a16z Podcast: Making a (Really) Wild Geo-Engineering Idea Real

The a16z Show · Jul 18, 2017 · 30m

Here’s what we know: There’s a pair (father and son) of Russian scientists trying to resurrect (or rather, "rewild") an Ice Age (aka Pleistocene era) biome (grassland) complete with (gene edited, lab-grown) woolly mammoths (derived from elephants). In Arctic Siberia (though, not at the one station there that Amazon Prime delivers to!).

Here's what we don't know: How many genes will it take? (with science doing the "sculpting" and nature doing the "polishing")? How many doctors will it take to make? (that is, grow these 200-pound babies in an artificial womb)? What happens if these animals…