June 18, 2025 • 11 mins
This recap episode centers on ancient DNA and its implications for de-extinction and conservation with Dr. Beth Shapiro, Chief Science Officer at Colossal, explaining her work in paleogenomics. The conversation explores the process of extracting ancient DNA from various sources, the challenges and breakthroughs in genome sequencing of extinct hominins like Neanderthals and Denisovans, and the controversial yet groundbreaking efforts at Colossal to bring back species such as direwolves and potentially woolly mammoths. Ethical considerations surrounding human intervention in nature, the potential benefits and risks of genetic engineering for conservation and human health, and the societal implications of de-extinction are also examined, alongside anecdotes from scientific expeditions and historical examples of human impact on ecosystems.
---
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap, and before we get going, you can
now access the full Google Notebook with a mind map,
timeline and briefing document by clicking the link in the
description. Today, we're diving into a
really fascinating conversation from a recent Joe Rogan
interview with a leading scientist in ancient DNA.
Our mission here is to unpack some truly groundbreaking
(00:21):
discoveries in paleogenomics. You know, explore the complex
ethics of de extinction and uncover some surprising insights
into animal behavior, human history, and, well, our
relationship with the natural world.
Yeah, it's quite a journey. We're looking at the work of
someone who's really a modern day explorer in ancient DNA.
She's the chief scientist officer at Colossal, which is,
(00:41):
you know, right at the forefrontof this de extinction work.
What's really striking is how itblends this cutting edge science
with these really bold, sometimes frankly controversial
projects. And you'll see that blend woven
through our discussion today. It raises some big questions.
OK, so let's unpack that. The core of this work is ancient
DNA, or paleogenomics. Basically, scientists go out,
(01:04):
they dig up old stuff, bones, teeth, whatever, from thousands,
maybe millions of years ago, andpull DNA out of it.
And this field, it just keeps like rewriting what we thought
we knew. It's constantly overturning old
ideas. It really is.
And, you know, one interesting angle is the personal
motivation. There's this palpable
frustration with academia sometimes the scarcity mindset,
(01:28):
the gatekeeping. You can really slow things down,
stifle innovation. Yeah, I can imagine.
So moving from that world to a private venture like Colossal,
it's partly about defending scientific integrity, pushing
boundaries even if it challengesthe old ways, making sure the
science moves forward. And the actual field work sounds
absolutely wild, like something out of an adventure story.
There's this story about lookingfor mammoth bones on the ick pic
(01:50):
Puck River in northern Alaska. Imagine being out there, the
winds howling for days, keeping the mosquitoes away, and you
start thinking people exaggerate.
Then the wind stops and bam, theair is just thick with them.
Super aggressive right? Apparently they saw a moose just
plunging into freezing water every few steps to escape.
These aren't normal mosquitoes. No, they're adapted.
(02:12):
They can reproduce without blood, but they do way better
with it so. They're relentless.
Makes Texas mosquitoes seem kindof tame.
Definitely. And Speaking of harrowing field
work, there's another story about a Russian helicopter trip
in Siberia and MI 8 from Hatanga.
Oh boy. Pictures sitting on the gas
tanks, missing windows, and the thing barely gets off the
(02:33):
ground. The expedition dog Pasha
apparently refused to get in. Smart dog.
They called him the smartest person in our expedition.
Wow, that's that's intense. It really highlights the risks
they take and it makes you think, doesn't it, about past
humans in those environments? How did they cope?
You hear about reindeer domestication not just for meat
but as like a a storage mechanism for nutrition, a
(02:55):
walking pantry. A living larger.
It's incredible, the ingenuity of the first people figuring out
how to herd and milk them in those conditions.
Amazing resourcefulness. Absolutely.
It completely challenges the idea that these were just
desolate lambs. These people had sophisticated
ecological knowledge, real engineers of survival.
(03:15):
And beyond the field work, ancient DNA is just rewriting
huge chunks of human history, like the Amazon we used to
think. Untouched rainforest, maybe
small tribes. Right.
The pristine myth. But now evidence of
sophisticated grids, millions ofpeople, huge settlements, all
wiped out probably by European diseases, and the jungle just
(03:36):
swallowed it all up. Yeah, Lidar imaging combined
with the DNA tells an incrediblestory.
You only see faint traces from the air now.
You see hints of that even flying over Europe, old field
patterns and things. And this connects to that common
misconception about Jurassic Park.
People think the movie started the field.
Right, like science fiction camefirst.
But it's the other way around. Michael Creighton was inspired
by real work already happening, like Alan Wilson's group at
(03:59):
Berkeley. They got ancient DNA from a
quagga, an extinct zebra, back in 84.
