What podcasts say about Beth Shapiro
Every statement, with the speaker, the exact quote and the moment it was said.
What Beth Shapiro has said on podcasts
36 statements · 24 positive · 5 negative · 7 neutral
Species categories are human concepts rather than biological necessities.
“biology doesn't care what species you are. Species is a a human concept.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 3:51
Most people carry 2–5% Neanderthal DNA from ancient admixture.
“most people have somewhere between 2% and 5% of their DNA that is from this admixture event”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 10:32
Brown bears and polar bears can readily interbreed when their habitats overlap.
“Brown bears and polar bears diverged about half a million years ago, and we know that they can readily interbreed and do whenever they overlap in habitat.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 17:45
Living humans collectively contain over 90%, possibly 95%, of the Neanderthal genome.
“we would put together more than 90%, possibly more than 95% of the Neanderthal genome just from people who are alive today.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 23:41
Dinosaurs cannot be brought back because recoverable dinosaur DNA is unavailable.
“We can't bring a dinosaur back to life because we don't have dinosaur DNA.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 32:39
DNA preserves longer in cold Arctic environments with rapid burial and freezing.
“DNA will preserve for longer in the cold Arctic, where things are rapidly buried in frozen dirt, and they stay that way for a million years”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 34:20
Restoring extinct ecological interactions can increase ecosystem robustness and resilience.
“by bringing back these key ecological interactions, we can make those ecosystems more robust and more resilient”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 35:59
De-extinction tools can modify living species’ genomes to reduce extinction risk.
“all of the tools that we are developing for de-extinction are the same tools that we can use to use synthetic biology to modify the genomes of living species and help them avoid becoming extinct.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 39:49
Centrifugation can separate sperm based on X- versus Y-chromosome size.
“you can centrifuge them, and because they're smaller, they sort out.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 47:09
Cloning from somatic cells allows researchers to know the resulting animal’s sex.
“you can use cloning like we are at Colossal, and like we're thinking about in synthetic biology, where you actually know the sex because you're starting with an actual somatic cell”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 47:27
The Asian elephant is the mammoth’s closest living relative.
“the closest living relative of a mammoth is an Asian elephant.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 49:38
Mammoth and Asian elephant genomes are approximately 99% similar.
“They're about 99% similar.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 51:42
Colossal focuses on mammoth-shared genetic differences from elephants rather than exact reconstruction.
“what we're doing is focusing on where all of those mammoths are the same as each other, but different from elephants”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 54:07
The planned mammoth will be an elephant engineered to live in mammoth-like habitats.
“bringing back a mammoth, which will be an elephant that is capable of living in the habitats that a mammoth lived in.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 54:24
Colossal’s dire wolf-like animals contain 20 selected genetic edits.
“our dire wolves, they have 20 edits that we picked”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 56:42
Colossal engineered dire-wolf-associated changes into a gray wolf genome.
“we engineered those changes into a gray wolf genome to recreate the dire wolf.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 56:57
Colossal does not plan to release its dire wolves into the wild.
“we're not planning on rewilding dire wolves”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 58:02
Colossal prevents its closely related dire wolves from breeding using hormones.
“No, they're too closely related. We're stopping them using hormones, so rather than castration.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:00:38
Colossal’s dire wolves have reached at least approximately 120 pounds.
“they were at some point, they were at least like 120 pounds, which is big for a gray wolf.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:01:37
Colossal plans to produce another dire wolf pack.
“We will have another pack so that hopefully they will all be born, more of them at the same time.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:03:36
Reintroducing gray wolves to Yellowstone restored vegetation and altered river flow.
“putting the gray wolves back in Yellowstone cascaded all the way down that ecosystem ladder to changing the way the rivers were flowing because the plants were growing back now.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:12:07
Engineering disease-resistant mosquitoes may be preferable to killing mosquitoes.
“Maybe engineer mosquitoes that they can't carry the disease rather than engineer the mosquitoes to be dead.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:21:24
Gene drives could be deployed with appropriate safety measures and oversight.
“gene drives are an incredibly powerful way that we have at our fingertips, where, with the appropriate safety measures and care in place, we should think about how we might deploy these tools.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:21:42
Gene drives can be designed to persist for a fixed number of generations.
“You can make a gene drive so it only lasts for a fixed number of generations”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:21:53
Rejecting conservation technologies accepts the consequences of inaction.
“If we say that those technologies are too risky, we are accepting the outcome of doing nothing, which is also a decision.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:25:25
Baby KJ was cured of his genetic disease and is expected to live normally.
“he is cured of this disease and will live a normal life.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:37:02
Species thriving today are those adapted to human-created ecological niches.
“the species that live today and thrive today are those that have figured out how best to do that in the niches that we have created for it.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:38:11
The captive breeding program releases approximately 500 black-footed ferrets annually.
“every year they can release about 500 black-footed ferrets into the wild.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:43:45
Elizabeth Ann was the first black-footed ferret cloned from 40-year-old tissue.
“Elizabeth Ann was the first clone of 40-year-old tissue.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:45:07
A cloned black-footed ferret from the same line reproduced, producing potentially releasable offspring.
“that animal has reproduced and there were offspring from that that can be able to be introduced.”
Open the episode · Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth ShapiroListen at 1:45:37
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.