Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life | Dr. Beth Shapiro

As someone who does a lot of public science health education interaction, I, there, there are a couple things that get the public really worried and that they need reassurance on.

Honestly, I think it dates back to the pandemic.

Hmm.

There's a lot of distrust about scientists.

There is this belief that some scientists are only concerned with themselves.

Mm-hmm.

It's an important myth, in my opinion, to dispel the idea that most scientists are not w- what I believe them to be, which is they're trying very hard to get answers right to do good for the world, including other species, and it, they're not so careerist that they're willing to overlook that.

Independent of the r- IRB boards and the thing that, the, the, the constraints that force them to, to do that, but th- that is the era we're living in, right? So I think that some people think more now in terms of, you know, scientists are, like, doing stuff 'cause they can.

This has parallel conversations about AI, where people are thinking like, "Hey, like, have we really thought this one through?" And people are s- are scared, but I totally agree with, with what you're saying.

And I wanna talk about two species to try and highlight this and how it can be done right because I, I think it's clear that you're trying to do this right, which means for the, the best possible outcomes for humans and other species.

And the first are mosquitoes.

Hmm.

And the second are humans.

Most people don't care about mosquitoes, but some years ago I started paying attention to mosquitoes because your very own Howard Hughes director now, I think Leslie Vosshall, works on the olfactory system of mosquitoes and other insects, and turns out bugs find mates and find things to suck blood from and et cetera by odors.

Uh-huh.

And pheromones, but odors.

And so there w- this idea, oh, mosquitoes have malaria.

This wasn't Leslie's idea, but it was like, um, mosquitoes have malaria.

Let's just get rid of all the, the mosquitoes.

Right.

And the biologists were like, "No.

You can't do that 'cause then the birds are gonna suffer-

Right

... 'cause they eat the mosquitoes," and on and on and on.

I mean, this stuff can really domino and Like, it sounds like a great idea.