Wow, OK. The early claims about dinosaur
DNA turned out to be contamination.
Modern DNA getting in. Which brings us to how careful
they have to be. These labs sound intense, like
virus labs pushing air out, fullsuits, constant bleaching.
Exactly. It's not the ancient stuff
(04:21):
that's dangerous. It's us, our DNA.
A single skin cell, a breath canruin everything.
Precisely. And that's where PCR, the
plumber's chain reaction, was such a game changer.
It lets you amplify tiny, tiny DNA fragments.
And the bat, well, the crowning achievement was sequencing whole
Neanderthal genomes. My husband was actually involved
(04:42):
in that effort with this Fante Paibos team, who won the Nobel
for it. I'm incredible getting the whole
blueprint. And then Denisovans, a whole new
type of ancient human found fromjust a tiny finger bone,
completely redrew the family tree.
Just amazing. And now there's Giuliani or the
big head people from China. 300,000 to 50,000 years ago
suggests even more interbreeding, more complexity.
But. Then you still have mysteries
(05:02):
like The Hobbit, people on Flores Island, Homo
floresiensis. All right, the DNA there is just
too degraded. Hot, humid climates are terrible
for preservation. It makes you think about island
evolution, right? Dwarfism.
Gigantism. Like the mini elephants on
Flores, but also the giant Komodo Dragons.
Terrifying creatures. Yeah, remember that bizarre
(05:23):
story about Sharon Stone's ex-husband at the zoo?
Vaguely like somebody about shoes.
Yeah, they told him to take off his white tennis shoes, worried
the Dragons would think they were rats or something.
But then his barefoot looked tasty and bam got.
Bitten. Oh my goodness.
Yeah, that's memorable. Shows you can't predict
everything. Exactly.
And, it reminds me, we also touched on other animal quirks,
(05:45):
like giraffes apparently considered sort of dumb in
captivity. Really.
Yeah, but in the wild, incredibly ecologically
intelligent, perfectly adapted are definitions of smart or just
so human centric, you know, that's.
A great point which leads us perfectly into Colossal's work.
I actually got to see their direwolves, Romulus, Remus and
Klezy. Yeah, it was extraordinary.
(06:05):
They look different, bigger, more muscular and this unique
light coat. Seeing Klezy's birth, it was
just genuine wonder, seeing something extinct brought back.
It must have been powerful, and it absolutely forces you to
confront the ethical side, doesn't it?
Like, are we playing God here? Are humans really the ones to
decide who lives and dies? There's a potential arrogance
(06:26):
there. A huge question, and it ties
right into the whole invasive species nightmare.
I mean, look at Florida, half a million Burmese pythons wiping
out 90% of the mammals in the Everglades total disaster.
Or Hawaii introducing rosy wolf snails to eat other invasive
snails, but they just ate all the native ones instead.
Catastrophe. Right.
Good intentions, terrible outcomes.
(06:47):
Even had people seriously suggesting bringing honey
Badgers to Florida or that crazyearly 20th century idea of
hippos in the US for lake cow bacon.
It's almost comical the mistakeswe've made.
And that history is exactly why caution is paramount.
But it's also why these new technologies are potentially so
valuable if used right. Colossal's work isn't just about
(07:09):
bringing things back for novelty.
It's tied to conservation. Think genetic rescue.
OK. I like with the Florida
Panthers. Exactly, they were critically
inbred down to maybe 30 animals,bringing in a few Texas
Panthers. Save them by boosting genetic
diversity. Colossal hopes to use similar
techniques refined through the direwolf work for things like
(07:30):
the Red Wolf Project, using DNA editing to make endangered
species more resilient. But it's.
Still complicated. Look at the wolf reintroduction
in Colorado. Very contentious.
Yeah, ballot box biology City folks voting for wolves that
ranchers have to live with, and they brought in wolves known to
prey on cattle from Oregon. Seems like asking for trouble.
It's. A classic conflict.
(07:51):
Yellowstone was different, more of a success story for that
specific ecosystem. But you can't just copy and
paste these things. Absolutely not, which is why
Colossal is being so careful with the direwolves.
They aren't being released into the wild, they're on a secure,
monitored preserve. Cameras everywhere.
Hormonal contraception, Constantstudy.
So no rogue direwolves running around.
(08:13):
Definitely not. And for the critics saying they
aren't real direwolves, well, they're engineered using ancient
genomes from 72,000 to 13,000 years ago.
The goal is to replicate key traits like that light coat
color that came directly from the ancient DNA.
