Live in Dallas: Colossal Labs, Rosabel, & the JFK Assassination

"Fucking idiots." That's how Flightless Bird host David Farrier described the tourists who stand on the spot where JFK was assassinated in Dallas. It was one of many observations during the podcast's first live show in Texas, recorded at the very theater where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. The episode wove together three distinct threads: a visit to Colossal Biosciences, the de-extinction company that recently brought back a version of the dire wolf; a conversation with JFK assassination expert Robin Brown; and a running culture-clash commentary from New Zealand co-host Rosabel, who found Dallas's roads, trucks, and self-confidence equally terrifying.

The De-Extinction Lab: Real Jurassic Park, With Conservation Attached

The most substantive segment of the show was a deep dive into Colossal Biosciences, a company headquartered in Dallas that aims to "make extinction a thing of the past." Stefano Darzo Orangot, Colossal's manager of conservation partnerships, walked the audience through the science. Unlike Jurassic Park, where fictional scientists filled dinosaur DNA gaps with frog DNA, Colossal works with recently extinct species that still have preserved genetic material. Woolly mammoths flash-froze themselves in permafrost; moa (a 12-foot-tall flightless bird from New Zealand) preserved themselves in dry, alkaline caves.