Joe Rogan Experience #2338 - Beth Shapiro

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. SPSpeaker0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. BSBeth Shapiro0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Hello, Beth.

   4. BSBeth Shapiro0:14

      Hello.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      It's very great to see you again.

   6. BSBeth Shapiro0:16

      I am pleased to be here.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      It's been really interesting getting to talk to you and communicating with you, and all the stuff that you guys have done at Colossal has been insane. So why don't you just tell everybody what your background is and what you do?

   8. BSBeth Shapiro0:29

      I'm a scientist. I work in a crazy field called ancient DNA, sometimes called paleogenomics. It means we go out into the world, we dig shit up and we extract DNA from it. And what is fantastic about that is it's being a modern-day explorer. I get to go somewhere, I get to find out something new that completely rewrites what we thought we knew, and it's brilliant. And I get to fight with people a lot, and because I love to fight-

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:53

      (laughs)

   10. BSBeth Shapiro0:53

       ... I recently quit my academic job and moved to become the chief science officer at Colossal, the company that has just made those dire wolves.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:02

       Why do you like to fight with people?

   12. BSBeth Shapiro1:04

       (laughs) Oh, I don't really like to fight with people.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:06

       (laughs)

   14. BSBeth Shapiro1:06

       I just felt (laughs) like it was the right thing to say at this minute. I end up fighting with people, though, m- not because I want to, but because I feel like-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       (laughs)

   16. BSBeth Shapiro1:13

       ... I have to defend what I think is the way that we should be doing science.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       Well, it's certainly a controversial subject, and you guys are certainly groundbreakers. So whenever there's a controversial subject and people are groundbreakers, you're, uh, without doubt going to get a lot of pushback, and a lot of people that just want attention, a lot of people that are angry that you're getting attention. It's, there's a lot of stuff going on.

   18. BSBeth Shapiro1:37

       Yeah. There's a big... I think in academia in particular, there's this big scarcity mindset.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:41

       Mm.

   20. BSBeth Shapiro1:42

       And this leads people to be kind of negative about everything. Like, "That's gonna be too hard. If I say that that's good, then that means that the thing that I want to do probably isn't gonna get that money." Or, "If you get attention, that means I can't get attention." And it leads to this negativity that I think stifles innovation.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:59

       Uh, there's a lot of gatekeeping, too. You know, we talked about that recently. Uh, there's a lot of people that want to be the only people that are allowed to either discuss or work on things.

   22. BSBeth Shapiro2:10

       Yeah. Like, "I've spent my whole life working on this, therefore I am the only expert. And if anybody says something that disagrees with what I believe to be true, they're just wrong. I'm not even gonna think about it, they're just wrong."

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:20

       It's unfortunate, but fortunately we live in a very unique time where you can do podcasts, and podcasts get extraordinary amounts of attention. And so, uh, I think that's also one of the reasons why people push back so much as well is 'cause they, they don't like that.

   24. BSBeth Shapiro2:38

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:38

       They don't like that there's this unique distribution network.

   26. BSBeth Shapiro2:42

       Yeah. There are gonna be people, there are gonna be colleagues of mine that are angry with me that I have come here to talk to you, and that is part of the problem.

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:50

       Yeah.

   28. BSBeth Shapiro2:51

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:51

       It just seems kind of silly. You know, but the subject, without all that stuff, the subject is absolutely fascinating. So how did you get started in this? Like, what did you initially want to do when you first started your career?

   30. BSBeth Shapiro3:05

       I (laughs) actually started in broadcast journalism. I-
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   I think it was…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      or were they trapped?

   2. BSBeth Shapiro15:01

      I think it was planned, just there was a lack of communication, (laughs) as we know.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:07

      (laughs)

   4. BSBeth Shapiro15:07

      But whatever, the helicopter took off twice and then it landed, and everybody unloaded and we set up the, the, the tent, the camp. And we discovered over the course of the next few days, you know, we built these cool boats, the Zodiacs, you blow them up and you bring out the outboard and you put them on the lake. And we're looking around and we discovered that we had landed in a place where we were gonna be for six weeks that had been glaciated during the last Ice Age, whi- which meant that our chances of finding what we wanted were really small.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:32

      Oh, no.

