00:00What do Paris Hilton and Chris Hemsworth have in common?
00:03Well, apparently, they both want to bring animals back to life.
00:08But we're not talking about making your favorite pet live forever.
00:11Nope, these celebs are actually helping a science company bring back animals that no
00:16longer exist, like the mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, and even the iconic dodo.
00:24If everything goes according to plan, these fascinating creatures could be walking among
00:28us again by 2028.
00:31This groundbreaking effort is led by a company called Colossal Biosciences.
00:36At this very moment, they're working on a way to revive the core genes of animals that
00:41disappeared from Earth ages ago.
00:44The idea is to replicate those genes using DNA from a close, living relative.
00:50If that's all Greek to you, don't worry, we'll break it down a bit later.
00:56So, the mammoth is one of the animals they plan to bring back, and people are especially
01:02hyped about it.
01:04These incredible, massive creatures roamed parts of Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America
01:09until about 4,000 years ago.
01:13Some people might mix them up with modern elephants, but there are some key differences.
01:18For starters, they had huge curved tusks that curled inward and were used to dig for food.
01:25They also adapted to survive in freezing climates, like having two layers of thick
01:30fur to keep their blood warm.
01:32But mammoths and elephants do have a lot in common.
01:35The woolly mammoth shares 99.5% of its genes with its closest relative, the Asian elephant.
01:42That's huge because it means that mammoths are genetically closer to Asian elephants
01:46than Asian elephants are to African elephants, for example.
01:52The company's bold plan is to create a living, walking elephant-mammoth hybrid that
01:57looks just like the ones that used to roam the planet.
02:00This animal will look like, walk like, and even sound like a woolly mammoth.
02:05But most importantly, it'll be able to live in the same ecosystem that the mammoth
02:09left behind.
02:10If the scientists succeed in bringing back enough of these creatures, one of their big
02:14goals is to help restore the Arctic tundra ecosystem.
02:20But how do they actually plan to create the mammoth?
02:24Here's their plan.
02:25First, they need to find well-preserved samples of woolly mammoths in places like Alaska,
02:30for example.
02:31Then, they'll need to sequence the mammoth's genome and the genome of its closest relative,
02:36the Asian elephant.
02:38The next step is to identify the important genes that made the woolly mammoth perfectly
02:43adapted to cold temperatures, like its shaggy hair, curved tusks, and dome-shaped cranium.
02:50In other words, they need to identify which genes make the mammoth, well, the mammoth.
02:56Now comes the interesting part.
02:58They will use top-notch gene-editing tools, kind of like scissors, to cut the Asian elephant
03:04DNA and replace those spots with the mammoth sequence.
03:09This will allow them to create a new cell line and, later, an embryo.
03:15This embryo will grow inside a healthy female Asian elephant, who will be the surrogate.
03:20And just like that, a new, cold-adapted elephant will be born.
03:25Or at least, that's what scientists hope.
03:29Specialists predict that this mammoth 2.0 could be on Earth as early as 2028.
03:35The reason it will take a while is that their gestation period is around 22 months.
03:41But if that deadline feels too far for you, there is actually a chance we could get a
03:45surprise a lot sooner.
03:47That's because some of the other animals they plan to revive have a much shorter gestation
03:52period, like Australia's thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger.
03:58The company is also doing whatever it takes to give this animal a second shot at life.
04:04And the good news is that the process seems to be well-advanced.
04:08Recently, the group announced that the Tasmanian tiger's genome is about 99% complete.
04:14This animal was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea.
04:20A big part of the Tasmanian tiger population disappeared over 3,000 years ago.
04:26But about 5,000 of them kept roaming around until pretty recently.
04:32It's believed that the last thylacine passed away in 1936.
04:37To revive the Tasmanian tiger, scientists first need a sample of the ancient animal.
04:43So they took RNA molecules from a 110-year-old preserved head that had been kept in ethanol.
04:51The team was really lucky because it's rare to find old samples that are so well-preserved,
04:56allowing scientists to use advanced DNA analysis techniques.
05:01And by that, I mean they did a full, complete analysis.
05:05By studying RNA samples from important tissue areas like the tongue, nasal cavity, brain,
05:11and eyes, experts were able to learn a bunch of interesting things about the Tasmanian
05:17tiger.
05:19They could figure out how its brain worked, and also what this beast could smell, see,
05:24and taste.
05:26By the way, these semi-nocturnal animals had a special appetite for small rodents, lizards,
05:31and birds.
05:32After finding the perfect sample, the process of reviving it will be pretty much the same
05:37as with the mammoth, but with an elephant as a DNA donor, of course.
05:43In the case of the Tasmanian tiger, its closest living relative is a small marsupial called
05:48the fat-tailed dunnart.
05:51Even though this animal is small, it is a ferocious carnivore.
05:55So experts believe the whole DNA editing process will work just fine with its secrets.
06:01Their goal is to turn a fat-tailed dunnart cell into a thylacine cell.
06:06To accomplish that, they did more than 300 unique genetic changes into a dunnart cell.
06:13So there is no doubt they're pushing all the boundaries to make the dream of reviving animals
06:17a reality.
06:21This project also plans to revive the iconic dodo.
06:24You know, that funny-looking bird from the paradisiacal island of Mauritius in the Indian
06:30Ocean.
06:31And here, things get a little trickier, since we don't know much about this creature, which
06:36has origins that go back about 23 million years.
06:40Basically, the only clues we have about what dodos looked like when they were alive come
06:45from a handful of drawings, paintings, and written descriptions from the 17th century.
06:51But since those pictures are all pretty different from each other, and only a few of them were
06:56based on real, live dodos, we're still not 100% sure what they actually looked like.
07:02And as for how they behaved, well, we don't know much about that either.
07:08That's why reviving this long-absent legend will be super interesting and really enlightening.
07:14The sample they used to extract an old dodo genome came from a skull in the collection
07:19of the Natural History Museum of Denmark.
07:22And the dodo's closest living relative, which will provide the host cells, is the Nicobar
07:27pigeon, a grey bird with colourful features found in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in
07:33India.
07:35If everything goes smoothly, in a couple of years we might see the fabulous and iconic
07:40dodo with our own eyes!
07:44Saving animals might sound impossible, but science and technology together can be a real
07:50game-changer, not only by protecting today's animals, but also by restoring species that
07:55disappeared from the planet long ago.
07:58Actually, we've already pulled this off!
08:02A wild goat called the Bucardo, also known as the Pyrenean ibex, went extinct in the
08:08year 2000.
08:09But three years later, scientists managed to bring it back to life, using a method pretty
08:14similar to what we've talked about in this video.
08:17It took 57 tries, but one of them finally worked, and a Bucardo clone was born!
08:24Unfortunately, the animal only lived for 10 minutes.
08:27You might think that wasn't a success, but it was actually a huge step forward in the
08:32whole animal revival field!
08:35Now specialists can only hope the project to bring back the dodo, the mammoth, and the
08:40Tasmanian tiger go a bit better!
08:44That's it for today!
08:49So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
08:54friends!
08:55Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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