Latif Nasser

Was when it struck me that in a way, all of this diversity that's out there, all this biological diversity, all these wonderful and amazing and alien things that other species can do is like an extension of our own brains.

There's so much imagination out there that we simply could not come up with on our own.

That we can think of it as a pool of imagination and creativity from which we as humans are able to draw.

And that when we draw down on that pool of creativity and imagination...

we deeply impoverish ourselves.

In a sense, we are doing harm to our own ability to think and to dream.

McKinnon's book is called The Once and Future World.

He's written many, but this one is my fave.

Deep thanks to Carl Zimmer, who's reporting in The New York Times on this topic, is really what got us launched into this whole thing.

And what got us through this whole thing is Simon Adler, whose production assistance was invaluable.

That was him.

Freezing his ass off in the marsh.

I talked so long, he nearly died.

His toes fell off, I think.

Anyway, thank you, Simon.

Thank you, Simon.

And thank you guys for listening.

I'm Jad Abumrad.

I'm Robert Prolich.

We'll see you next time.