   6. BSBeth Shapiro15:33

      I know. It was devastating. And the (laughs) the Russian... We had a cook with us. The Russian cooks had brought, um, medical ethanol because it weighed less per unit of alcohol than vodka, which they would normally bring on the helicopter, so they brought medical ethanol to drink. And-

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:51

      Whoa.

   8. BSBeth Shapiro15:52

      Well, you know, you, you can only take so much stuff with you.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:54

      Because it weighs less than alcohol? That's a-

   10. BSBeth Shapiro15:57

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:58

       ... crazy decision.

   12. BSBeth Shapiro16:00

       Well, you know, they, they decided it was safe. Anyway, by three days in, it's 24-hour sunlight, we're at 72 degrees latitude, right?

   13. JRJoe Rogan16:08

       Did you try it?

   14. BSBeth Shapiro16:09

       Um-

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:10

       The medical ethanol?

   16. BSBeth Shapiro16:10

       I tried the medical ethanol.

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:12

       (laughs)

   18. BSBeth Shapiro16:12

       I mean, obviously, right?

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:14

       (laughs)

   20. BSBeth Shapiro16:16

       (laughs) You water it down with a little bit of river water and you have it with your freshly caught fish that you've filleted, and yeah, it's, uh, it's great. Yeah. We had fish and rice for the whole time that was up there.

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:26

       So you had to catch your food.

   22. BSBeth Shapiro16:27

       We had to catch our food, yes.

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:28

       Luckily, there's probably a lot of fish up there.

   24. BSBeth Shapiro16:30

       Fish, and there were some geese and some ducks that they would try to shoot while we were on our Zodiacs, normally without telling us that they were about to shoot. It was a very (laughs) logistically-

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:38

       So you just hear boom, boom.

   26. BSBeth Shapiro16:39

       Yeah, and then the thing would... Or you'd be sitting there looking at something and suddenly the Zodiac would take off because whoever was in charge had seen something he wanted to shoot at in the distance, like... (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan16:48

       (laughs)

   28. BSBeth Shapiro16:51

       Anyway, this... I don't know why I'm telling this story.

   29. JRJoe Rogan16:52

       Well, it's because it's fun.

   30. BSBeth Shapiro16:54

       (laughs)
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   All of us working…

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      interested in DNA, you go to Siberia, all that jazz. How do you get started working with s- a company like Colossal? How does that take place?

   2. BSBeth Shapiro30:09

      All of us working in ancient DNA, we are constantly answering the same question from the media, which is, when are we going to bring dinosaurs back to life?

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:20

      (laughs) 'Cause Jurassic Park?

   4. BSBeth Shapiro30:21

      Yeah. Well, and- and- (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:22

      (laughs)

   6. BSBeth Shapiro30:23

      Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:24

      We're so simple.

   8. BSBeth Shapiro30:25

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:25

      But one great movie and everybody's like, "When's that gonna happen?"

   10. BSBeth Shapiro30:29

       (laughs) And people say, people actually say that my field, um, was spawned by Jurassic Park, the- the whole idea that we could get DNA stuff. That's not true. It was actually the other way around. And Michael Crichton, when he wrote the book that became the movie, he credited a lab at Berkeley, Alan Wilson's group, the Extinct Species Study Group, which was-

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:49

       Oh.

   12. BSBeth Shapiro30:49

       ... the first group to show that you could get DNA in something after it died. That was actually from a quagga, which is a type of zebra.

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:55

       Ooh.

   14. BSBeth Shapiro30:55

       They had gotten-

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:57

       What a cool name.

   16. BSBeth Shapiro30:57

       Yeah, right. Well, and-

   17. JRJoe Rogan30:58

       Quagga.

