De-Extinction Nightmare Part 1: Nazi Cows (E368)
The long history of humans bending biology for civilization eventually raised an important question: if animals can be domesticated, then couldn’t they also be de-domesticated? Further: could selective breeding allow scientists to reverse-engineer a species back from extinction and contain identical DNA to its ancestors?
The first people to attempt “de-extinction” were, naturally, mad zoologists supported by Nazis. Modern attempts to leverage molecular biology to revive long-lost species provide a classic example of history rhyming.
In part one of this two-part episode, Jack explores the disturbing ideology behind the de-extinction efforts of the Heck brothers in 1930s Germany, as well as their attempts to create so-called “genetically pure” species. Next week, we’ll unpack the floundering species revival program from genetic engineering startup Colossal Biosciences and why billionaires and the Trump administration are so invested in gaining the ability to make extinction less permanent than commonly believed.
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Produced by Liv Agar & Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)
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Comments (52)
Two times Ultima Online has been brought up in a few months. That game was a fucking gem
I saw Cave of Forgotten Dreams' 20th Anniversary re-release on IMAX 3D two weeks ago. It was one of the most mind blowing cinematic experiences of my life.
LIV AGAR
Love these Jack Eps
Want to listen to this episode but are there time stamps I should skip, I'm badly upset by animal abuse
Loving these Jack episodes! And really appreciate the breather with the lighter tone episodes
my girlfriend's grandfather actually did a similar thing of breeding his cows to be meaner, but he wasn't trying to resurrect the aurox, he just wanted them to be better at fighting off coyotes (no offense Jack)
Great episode folks and Jack is a wonderful edition to the team! I do have a minor critique though. Biologists et al don't tend to use the term "primitive" anymore to describe ancestral species. This is for a couple of reasons. Primitive implies "less evolved" or more basic which has huge connotations which do then get applied to humans. Species are generally evolved to fill their niche rather than evolution having a goal or tending towards more "advanced" species. Primitive and advanced implies better or superior when this is not right. The terms used today are generally "more derived" meaning having a higher number of mutational differences from earlier forms or "basal" or "more basal' meaning closer to the basal ancestral/related forms Hope this makes sense keep up the great work!
It was worth listening to this demented nonsense (the idea, not the show) to hear LIV AGAr and Jaxk commiserate about the "chair dogs" in Herbert's Dune series. 😁 Sience fiction nerd!
My brother in law is a conservation biologist specialising in extinction due to habitat loss and global warming in Australia. He has attended several talks on the de-extinction projects taking place in Australia with the Thylacine (Tasmania tiger) and it's incredibly controversial amongst the scientific community for reasons you've already stated. Even if they were successful, it's a subspecies, not the original and due to the urbanisation of areas they populated, even if brought back would likely go extinct again or cause worse havoc amongst other threatened species as they have no natural predator.
I love this topic and episode, but please tell your editor not to edit out every single pause. It sounds stilted, which is very distracting to listen to.
Jack LaRoche
Firstly, they are using the Fat Tailed Dunnart to "bring back" the Thylacine. The Thylacine was dog sized. The Dunnart is kinda like a small mouse. Second, I am pretty sure some of these researchers are basically just using "deextinction" as a way to extract money from rich idiots. Some of it seems to be getting used for more reasonable things. Eg Colossal Biosciences has been helping preserve the Earless Dragon near where I live. Beyong that one project, I dont know to what extent its conservation vs lining pockets. But it is a pretty common tactic in conservation.
It's giving "oh, you're a vegetarian? You know who else was a vegetarian? HITLER."
Yeah like I have the sense the majority of the left is making a big if understandable mistake rooting against all the "sci-fi shit" so its failure can be humiliating & discrediting for the Silicon Valley perverts. Of course I would ALSO like to see them humiliated & discredited but as the century moves along I'm not at all confident about the failure of these futuristic ambitions to the degree people anticipate and there's a strong chance we'll to have to reckon with compounding present realities people assumed would remain safely fantastical or remote. I think we'd be wise to revive something of the '40s~'70s gee-whiz Techno-Left so that there's more of a social understanding of positive potential, or else too much space gets left open to fill with normality-bias "common sense" that only has the superficial appearance of realism (though I suspect this'll just happen again through plain old negative polarization as more & more of the right starts to get too weirded out).
