How Science Made Mewtwo 

Thanks for watching super nerds! *I should have been more clear* on one thing: because I interpreted the journals to mean that experiments were done on Mewtwo AFTER it was born, meaning that my approach also involves a kind of gene therapy (taking cells from an already born animal and putting modified cells back) in addition to cloning/transgenics. Thanks! -- kH

*Gen 1* "Mew gave birth". *Gen 2-7* "No one has ever seen a pokemon reproduce, but we found this egg".

“If I were experimented on I’d want to hide in a cave too” he says with his perfect flowing hair from inside his endless void.

In the Pokemon Manga, Mewtwo's Genetic Makeup contains Human DNA, specifically the Gym Leader Blaine of Cinnibar Island That could explain why Mewtwo is so much larger and more of a "Tube Kangaroo" as you put it

Hey Kyle, pretty good theory overall, but I think there are some things you overlooked about mew's biology and lore. 1st, Mew's genome; According to multiple Pokedex entries Mew's genome contains the genome of EVERY Pokemon, most of which is probably stored in non-coding sections of the DNA. This means that you would't need to introduce new genetic material to Mewtwo's genome at all, you would just need to alter the expression of those genes. Researchers in real life have already done similar experiments with chicken embryos, turning on deactivated genes to give the chicken more dinosaurian traits like teeth and scales. 2nd, The move Transform; You mentioned getting plazmids from Ditto, because It can use the move Transform. That is unnecessary in this case because Mew is the only other Pokemon capable of using Transform. It could be that Mew is activating the other Pokemon's DNA in the non-coding section of it's DNA when transforming. In fact there is a pretty well-substantiated theory that Ditto are failed clones of Mew since they share many characteristics and Ditto are usually found in places related to Mew, like the Pokemon Mansion and Cerulean Cave. 3rd, Mew birthing Mewtwo; We've seen in the first Pokemon Movie and in Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee that Mewtwo was grown in a tank likely filled some sort of amniotic fluid substitute. It could be that Mewtwo was put in here as a zygote or very early in development and that is when the researchers altered it's gene expression like they did IRL with chicken embryos. The "Mew giving birth" part may be metaphorical in this case, or could be referring to a Cesarean Section preformed on Mew when Mewtwo got too big for Mew's reproductive system. 4th, Mewtwo's anger management issues; There is another theory surrounding Mewtwos creation which states that Human DNA was also used which gave it increased intelligence, and possibly it's more humanoid appearance and size. Also adding a human level of consciousness and human emotions are likely the cause of Mewtwo's anger issues when it realized what it was and why it was created. This could also be what the game was referring to when it talked about the "Horrific gene splicing."

But Kyle Uppercut is not super effectiv against Zubat. Zubat is a Poison/Flying type which means Fighting type moves will only do 1/4 the damage they normaly would. P.S. Love the show

When I was a kid I watched Bill Nye. Now I'm 30 and watch Because Science. #Nerdforlife

RU-vid...is evolving into...ACTUALLY WORKING! I got a subscription notification for once!

For the love of Arceus go buy some Repels, man!

You've mentioned that gene splicing is extremely unlikely to work and only has a small chance to actually produce a stable "creature" which would function properly. This goes hand in hand with the theory that Ditto is most likely a failed clone of Mew. The evidence is undeniable. First of, they're both pink and share the same color pallet. Secondly, Mew is the only Pokemon able to learn every move in the game due to being the genetic ancestor of all Pokemon. Ditto, can only learn a single move, which is Transform, but by using that move, it can in theory use any move in the game aswell, just like Mew but with an extra step. Furthermore, Mew has perfectly balanced base stats in the game, 100 HP, 100 Attack, 100 Defense, etc. It is the only Pokemon in the game where all stats are the same... The only one except for Ditto, which has 48 across the board, evenly balanced and conveniently just below half of Mew. Coincidence? And lastly, probably the biggest piece of evidence. Guess where the only locations are you could encounter Ditto in Pokemon Yellow? That's right, the Pokemon Mansion where Mewtwo was cloned and the Cave where Mewtwo resides. There has clearly been thoughts put into the connection between Ditto and Mew/Mewtwo when the game was created. (Also Ditto looks like your cliché failed clone attempt, it's just a blob of goo.) It makes perfect sense for there to be a lot of Dittos around to encounter in the Pokemon Mansion, it's because they had to go through A LOT of trial and error when cloning Mew and Dittos were the result of those attempts.