   18. BSBeth Shapiro30:59

       ... in, in Dutch, in South Africa, they actually say the ʔᵉˈxʼɑxʼa.

   19. SPSpeaker31:03

       Ooh, even better.

   20. BSBeth Shapiro31:04

       Yeah. It's better that way, but-

   21. SPSpeaker31:05

       Yeah.

   22. BSBeth Shapiro31:06

       ... it's kind of bad for the microphone probably, gross.

   23. SPSpeaker31:08

       ʔXaxa.

   24. BSBeth Shapiro31:09

       (laughs) Yeah.

   25. SPSpeaker31:10

       Um, s-

   26. BSBeth Shapiro31:10

       I think it's the sound they're supposed to make, right?

   27. SPSpeaker31:13

       Oh.

   28. BSBeth Shapiro31:13

       So they sound like that. I don't know. Who knows?

   29. SPSpeaker31:15

       Hmm.

   30. BSBeth Shapiro31:15

       Anyway, they showed that you could get DNA from this skin and everybody was like, "That is the coolest thing that I've heard in a long time. Um, that must mean we can bring dinosaurs back to life." And everybody started racing to get the oldest and coolest DNA. And so there were papers in the best journals of science that never publish anything that's wrong ever, ever that said-
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Right. But there are…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      I'm good. I don't need the additional thrill.

   2. BSBeth Shapiro45:02

      Right. But there are places where there are big things, like dodos-

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:05

      Mm-hmm.

   4. BSBeth Shapiro45:05

      ... that are amazing and probably not going to kill you, so...

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:09

      Sure, there's some stuff that won't kill you.

   6. BSBeth Shapiro45:11

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:11

      Like giraffes.

   8. BSBeth Shapiro45:12

      Giraffes. I've been told that a giraffe is the dumbest animal, that-

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:15

      Really?

   10. BSBeth Shapiro45:16

       Yeah. I, I didn't know this. And I wouldn't have suspected it, because they're so gorgeous, and you wouldn't think that something that gorgeous would be so dumb. But I have friends who are... Matt James, who's the chief animal officer at Colossal, he's worked with, at lots of different zoos throughout his career, and he's told me that there are multiple occasions where he has had to save a giraffe from accidentally killing itself because it's so dumb.

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:35

       Wow.

   12. BSBeth Shapiro45:36

       Yeah. (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:37

       Well, they're so kind that they let babies feed them.

   14. BSBeth Shapiro45:39

       Oh, really? (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan45:40

       Yeah, you know?

   16. BSBeth Shapiro45:41

       Just, there's nothing going on in there.

   17. JRJoe Rogan45:42

       When my kids were little, you would, you could go to the San Diego Zoo and you would give them lettuce. And little babies are allowed to hold up, like, a two-year-old can hold up their arm and this enormous tongue comes wrapping around that piece of lettuce and they giggle and everything. But they trust them so much that they let little kids feed them.

   18. BSBeth Shapiro45:59

       Huh.

   19. JRJoe Rogan45:59

       Like, they set it up so people can feed these... And they seem so calm. They're like-

   20. BSBeth Shapiro46:05

       Docile, yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:05

       Yeah, like, they're just happy they're not getting eaten by lions.

   22. BSBeth Shapiro46:08

       Sounds a little dangerous to me, though. If they're, if they are genuinely stupid, will they accidentally, at some point, take that baby's hand? And then they have huge, strong necks.

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:16

       Right?

   24. NANarrator46:16

       Raptors.

   25. BSBeth Shapiro46:16

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan46:17

       Oh, yeah. They fight each other with their necks.

   27. NANarrator46:18

       It says they're kinda smart.

   28. JRJoe Rogan46:20

       Oh, really?

   29. BSBeth Shapiro46:20

       Hmm. But this is... I don't know.

