De-Extinction Nightmare Part 1: Nazi Cows (E368)

QAA Podcast

Julian Feeld, Travis View & Jake Rockatansky

News

4.3 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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. Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa Check out our new podcast series network Cursed Media! Spectral Voyager Season 2 is releasing now! Binge the entirety of Truly Tradly Deeply by Annie Kelly and Megan Kelly as well as Science in Transition by Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows: cursedmedia.net Produced by Liv Agar & Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com) qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm
0:02.0	Oh,
0:03.0	Oh,
0:04.0	Oh,
0:05.0	Oh,
0:07.0	Oh,
0:08.0	Oh, If you're hearing this, well done.
0:33.6	You found a way to connect to the internet.
0:36.6	Welcome to the QAA podcast episode 368,
0:40.5	De-extinction Nightmare Part 1, Nazi cows. As always, we are your host's Julianfield,
0:47.2	Liv Egar, Jack LaRoche, and Travis View. There is a remote fur farm in Novosibur, Russia, southwestern Siberia.
0:57.0	It's not an easy location to get to. The roads are often iced over in the negative 40 heat.
1:03.0	The property is made up of buildings that look an awful lot like warehouses,
1:07.0	with rows upon rows of wire cages, both inside and outside of those buildings.
1:13.6	The scent of ammonia chokes the air, alongside pungent smells of raw meat and animal musk.
1:19.6	Housed in these cages are around 2,000 foxes of various colors, along with various minks and rats.
1:26.6	For the past 74 years, a very unusual
1:30.0	experiment has been taking place here in Russia. See, these aren't just any fox's, minks, and
1:36.1	Siberian gray rats, a wild rat that never before has been tamed. These are domesticated
1:42.8	animals. The Russian fox experiment was started by Dimitri
1:47.5	Beliayef around 1952, although Ludmila Trut was the manager of it up until her death in 2024.
1:55.6	The structure of it was deceptively simple. Temperament tests were administered every month until the fox
	...

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