Scientists: If Mew is so good, why there's no Mewtwo? "Genius!" _creates Mewtwo_

It's super cool how science has (kinda) caught up sci-fi technobabble.

7:11 Using "Sky uppercut" (a fighting move) on a Zubat (Poison/Flying) is as far off from super effective as you could reasonably get. But you're a strong man from all that climbing so I'll give you STAB atleast.

"with a lot of luck and a little bit of literally" Hahahaha!!! I love the writing on this channel.

>Kadabra instead of Alakazam >Staryu instead of Starmie Kyle plz. I thought we were trying to make the world's most powerful pokémon here.

There is problem though. _Mew already can Transform_ and you don't need Ditto for plasmids at all. Actually, this makes things much simpler, because we can then assume that Mew (and therefore Mewtwo) itself has plasmids in its own cells (much like many bacteria and possibly even Ditto). Then, you wouldn't need an external vector at all because you can straight up use plasmids from Mewtwo's own cells. This also eliminates the potential issue of Mewtwo not properly accepting the new genes inserted into it. Basically, if that were true, you can save a lot of resources coz you don't need Ditto anymore. I won't say I love the show because that's technically implied at this point. Keep it up!

Mew is no kitteh, it's a gerbil, a desert mouse =D And if I remember correctly Mew was the forerunner of every other Pokemon in Arceus's creation, that's why it can learn every move there is. So no need to splice in other genes. You just have to switch around those you already have. But I get why you explained it like this and found it a nice way to show how to splice. Keep it up!

"poor tube kangaroo...." Favorite line so far....

Well, you can only have one Mewtwo, after him you would get a Mewthree, Mewfour, etc

"Son of a Glitch"? Hmmmm... This sounds... familiar... _cough cough_ A+Start _cough_

Wouldn't it be easier to apply genetic splicing to the "zygote" before triggering it's mitosis instead of applying it to the full grown pokemon or is it not possible to do that?

I actually understood everything here. I guess my biology classes this semester paid off 😂

You randomly encountered the Mewtwo after several zubats but Mewtwo is a static encounter so you can't stumble upon it. Also, the game mentions Guyana which is interesting because, pokefact, the Kanto region where Cerulean Cave is its based on a real life region in Japan called Kanto. Great video, BS team!

Mewtwo: Hides in cave to await the strongest opponent. 10 year old kid: Throws Masterball at beginning of fight. Mewtwo: Am I a joke to you?

So thor decided to become a pokescientist after endgame

Hey Kyle, could you analyze the defeat of Kars, from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure? If the volcano and rocks could have sent him to space, if he could have survived lava and if there was a way he could have got back to earth. It's a pretty interesting case.

EPISODE SUGGESTION!!!! Attempt to determine Sonic's speed in the new trailer during the scene where he dodges missiles.

"Oh, *Son Of A **_GLITCH!"_*

This sounds a lot like what happened to Jeff Goldblum in David Cronenberg's 1986 masterpiece The Fly. Let's cover that next.

"C'mon if its another zubat I'm gonna loose my sh--" - Literally everyone of us playin pokémon back in the day

But ditto is a failed mew clone so u couldn't have grabbed that gene

“tube kangaroo” honestly i love this man

BTW, Mewtwo is definitely the most charismatic human created pokemon in gen 1 but I would be WAY more curious how we managed to create Porygon, a digital construct that can exist beyond digital space.

Pretty darn good episode. I quite enjoyed that. The only major thing I would add is that Mew actually knows the move transform (as it should considering it is the ancestor of a Pokemon). Since Mew already contains the blueprints for all Pokemon, it is far more likely that Mewtwo is the result of the scientists trying to breed a cloned version of Mew that more actively exhibits certain traits Mew already had the capability of expressing.

