Scientists are trying to reintroduce extinct woolly mammoths. And they say they can do it in 4 years. A company called Colossal, which was established to realize this by 2027 and announced that it had received an investment of 150 million dollars a few days ago, plans to relocate these endangered animals to the Siberian plains tens of thousands of years later. Not just mammoths; They claim that many extinct creatures such as the Tasmanian tiger and the dodo can be brought back to life. Now that they've said so much, can they also make dinosaurs come back? We remember this movie, right? Let's not get into trouble shall we? Three years after the Jurassic Park movie, the Pleistocene Park was established in Yakutia and some animals were experimented with. But is it really possible to bring living things that have been completely destroyed back to life? Some animals that are not yet extinct have been cloned before. Another creature, brought into the world by genetic editing from a recently extinct species, was also kept alive for 7 minutes. And finally, scientists say they're ready to do much bigger, more permanent trials. But some other experts vehemently oppose it. What good are dead mammoths for? Could resurrecting them solve our climate problems? How ethical is it to manipulate the genes of creatures whose biology we know so little about? In this age of witnessing the sixth extinction, does the return of the mammoths pioneer of a mass resurrection? Soon I will take you to 3 different islands from 3 different corners of the world, but first, I would like to convey the message of Cambly, the sponsor of this video, to learn the language spoken there. Cambly is a platform that offers the most effective ways to learn English. With native English tutors, you can improve your speaking skills anywhere, anytime. Improve your everyday language for travel or learn a better presentation language for your meetings with a single subscription. A brand new opportunity begins to join the thousands of people who have improved their English so far. Special offer for Valentine's Day. You can find the discount code and link for this campaign, which will provide 50% discount on 6-month subscriptions, at 00.00 at midnight, which connects February 5 to February 6. In the description section. Even with just 6 months of English practice, you can make a huge difference in your life. Remember, as in love, continuity is important in learning too. Now if you are ready, let's start touring these islands. The name of the animal you see in this video taken in 1933 is Benjamin. He is a Tasmanian tiger and died 18 months after these images were taken. He was the last Tasmanian tiger in the world. It was added to the list of endangered animals after it was last seen on this island 90 years ago. So how long is this list? As you watch this video, one more species will be wiped out from the face of the earth. Three species are disappearing every hour. Humans are pushing a million species towards extinction. Among all these endangered species, there is one that has almost become a symbol of extinction. No, not mammoths. A bird. Dodo. The dodo is a very mysterious bird. It used to wander around the island of Mauritius with a height of about one meter/3feet. For a long time, humanity thought that it was a creature described in fairy tales. Like dragons or unicorns. However, according to historical records, Dutch sailors set foot on this idyllic island in the Indian Ocean in 1598. They easily hunted these beautiful birds, which were not afraid of them, could not fly or run because they had never seen humans before. Other animals that the sailors took with them, pigs, mice and goats, also destroyed the eggs of dodo birds. After its last sighting on this island some 350 years ago, the Dodo bird has become a symbol of extinction due to human influence. The last mammoths on earth lived on this island 3700 years ago. Look, I'm not saying it was seen this time. 3700 years ago, of course, there were humans, and they were even busy building the pyramids in Egypt at that time, but we cannot blame humans directly and entirely this time for the extinction of the mammoths. Researchers Examining the DNA of a mammoth found on this island, noticed some very strange things. They identified missing and broken genes in the animal's genome. It had many different mutations in it’s DNA than its mainland-dwelling cousins. The last living mammoths were wiped out by mutational meltdown. But in this video we are not concerned with how they disappeared, but with how they can exist again. And the answer to that lies in what I’ve just said. In the genes of mammoths. This is Beth Shapiro. A professor of Biology. I got to know her through this book she wrote. "How To Clone A Mammoth" Underneath it says "The Science of De-Extinction". The "Extinction" part of this word means being wiped out. De-Extinction is its opposite. In other words, this concept, which is not very good even in English, this word has somehow entered the literature since the early 2000s. This is the name given to the process of reintroducing... ... an intangible extinct species through the technology of genetic engineering and cloning. Meanwhile, You can think of Dr. Beth Shapiro like the character Ellie in the movie Jurassic Park. I will continue to describe