of Maitius, where it ate fruit and helped spread seeds across the forest. After European sailors arrived, the number of dodos slowly dwindled. It disappeared in the late 1600s, [music] less than a century after it was first discovered, and some scientists believe that its absence had lasting effects on the island's ecosystem. [music] One example would be the Tamba Lok tree, also known as the dodo tree, which might have depended on the dodo to help its seeds sprout. The theory has been debated, but it's safe to say that the dodo had a part in keeping [music] the island's plant life balanced. Now, Colossal is aiming to reintroduce a bird that's [music] similar to the Dodo, hoping it can help those forests regrow as well. And then there's the thyloine, my favorite. It's part wolf, part kangaroo with tiger-like stripes.

[00:34:04][music] Despite these strange features, it was a top predator and helped control prey populations in its habitat. [music] But after being blamed for attacks on livestock, it was hunted to extinction.

[00:34:16]Researchers believe a new thyloine could rebalance nature where things have gone out of hand. So yeah, the MOA might be the headline this time, [music] but it's just one project on a much longer to-do list. However, this is where the big debate begins because not everyone's on board with this whole bring back a beast plan. While scientists dream of second chances, plenty of people still have big questions. [music] For example, are we actually helping the environment or just poking it with our really expensive science stick? These new animals aren't exact copies. They're mashups. [music] Close enough, maybe, but not the originals. Also, ecosystems aren't machines where we can just swap out a part and expect them to work the same.

[00:35:05]There's also the wildcard factor.

[00:35:07][music] A labmade moa might not act like the ancient one. It could munch the wrong plants or throw off the balance [music] by out competing something that wasn't even around the last time it existed. Some experts [music] worry that tossing new species into today's ecosystem could backfire. After all, the world they're coming back to, it's different. and in some cases their old homes don't even exist anymore. There's also a deeper concern. The message this sends about extinction. If people believe we can just bring things back, will they take conservation any less seriously? Will protecting endangered species feel less urgent if extinction stops being permanent? So, while the science behind all this is undeniably impressive, the ethical questions aren't going away. Should we be reviving species or should we be doing more to protect the ones that are still here? If both options are true, how do we do so successfully?

[00:36:07]Whether it's mammoths, moas, or dodos, [music] one thing's clear. We're not just studying nature anymore. We have the power to rewrite it. And like Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility. [music] Let me know what you think. And as always, stay on the bright side.