Explain Missingno with Science! XD

One of your best episodes: perfectly plausible, smoothly narrated and totally canon in both the universes. Amazing work!

A real scientist would know that rare candies are bad. I R O N Y

Don't call Mewtwo a armored tubed kangaroo :(

Mewtwo is too good that there's a Mewtwo part two

Hi Kyle! Love the show, and I really loved your approach to creating Mewtwo using specific Pokémon to express the moves that it uses. I feel like the scientists may have used a few more Pokémon in this experiment as well, such as Gengar for Shadow Ball and Electrode for Explosion, both are things we see Mewtwo do in the first movie. Perhaps the scientists tried all 149 other Pokémon (maybe excluding the legendary birds) to see which experiments would survive, thus leading to the higher attempt count similar to the horse cloning experiment

OBJECTION!! uppercut would not have been a super effective move on zubat with it being a fighting type move and zubat being a poison/flying pokemon.

In the mangas, the scientists actually ran out of cells to fully form Mewtwo with, so one of them extracted their own cells and put it into Mewtwo. This is actually a very fascinating idea, as not only does it explain Mewtwo's humanoid appearance, but it also makes sense with it's psychology being an animal mentality with human emotions and intellegence.

Ditto mentioned, but not the fact he's probably a failed Mew clone?

The lore around Mr. Fuji was pretty cool. In emerald, if you cheated and made it to faraway island where mew is found, there's a sign that was posted by Fuji. Then there's all his journals and the pokedex's descriptions of how mewtwo was made and how horrible it was. And earlier in red and blue, you visit an old Mr. Fuji in his home, where he takes in and cares for abused Pokemon. A real 180 with that guy.

As a Brazillian Pokémon trainer since 1999 and that played every single game since then.... Mewtwo is not a Villain... He just thinks that humain being are cruel (and they are) for everything they done to him and other Pokémon, all he wants is to go in to a lonely place and live there with other clones, wich he manage to get for a while until... Guess what.... Humans ruined that too... In the end he "sets" free the clone Pokémon to go over the world once he realize that what they wanted and that others Pokémon would not discriminate them... In the end it's not a Villain but a fruit the Human arrogance... Not born, but created... And all he wanted was to leave in peace... Alone... But humans wanted to use him as weapon... I Love Mewtwo! PS: Pokémon is in my family roots... My daughter and nephew also LOVES Pokémon, not only "like it"... Pokémon, Star Wars, Harry Potter and Resident Evil are the pillar to a healty family rofl #JK MEGA EDIT: What about a DITTO video?!?!?!?!?!??!?! Heyyyy it's a good ideia =]

kyle hill: ur pokemon cant get atronger with rare candies wolfeyvgc: laughs in competitive pokemon

But my question is, can I use this to make a Meloetta?

“I took *ONE STEP* -Oh it’s a zubat not even worth it...”

What would you say to the idea of Mewtwo being part human?

Omg, I lost it when he said "It was a geodude btw" 🤣🤣

At least MewTwo is not that scary than the Sonic movie

"You were so caught up with whether you could you never stopped to think if you should!"

Hummm this all makes sense for you to do Kyle, since your obviously a clone of thor with gene splicing of Bill Nye and Adam Savage. And now we all know your origin story.

I cant stop focusing on the two lights reflected in each of Kyle's eyes. Now that Ive noticed it I cant unsee it and it looks like he has freaky spider eyes.

Any theories on why MewTwo n Mew look so different?

Pretty sure Mewtwo was a test tube baby in almost every canon

We have the army of Pokemons at your side... *Me:* [run towards the strongest Pokemon in history and punches it]

Kudos 2 whoever illustrated the Mew in the episode.

DON'T BE A ZUBAT Edit: Oh good, it wasn't.

But sometimes no matter how many rare candies you may have, your Pokémon just won't get strong enough Missingno : hold my data.

I wounder if we'd be able to use grafting techniques to Frankenstein different elements from Grass types (should be classified as Plant type fight me) together to create new super Grafted Modified Pokemon (Hence forth known as G.M.P.'s) We'd probably also be able to just combine a large number of Grass types together, just think of how powerful a solar beam we could generate from a large fields of growing Glooms in parallel connections. And we shall use these G.M.P's to combat all forms of pollution and the destruction of nature!