these developments, which are freshly occurring in the real world, by analogies from this old movie. So now I'm taking you to another island. This bonus island is off the coast of Costa Rica… Isla Nublar. Fictional island where Jurassic Park is located. Dear ladies and gentlemen, there is an ancient creature in the amber you have seen in my hand. A mosquito fossil. In Jurassic Park, DNA from one mosquito was combined with another DNA from a frog. Thus, our cute little dinosaurs were genetically designed and reintroduced. Of course, they didn't stay so small after they came out. What a super silly movie, right? That's exactly what I thought when I watched this movie in the 90's. I was saying they are exaggerating. Let's put everything aside, how are you going to combine those genes? How will it be, copy it from the mosquito, paste it to the frog. We don’t have magic scissors. Back then... Yes, now we do. And this scissors is called CRISPR. However, the story in the movie Jurassic Park is still far beyond today's realities. Even if you have CRISPR technology, what do mosquitoes and frogs have to do with anything? Dinosaurs are more closely related to birds. If such a task is to be attempted, it is necessary to select species that are genetically closer to each other, and of course, we need a well-preserved dinosaur cell. What if we get from the bones? There are fossils everywhere.
So they're not bones, they're stone. Tens of millions of years have passed. It is not possible to extract DNA from it. Well, let's say you extracted, the half-life of DNA is 521 years atmost. So even if you find a sample, half of the bonds between the nucleotides in it will be broken. The researchers say that in 6.8 million years, even specimens preserved at -5C under the best conditions will all be unbound. The youngest dinosaur fossil ever found is 65 million years old. In other words, we did not have the opportunity to find their genetic information completely. We need another creature that became extinct more recently. For example, like mammoths that lived 5-10 thousand years ago. In some parts of the world, there is so much left of them that ... ...you bump into a mammoth bone while walking on the road. This isn't Jurrasic Park. Pleistocene Park. It is a 20-square-kilometer place in Yakutia, established by the efforts of two scientists, father and son. These father-son scientists, influenced by the movie released in 1993, gave this name to the park, but their aim is not to entertain tourists there. Their aim is to revitalize those lands that were once very fertile. And they think they can only do that by returning some animals that lived in the ice age. They bring cattle from various parts of the world to this park. There are horses, deer, camels and oxen. There are even American bison in the park. What is the American bison doing in Siberia near the North Pole? The common feature of these animals is that they all live in a certain part of the world. The name of all these lands is the Mammoth steppe. Because mammoths once lived in this belt stretching from North America to Central Asia. And these lands have the most extensive biome on our planet. If you notice, there is Europe and even partially Turkiye in this area. Animals that are collected and transported artificially are brought to the Pleistocene Park from here, and they are allowed to live and reproduce there for long periods of time. And so there is an attempt to revive the ecosystem in the most barren land of the world right now. And as far as I can see, the experiments have already started to be successful. Now look at that fence over there. Do you see the difference between this side of the fence and the other? 10 years ago, the whole place was covered with muddy moss like this side. Look what a transformation has taken place thanks to those herbivorous animals living on the other side of the fence. These cattle, which roam in the snow-covered areas in winter, ensured that the soil could receive more sun. In addition, the substances that return to that soil, as they turn what they eat into fertilizer and extract it, enrich it even more. Yes, even the ability of animals to roam freely can revive such an ecosystem. And imagine that big mammoths roaming around here. In the winter, they can work like snow machines and flatten and clear roads. Well, then, some scientists said, let's bring the mammoths back. One of the most famous names in this field is George Church. He is known as the father of genomics. Genomics is the science that studies all structural and functional aspects of genomes of different species. And this professor is pioneering the creation of a biotechnology field by applying chromosome sequencing techniques. You know, when I took you to 3 islands and talked about 3 species of animals that... ...went extinct after they were seen there for the last time; From them, in 2015 the mammoths, in 2016 dodo birds, and in 2018 the Tasmanian tigers were gene mapped. Elephants are closely related to extinct mammoths, especially Asian elephants. The genomes of these creatures are 99% identical. So if we have an Asian elephant, it means you have a 99% mammoth genetically. That's what scientists are trying to do. We know the gene sequence of both elephants and mammoths. We have two texts written genetically from