Nobody expected that from just bones.
It's about creating an ecological proxy based on the
(08:33):
best data we have. So what else is on the list
besides Dire Wolves? Well, the ones they've announced
are the woolly mammoth, the Thylacine, Tasmanian tiger and
the dodo. But they have DNA data for lots
more. American cheetah, the huge short
faced bear, 12 feet tall. Longhorn bison, Irish elk, North
American camels, even a giant 5 foot Beaver.
(08:54):
Imagine that. A library of lost life.
It really messes with your timeline of extinction, doesn't
it? Mammoths living just 4000 years
ago on an island, right? Much later than we used to
think. And maybe horses surviving in
North America longer than presumed.
Like Native American traditions always said, environmental DNA
is finding traces. It really highlights how much we
don't know. Requires real humility.
(09:15):
The fossil record is so sparse. Think about Gigantopithecus the
giant ape, the Bigfoot ancestor mostly known from teeth found in
Chinese apothecary shops sold asdragon bones.
Or those strange Peruvian alien mummies with three fingers and
toes. Ancient DNA might tell us what
they really were. So much mystery still.
(09:36):
And this all inevitably circles back to the ethics of human gene
editing, too. You have the Hijiang Kui case in
China. Editing babies for HIV
resistance. Huge controversy.
Germline editing very different.Right, different from
therapeutic somatic editing likebaby KJ being cured of a
metabolic disease that feels more like medicine, but the
lines get blurry. They do and engineering complex
(09:57):
traits like smartness. What does that even mean?
Intelligence isn't one thing andevolution isn't a straight line.
And the playing God argument? Well, humans have been shaping
life for millennia through domestication, farming, even
conservation choices. Deciding not to use powerful new
tools also has ethical weight, especially with extinction rates
soaring. What if we can save a species or
(10:19):
cure disease and choose not to? Could AI help maybe analyze the
consequences of rewilding without our human biases and
financial motives getting in theway?
That's a fascinating thought. The hope is certainly to use
these tools responsibly for realconservation challenges.
Making Hawaiian honey creepers resistant to avian malaria or
corals resistant to bleaching. Building a future that's
(10:40):
biodiverse and includes thrivinghuman populations.
Coexistence and repair. So for you listening, it leaves
us with some big questions, right?
Given how little we know about the past and how powerful these
new tools are, what are our responsibilities?
And thinking ahead, could genetic interventions become so
common that regular children become novel?
Or could a future crisis make today's unethical choices seem
(11:03):
necessary? Lots to ponder.
Yeah. How?
Does this all change your definition of life?
Of extinction? What does it mean to be human as
we gain this level of control over biology?
That conversation is just getting started.
Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap, and before we get going, you can
now access the full Google Notebook with a mind map,
timeline and briefing document by clicking the link in the
description. Today, we're diving into a
really fascinating conversation from a recent Joe Rogan
interview with a leading scientist in ancient DNA.
Our mission here is to unpack some truly groundbreaking
(00:21):
discoveries in paleogenomics. You know, explore the complex
ethics of de extinction and uncover some surprising insights
into animal behavior, human history, and, well, our
relationship with the natural world.
Yeah, it's quite a journey. We're looking at the work of
someone who's really a modern day explorer in ancient DNA.
She's the chief scientist officer at Colossal, which is,
(00:41):
you know, right at the forefrontof this de extinction work.
What's really striking is how itblends this cutting edge science
with these really bold, sometimes frankly controversial
projects. And you'll see that blend woven
through our discussion today. It raises some big questions.
OK, so let's unpack that. The core of this work is ancient
DNA, or paleogenomics. Basically, scientists go out,
(01:04):
they dig up old stuff, bones, teeth, whatever, from thousands,
maybe millions of years ago, andpull DNA out of it.
And this field, it just keeps like rewriting what we thought
we knew. It's constantly overturning old
ideas. It really is.
And, you know, one interesting angle is the personal
motivation. There's this palpable
frustration with academia sometimes the scarcity mindset,
(01:28):
the gatekeeping. You can really slow things down,
stifle innovation. Yeah, I can imagine.
So moving from that world to a private venture like Colossal,
it's partly about defending scientific integrity, pushing
boundaries even if it challengesthe old ways, making sure the
science moves forward. And the actual field work sounds
absolutely wild, like something out of an adventure story.
There's this story about lookingfor mammoth bones on the ick pic
(01:50):
Puck River in northern Alaska. Imagine being out there, the
winds howling for days, keeping the mosquitoes away, and you
start thinking people exaggerate.
Then the wind stops and bam, theair is just thick with them.