Loved all the Pokémon references. It is always a Zubat (except when it’s a Geodude) and any Grimers is too many.

Hey Kyle, a punch (fighting type move) on a Zubat (a flying type pokemon) would not be super effective, in fact quite the opposite.

I felt very satisfied getting closure on what kind of Pokémon you ran into.

Dittos are failed Mew/Mewtwo clones: change my mind...

I was hoping that this was going be a video of how we could make an actual Mewtwo (or at least a creature that looks like mewtwo) in real life, but I love this too.

I feel like Kyle is a bad Pokemon trainer... Raichu, Staryu, Kadabra, and Vaporeon. On top of that actually uses escape ropes over having a Dugtrio?

Fun thing I learned about SCNT: I did a paper last semester on de-extinction, or the process of restoring extinct species. Somatic cell nuclear transfer is one of the most popular theoretical methods for de-extinction. The catch is that it is only doable for cells that are fresh or relatively so and in great shape. This wouldn't allow us to play Dr. Wu, but we could maybe try to grow something older than a few thousand years if we got an extremely good specimen. So, not Jurassic Park, but Pliocene Park at the best.

Seems like school did its job. Or at least the biology prof. because i was like yep knew that.

The way you explained how to theoretically create Mewtwo just sounds like breeding the perfect Pokémon for battling. You want the best IV’s, EV’s, and personality depending on the Pokémon.

Kyle, what's your level? You just OHKOd a Zubat with Sky Uppercut, a fighting-type move, that's not super effective. Actually you only did 1/4 of the damage, Zubat is Poison/Flying. And I thinking that you only knew Rock Climb.

I didn't realize that you said random names at the end of videos until I watched some of the live videos. Even though it was random, it still took me by surprise and made me smile :)

But Kyle, Dittos are failed attempts at cloning Mew/creating Mewtwo. So how could you use a Ditto as a "vector" for creating a perfect Mewtwo? 🤔 Also, you might want to use a MAX-REPEL to keep the Zubats away 😊👍🏻

Mewtwo's violent tendancies are probably not the result the genetic engineering, but the horrifying nature of the process that that entailed.

You forgot to add a machoke dna so we could get a mega Mewtwo X.

According to the in-game lore, Mew is supposed to have the genetic material of all pokemon, and I think that would change the way you would approach tinkering with it's genetic code, since it isn't so much adding to it, but rather activating or inactivating which genes it expresses out of its natural gene pool, be it through removing genes from it or through epigenetic changes. I know that the games say gene splicing, but it seems more likely to me that the scientists of the project would focus on gene expression and epigenetics because you don't have to change the DNA of every cell on an organism's body, just the expression, and thus is much more feaseable. Especially on a subject which already hosts all the necesary genes you would ever want. In the real world techniques exist that let you turn on or off certain genes in lab animals, and I recently learned on a simposium that scientists are working treatments for humans that have a kill switch, so that you give the patient the treatment and if it works as intended then you leave it alone, but if it starts acting out somewhere it shouldn't or the effect isn't the desired one then you can give the patient a drug that destroys it and as long as they take it everything goes back to the way it was. Lastly it is interesting to think about pokemon reproduction and the in-game mechanic of egg moves. In the games pokemon can reproduce with pokemon outside their own species, as long as the parents share at least one egg group. Sometimes if the male knows the right move the offspring will be born knowing said move, even if they can't learn it naturally through leveling up. If we think back to how mew has all the genes of all the pokemon it could mean that the different species we now have have been the result of different mew populatioms evolving (the darwinian way, not the pokemon way) into different species of pokemon, and that while over time most of the genetic material has been selectively taken out of the gene pool enough remains so that two different pokemon can breed and produce viable, fertile offspring that has the genes for those dormant moves activated and thus can use them in battle. Wait... Is that what TMs, HMs and Move Tutors do!? Gene modification therapy to induce the expression of genes in the already existing genetic code of the pokemon!? It seems there is still a lot more we could speculate about pokemon genetics that just the cloning of Mewtwo.