I'm really loving the Jack episodes! This topic is fascinating. I had to stop a few times to look up images of some of these critters (it took me a hot minute to figure out how to spell auroch). Looking forward to part 2!
Keep the jack episodes coming
When Jack made the dick joke I uttered “Get his ass” out loud. More of this, please
Oh, man, you made me cry. The Lascaux caves are so freaking magnificent that just thinking of them moves me deeply. This has been an emotional week for me. Artemis photos, my son's medical visits (routine "miracles"), Orban's defeat...yeah, humans still Amaze! Amaze! Amaze! (I think I should stop listening now, because it is just gonna get more nazi; yeah, humans are also awfully awful.)
Great episode! There's a documentary film called Her Name Was Europa from 2020 on the same topic with some great cow cinematography, also worth checking out
i love this shit
Another Jack episode? My prayers are answered!
Let's go, Jack is back
What a strange topic to talk about
What the Heck
Love Jack episodes! More please!
Friends I'm sure Jack is lovely but these academic paper style scripts read slowly in a monotone voice are just not it
100% I don't come to this podcast to hear a book report
never wanted these eps on YouTube until now...
I propose we refer to the nazi cows as “I can’t believe it’s not aurochs!”
Not a fan of the Jack episodes at all
Love this ep and topic :)
“konik” literally means horse in polish and other Slavic languages. So it’s the horse horse
As a scientist interested in this era of sketchy science this was excellent. And Julian: as a horse girl I am legally obligated to say that 13 hands is a medium pony and not a small one. They come way way smaller. (But for real I thoroughly enjoyed learning about horse phrenology bc what the fuck)
I might be the only one with a completely worthless mind's eye, but it would be wonderful to have a reference image document for episodes like this. Most episodes, actually. Or does that defeat the point of podcasting hmmmm
Have we already forgotten the Big Cow that rocked the world in 2018?
Would recommend the book The Lion in the Living Room if y'all wanna read about cat domestication, possible origins, and whether or not cats are actually domesticated
they domesticated US
One thing I read is that domesticated animals often take on the appearance of their more juvenile state, ie, puppies, kittens, etc, because humans are more likely to find those traits endearing/disarming
Not to be nitpicking, but the novel Frankenstein is not about reanimation. It's about creating new life, a child one might say. HP Lovecraft's Re-Animator, which he wrote in response to Frankenstein, is about reanimating the dead.
Re: Ute Indians From a race science angle, which is also a luddite angle, his writing makes sense: The Utes have been taken out of their "natural" environment and are now suffering in an unnatural one, much like the Germans, according to race science, were suffering from being made to life in cities.
Jack episode!
It’s okay Julian, it’s how you use it that matters 🥀
This is the prequel to 28 days later
I've always struggled with taxonomies on an ontological level (as a non scientist) and especially the end discussion of this episode got me back to thinkin about it. It always felt so wrong to me that humans have adopted like a very European approach of organizing nature. Like there is an inherent taxonomic charting that exists and all we as humans are doing is discovering it (this purely about like concept of taxonomy, I believe in evolution and biology etc lol) but the quote at the end saying maybe the Florida Panther has some genetic difference we haven't found yet got me thinking about us as western humans are transcribing what we want to exist. Forcing the natural world (humans included) into such strict structures that are epistemically True™️
I hope this rambling makes sense, it's gonna be on my mind all day haha
Human civilization is the strongest ecological pressure on animal species. So we may as well just accelerate the evolution of those creatures most suited to our modern environment. Adorable cockroaches.
jack is such a great addition to the show!
What the hell does re-wilding have to do with any of this? So many unnecessary strays
Third 🥉 ?
De-Extinction is such a misunderstanding of how genetics works. Not listened yet but looking forward to the episode!
Liv agar