Could extinct animals be brought back?

KERA's Think

KERA

Society & Culture, 071003, Kera, Think, Krysboyd

4.8 • 861 Ratings

🗓️ 10 October 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A year ago, two dire wolf puppies were born — the first ones in more than 10,000 years. Matt James, chief animal officer for Colossal Biosciences, joins host Krys Boyd to talk about the company’s success bringing back the dire wolf in what it calls a de-extinction process, why he feels inaction on conservation outweighs the risk of Colossal’s work, and plans the company has to bring back the wooly mammoth and other long-extinct animals.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, Ira Flato here from Science Friday. Each episode we give you surprising facts.
0:07.5	There's a whole phenomenon of moths visiting eyes of mammals. Expert insights. It doesn't
0:13.5	take a lot of brain to run a lion, actually. And we tackle the big questions. How is this going to
0:20.3	affect the future?
0:21.8	From space to climate to tech to medicine,
0:24.7	get a new view on the world around you.
0:26.8	That's Science Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:49.2	In the first episode of Game of Thrones, Ned Stark, John Snow, and a few others are walking through the woods when they happen upon an unexpected discovery.
0:51.7	There's a dialile Wolf. There's a Vole beast. There are no Dyerwolves south of the wall.
1:07.0	Another of five.
1:10.0	One's to hold it.
1:16.6	Everything in Game of Thrones, the Dragons, the Magic was obviously fantasy.
1:21.6	Everything that is, except the Dyer Wolves.
1:24.6	From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd. Dyerwolves were real
1:30.9	creatures. The last ones roamed the earth about 12,000 years ago. But just last year, a company
1:36.5	based in Dallas used ancient DNA and gene editing technology to produce two living dire wolf
1:43.3	pups. The first of an array of extinct species
1:46.5	colossal biosciences hopes to bring back into existence. Matt James is the company's chief
1:52.3	animal officer and was there to witness the pup's birth. He joined me recently in front of a live
1:57.6	audience at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas to talk about
2:01.4	how they did it and whether or not these pups are actually dire wolves or something else.
2:07.8	Matt, welcome to think.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KERA, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KERA and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.