So..... did you pick Ditto as a Vector because it was a failed Mew Clone and would be the Pokemon equivalent of the "other 840 attempts"? Also, with "horrific gene splicing experiments" you can pretty much use that itself to explain the physical differences.... for example, they could've even used human cells for the experiments to see what would happen.... it's also possible that some of its body is artificial material created to hold the creature together when experimentation when horrifyingly wrong.... I'm saying that because (outside of the live action film) its tail and rest of its body are two different colors and look like they were put together rather than.... grown at the same time.... so why couldn't some or all of the body be an artificial shell that was created to hold the decaying body of Mewtwo inside with the head of Mewtwo being held together (explaining the ear differences), the back tube essentially providing nutrients from an artificial stomach setup, and the tail perhaps being a portion of the original body that survived (it might even be everything except the arms and legs which were attached to the much larger artificial shell so it could walk without much alteration) I'm just theory-crafting some explanations as to why it looks like a bigger and more badass version of Mew, and it could very easily have a lot to do with that it was a near perfect clone that, through gene splicing and tampering could've become incapable of surviving any longer.... but that's my personal thoughts after seeing this video.

As far as I know to clone an animal you need a somatic cell and a germinal cell from different animals or the nucleus would be rejected, so you would need 2 mew to clone one.

All I can say is thank God he addressed what that last encounter was, that was gonna drive me nuts.

This is your best video in a long time. Love this.

Your moveset is Rock climb Power up punch Future sight Ice punch

Hi Kyle, fun episode! I was thinking about something that would help stabilize your theory a little. In Pokemon lore, Mew was essentially the first Pokemon and was created by Arceus to become/birth every Pokemon in the world. That, and the fact that it can learn Transform, would probably make clones from it a lot more stable or even easier to genetically modify, since all of its offspring are supposed to be unique Pokemon. You could think of MewTwo as the result of some sort of feedback loop, too; forcing the Pokemon that can only give birth to new Pokemon to give birth to itself would probably result in some screwy science.

But can science fix Sonic?

Lol wow, great idea using Ditto as the vector between the Mew and his power sources. That's something I never would have thought of.

I subscribed 20 minutes ago and got a notification.

As a biotechnologist, a molecular biologist and an avid Pokemon player, i heartily approve the science in this video! Good job! :D

Just to clarify: somatic cell nuclear transfer is the cloning method you've mentioned in the past that could be used to bring back the woolly mammoth using a modern elephant, correct? Also: >Kadabra, not Alakazam >Staryu, not Starmie

It's also worth remembering Dolly: the first cloned sheep, which died earlier than most sheep

0 comments! If I type fast enough, I might get into footnotes! D:

How did I miss the inevitable "Horse Gives Birth to Itself" headline when that horse cloning thing happened?

Someone is gonna point out that it's not /poe-key-mon/, but the é is supposed to sound like the 'e' in 'pocket', because they are pocket-monsters. But as long as you know this, I don't really care how you pronounce it, as long as you're consistent.

I thought that DNA Recombination technique only worked with bacteria. Also, talk about plasmids from Bioshock, PLEASE!

Wouldn't be better to modify the genes before the insemination process?

I believe mewtwo's moveset is the end results of the experiments that were done on him and what was needed for him to survive. Psychic so that his mind could stay intact and focused, barrier for protection as previous iterations would have been fragile or weak, recover for the eminent damage of said experiments, etc.

Nice little dig at anti-GMO marketing. Perhaps you could expand on the topic a bit more in a footnotes episode to help people understand just how misleading and harmful it is.

Dear Kyle, Your void is immaculately lit. That is, considering it’s a void and all.

knowing this, I think it makes even more sense to think that Dittos are failed experiments leading to Mewtwo. They would have their genes expressed incorrectly and would end up unable to hold their form

"Pokémon Mansion...too many Grimer!" Yeah, and not enough Growlithe. 😄

When you wake up in the morning and mewtwo is standing by your door I'd say oh fuck that mewtwo

Did anyone else scream "It's ALIVE!" when Kyle talked about zapping the cells with electricity to start cell division? :P