the letters A, C, G, T. If we compare these two texts, we can find the different sentences in between. Then we can cut out those different lines from the elephants and take the parts from the mammoths and glue them in place. So the information that makes the mammoth the mammoth. Like them being woolly. Yes, it's the copy paste process as we know. How do we do this in word processing programs like Word? Using a tool, using a command like Find & Replace, find and paste. We now have a technological tool that can genetically do this. CRISPR/Cas9. This process has already been tried in an elephant's DNA. Only 3 gene changes were made, not completely. They cut the information about blood cells written in the elephant's genetic information and replaced it with the information of the extinct mammoth. By simply changing these 3 words, they found that the oxygen carrying capacity of the elephant's blood increased in the cold. So a group of researchers at Harvard made a list of all the different genes and modified 14 of them to design a mammoth cell in a laboratory setting. And all of these 14 changes have been successful. So right now, in a lab somewhere in the world, there's a living mammoth cell that's been genetically engineered. This cell's DNA is partially mammoth, if not completely. It is now on to the second phase. An attempt will be made to bring a living mammoth into the world with an Asian elephant. But ahead of this, there are some very difficult technical problems to solve regarding the 22-month pregnancy process of elephants. That's exactly what this team is dealing with. And yes, the one on the far right is George Church, as you may have noticed. Let's compare him to Dr. Alan from Jurassic Park too. He is not only the father of genomics, but also an entrepreneur. He is one of the two founders of the company called Colossal. Because it takes money to do these things, a lot of money. But what good would it do to bring mammoths back to life, commercially? It doesn't make money. The meat of this animal is commercially not feasible. We need a crazy rich man. I mean, a rich entrepreneur like in Jurassic Park. So far we have two enthusiastic scientists who are experts in their field. Then who will be the real-world counterpart of the mysterious rich man in this picture? Let's examine the company structure of the company, Colossal, which was established to realize this, together? As you can see, they now have a total of 34 investors, not just one, with the last round on January 31, 2023, last Tuesday. And so far, they have received a total investment of close to a quarter billion dollars. In other words, it is someone who has invested close to a quarter billion dollars in a project that is very risky in terms of return off investment. One of these “someone” in particular caught my attention. In-Q-Tel. An investment firm from Arlington, Virginia. Now let's take a look at the details of it. Hmm, it was a government agency. Let's go and check out their website. Look, they showed the areas they invested in. Isn't it very interesting? Frontier science. It is an organization that is very curious about what we can call Science Fringe. So, when we look at the “about section” of the site, we find out which government agency is behind it. CIA. Do you see the story? On the one hand, extinct animals, on the other hand, scientists trying to bring them back to life, a park opened in Siberia that needs cattle and even mammoths to transform the ecosystem, a company that claims to be able to solve these problems with gene design, and interestingly a state agency who fund all this. I think it has become much more interesting than Jurassic Park. De-extinction. Remember, Beth Shapiro said this. She also wrote the book of “De-extinction”. Yes, indeed, even if we get to bring back a mammoth, what we actually do will be a kind of elephant hybrid. A Proxy. A report on the ethics of this work was published in 2016, with the thought that such trials may have some unexpected consequences in the future. The advantages and disadvantages were listed and the risks were mentioned. In summary, this technology has great potential, but it is necessary to act very responsibly, considering the ethical implications. Perhaps what we learned while trying to bring mammoths to the world could prevent the extinction of today's dwindling elephants. It can save species, habitats and ecosystems during our 6th extinction era. It's good to have a better understanding of extinct and existing species at the genetic level. This part is well established. We no longer ask the question, 'Can we bring mammoths back to Earth'? We are talking about whether this will be in 2024 or 2027. How and by whom this technology is used is an issue that needs to be handled very carefully. Now there is another question on our agenda, more important than 'can we do it'. Should we do it? Even if we are able to, should we? What an ethical talk, right? It was made in 2015, and Beth Shapiro, who made it, recently joined Colossal. After giving this detail, let's go back to 2015. Because after she asks the question 'should we do it' there, she takes her book and says: "As someone who wrote this book, you think I have a very clear, very sincere answer to this question that I can officially give, don't you? Yes, I do." “I don’t know.”