   30. JRJoe Rogan46:22

       "The ability to make inferences-"
5. 1:00:00 – 1:10:07

   (laughs) …

   1. BSBeth Shapiro1:00:00

      VonHoldt who's at Princeton, who's a friend of mine, she was working and discovered, because people were sending her photos... See, this is why you have to pay attention to people who you think might be crazy when they send you pictures of things. You know, "Look at this cool, crazy thing that I think I've found." You shouldn't just discount it. I mean, I'm the person who has tested insulation that somebody told me Bigfoot peed on, and participated in that.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:20

      (laughs)

   3. BSBeth Shapiro1:00:20

      Because if it's real, I want to be the person who finds it. Right?

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:24

      Right. Yeah.

   5. BSBeth Shapiro1:00:25

      Yeah. So Bridgette says this guy who lives down in the, uh, the, the coast of Louisiana sent her a picture of an animal that she's like, "That is not a wolf and it is not a coyote, and I don't know what it is and it's crazy." And she looked at it and she goes, "Yeah. It's, it's not. It's something else. It's something in between those." And so she tested it and found that it has a ton of DNA ancestry from red wolves. And they're hybridized a little bit with coyotes, but all red wolves are hybridized a little bit with coyotes. Canids are always hybridizing with each other. We know that because, you know, there are wolves that are black because black gene for wolves got into the wolf population because a domestic dog had his way with a wolf in heat. Right?

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:01:09

      Wow.

   7. BSBeth Shapiro1:01:09

      And that's how that allele got into that population. So we know canids do this all the time. And she was like, "This is so cool." Because this captive breeding popu- population was established with just a few founder individuals, and the team working with them are doing a great job trying to maximize genetic diversity by picking who's gonna pair with who to keep all that diversity there. But it's still just a few individuals, so they are going to lose genetic diversity. It's just how it works. But if we can bring other individuals in from this population, that's a way of concentrating more diversity-... better able to pick which parts are red wolf, either by breeding individuals or by editing their DNA-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:48

      Hmm.

   9. BSBeth Shapiro1:01:48

      ... which is technology that we developed on the path to dire wolf, right? Um, and we can actually help this population to survive. So there, there are ways that we can do this for, for mammals that are gonna have really amazing consequences for the way we can protect biodiversity.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:02:03

       Well, that's fascinating for things like red wolves and things like that. But what, you know, what do you, like when you think of, like, the python problem in Florida, I heard the worst idea, the worst idea they were talking about introducing honey badgers.

   11. BSBeth Shapiro1:02:18

       (laughs) Honey badgers?

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:02:19

       Because they, because they eat snakes. I mean, I don't know if this was a serious idea.

   13. BSBeth Shapiro1:02:23

       Because we have never, as a species, humans-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:02:26

       (laughs)

   15. BSBeth Shapiro1:02:26

       ... introduced a thing to try to control a thing, and that thing that we introduced just went horribly wrong. We, we've never done that before, right, Australia? (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:02:34

       Right. Australia's a wreck.

   17. BSBeth Shapiro1:02:35

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:02:36

       They have a terrible feral cat problem.

   19. BSBeth Shapiro1:02:38

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:02:39

       Yeah. And-

   21. BSBeth Shapiro1:02:39

       And in, in Hawaii, they have these giant African land snails that-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:02:43

       Oh, yeah, I've heard of those.

   23. BSBeth Shapiro1:02:45

       Yeah, yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:02:45

       Yeah.

   25. BSBeth Shapiro1:02:45

       That they introduced this thing called a, a rosy wolf snail that they were going to get to eat the giant African land snails. But instead, the rosy wolf snail prefers the taste of native endemic Hawaiian snails. And so, the-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:58

       Oh, boy.

   27. BSBeth Shapiro1:02:59

       ... rosy wolf snail is leaving the giant snails alone. They're... And they're big. Have you seen one of those?

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:03:03

       I don't think I have.

   29. BSBeth Shapiro1:03:04

       A giant African land snail. It's worth looking at it. It's-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:03:07

       Did they come over on cargo ships or something?

Episode duration: 2:59:47