Super aggressive right? Apparently they saw a moose just
plunging into freezing water every few steps to escape.
These aren't normal mosquitoes. No, they're adapted.
(02:12):
They can reproduce without blood, but they do way better
with it so. They're relentless.
Makes Texas mosquitoes seem kindof tame.
Definitely. And Speaking of harrowing field
work, there's another story about a Russian helicopter trip
in Siberia and MI 8 from Hatanga.
Oh boy. Pictures sitting on the gas
tanks, missing windows, and the thing barely gets off the
(02:33):
ground. The expedition dog Pasha
apparently refused to get in. Smart dog.
They called him the smartest person in our expedition.
Wow, that's that's intense. It really highlights the risks
they take and it makes you think, doesn't it, about past
humans in those environments? How did they cope?
You hear about reindeer domestication not just for meat
but as like a a storage mechanism for nutrition, a
(02:55):
walking pantry. A living larger.
It's incredible, the ingenuity of the first people figuring out
how to herd and milk them in those conditions.
Amazing resourcefulness. Absolutely.
It completely challenges the idea that these were just
desolate lambs. These people had sophisticated
ecological knowledge, real engineers of survival.
(03:15):
And beyond the field work, ancient DNA is just rewriting
huge chunks of human history, like the Amazon we used to
think. Untouched rainforest, maybe
small tribes. Right.
The pristine myth. But now evidence of
sophisticated grids, millions ofpeople, huge settlements, all
wiped out probably by European diseases, and the jungle just
(03:36):
swallowed it all up. Yeah, Lidar imaging combined
with the DNA tells an incrediblestory.
You only see faint traces from the air now.
You see hints of that even flying over Europe, old field
patterns and things. And this connects to that common
misconception about Jurassic Park.
People think the movie started the field.
Right, like science fiction camefirst.
But it's the other way around. Michael Creighton was inspired
by real work already happening, like Alan Wilson's group at
(03:59):
Berkeley. They got ancient DNA from a
quagga, an extinct zebra, back in 84.
Wow, OK. The early claims about dinosaur
DNA turned out to be contamination.
Modern DNA getting in. Which brings us to how careful
they have to be. These labs sound intense, like
virus labs pushing air out, fullsuits, constant bleaching.
Exactly. It's not the ancient stuff
(04:21):
that's dangerous. It's us, our DNA.
A single skin cell, a breath canruin everything.
Precisely. And that's where PCR, the
plumber's chain reaction, was such a game changer.
It lets you amplify tiny, tiny DNA fragments.
And the bat, well, the crowning achievement was sequencing whole
Neanderthal genomes. My husband was actually involved
(04:42):
in that effort with this Fante Paibos team, who won the Nobel
for it. I'm incredible getting the whole
blueprint. And then Denisovans, a whole new
type of ancient human found fromjust a tiny finger bone,
completely redrew the family tree.
Just amazing. And now there's Giuliani or the
big head people from China. 300,000 to 50,000 years ago
suggests even more interbreeding, more complexity.
But. Then you still have mysteries
(05:02):
like The Hobbit, people on Flores Island, Homo
floresiensis. All right, the DNA there is just
too degraded. Hot, humid climates are terrible
for preservation. It makes you think about island
evolution, right? Dwarfism.
Gigantism. Like the mini elephants on
Flores, but also the giant Komodo Dragons.
Terrifying creatures. Yeah, remember that bizarre
(05:23):
story about Sharon Stone's ex-husband at the zoo?
Vaguely like somebody about shoes.
Yeah, they told him to take off his white tennis shoes, worried
the Dragons would think they were rats or something.
But then his barefoot looked tasty and bam got.
Bitten. Oh my goodness.
Yeah, that's memorable. Shows you can't predict
everything. Exactly.
And, it reminds me, we also touched on other animal quirks,
(05:45):
like giraffes apparently considered sort of dumb in
captivity. Really.
Yeah, but in the wild, incredibly ecologically
intelligent, perfectly adapted are definitions of smart or just
so human centric, you know, that's.
A great point which leads us perfectly into Colossal's work.
I actually got to see their direwolves, Romulus, Remus and
Klezy. Yeah, it was extraordinary.
(06:05):
They look different, bigger, more muscular and this unique
light coat. Seeing Klezy's birth, it was
just genuine wonder, seeing something extinct brought back.
It must have been powerful, and it absolutely forces you to
confront the ethical side, doesn't it?
Like, are we playing God here? Are humans really the ones to
decide who lives and dies? There's a potential arrogance
(06:26):
there. A huge question, and it ties
right into the whole invasive species nightmare.
I mean, look at Florida, half a million Burmese pythons wiping
out 90% of the mammals in the Everglades total disaster.
Or Hawaii introducing rosy wolf snails to eat other invasive
snails, but they just ate all the native ones instead.
Catastrophe. Right.
Good intentions, terrible outcomes.
(06:47):
Even had people seriously suggesting bringing honey
Badgers to Florida or that crazyearly 20th century idea of
hippos in the US for lake cow bacon.
It's almost comical the mistakeswe've made.
And that history is exactly why caution is paramount.
But it's also why these new technologies are potentially so
valuable if used right. Colossal's work isn't just about
(07:09):
bringing things back for novelty.
It's tied to conservation. Think genetic rescue.
OK. I like with the Florida
Panthers. Exactly, they were critically
inbred down to maybe 30 animals,bringing in a few Texas
Panthers. Save them by boosting genetic
diversity. Colossal hopes to use similar
techniques refined through the direwolf work for things like
(07:30):
the Red Wolf Project, using DNA editing to make endangered
species more resilient. But it's.
Still complicated. Look at the wolf reintroduction
in Colorado. Very contentious.
Yeah, ballot box biology City folks voting for wolves that
ranchers have to live with, and they brought in wolves known to
prey on cattle from Oregon. Seems like asking for trouble.
It's. A classic conflict.
(07:51):
Yellowstone was different, more of a success story for that
specific ecosystem. But you can't just copy and
paste these things. Absolutely not, which is why
Colossal is being so careful with the direwolves.
They aren't being released into the wild, they're on a secure,
monitored preserve. Cameras everywhere.
Hormonal contraception, Constantstudy.
So no rogue direwolves running around.
(08:13):
Definitely not. And for the critics saying they
aren't real direwolves, well, they're engineered using ancient
genomes from 72,000 to 13,000 years ago.
The goal is to replicate key traits like that light coat
color that came directly from the ancient DNA.
Nobody expected that from just bones.
It's about creating an ecological proxy based on the
(08:33):
best data we have. So what else is on the list
besides Dire Wolves? Well, the ones they've announced
are the woolly mammoth, the Thylacine, Tasmanian tiger and
the dodo. But they have DNA data for lots
more. American cheetah, the huge short
faced bear, 12 feet tall. Longhorn bison, Irish elk, North
American camels, even a giant 5 foot Beaver.
(08:54):
Imagine that. A library of lost life.
It really messes with your timeline of extinction, doesn't
it? Mammoths living just 4000 years
ago on an island, right? Much later than we used to
think. And maybe horses surviving in
North America longer than presumed.
Like Native American traditions always said, environmental DNA
is finding traces. It really highlights how much we
don't know. Requires real humility.
(09:15):
The fossil record is so sparse. Think about Gigantopithecus the
giant ape, the Bigfoot ancestor mostly known from teeth found in
Chinese apothecary shops sold asdragon bones.
Or those strange Peruvian alien mummies with three fingers and
toes. Ancient DNA might tell us what
they really were. So much mystery still.
(09:36):
And this all inevitably circles back to the ethics of human gene
editing, too. You have the Hijiang Kui case in
China. Editing babies for HIV
resistance. Huge controversy.
Germline editing very different.Right, different from
therapeutic somatic editing likebaby KJ being cured of a
metabolic disease that feels more like medicine, but the
lines get blurry. They do and engineering complex
(09:57):
traits like smartness. What does that even mean?
Intelligence isn't one thing andevolution isn't a straight line.
And the playing God argument? Well, humans have been shaping
life for millennia through domestication, farming, even
conservation choices. Deciding not to use powerful new
tools also has ethical weight, especially with extinction rates
soaring. What if we can save a species or
(10:19):
cure disease and choose not to? Could AI help maybe analyze the
consequences of rewilding without our human biases and
financial motives getting in theway?
That's a fascinating thought. The hope is certainly to use
these tools responsibly for realconservation challenges.
Making Hawaiian honey creepers resistant to avian malaria or
corals resistant to bleaching. Building a future that's
(10:40):
biodiverse and includes thrivinghuman populations.
Coexistence and repair. So for you listening, it leaves
us with some big questions, right?
Given how little we know about the past and how powerful these
new tools are, what are our responsibilities?
And thinking ahead, could genetic interventions become so
common that regular children become novel?
Or could a future crisis make today's unethical choices seem
(11:03):
necessary? Lots to ponder.
Yeah. How?
Does this all change your definition of life?
Of extinction? What does it mean to be human as
we gain this level of control over biology?
That conversation is just getting started.
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