tonight on "nightline," who needs college? it's been called one of the year's most fashionable ideas. college isn't worth it. we talk to the billionaire investor who is now paying students to drop out of school. what's so smart about that? resurrected? it's a genetic cousin of the zebra and the last one died in 1883. so, what is it doing running around in 2011? and, grill time. this memorial day doesn't have to be all burgers and dogs. tonight, a master of the tongs drops a few quick tips for doing fish right on the grill. >> announcer: from the global

resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, this is "nightline," may 27th, 2011. >> good evening, i'm terry moran. 65% of americans have college debt. maybe you're one of them. and total student debt in this country at nearly $1 trillion is now greater than total credit card debt. that's partly because more people are going to college, even as college costs skyrocket. having decided that the sacrifice is worth it. but is it, really? tonight, we meet a man who made billions in silicone valley who says the answer is often no. here's linsey davis. >> look at a day like this, you would think anything is possible. >> reporter: and you probably think so, too, if you were peter thiel. he's the silicon valley version of the man behind the curtain in "the wizard of oz." he didn't give you a brain, a heart or courage, but he had a

lot to do with giving you paypal, facebook, youtube and yelp. he's now paying students who drop out of college, is surprising for a guy who went to stanford for undergrad and law school. but maybe it's his own story that helped lead him to this conclusion. he was a derives trader before cofounding paypal at 31. so, how did you come up with the idea? >> we were trying to come up -- we were looking at all the new payment companies that people were trying to start and we realized you had to do something with real money and you had to do something where you could get people involved who weren't signed up yet. the brainstorm, the main insight was to link money and e-mail together. >> reporter: to say that combination turned out to be a winning one is an understatement. ebay bought paypal in 2002 for $1.5 billion, earning thiel $55 million. some of which he used to invest in promising startups. most famously, facebook.

his $500,000 investment is now worth $1.5 billion. has it exceeded your expectations, the success? >> absolutely. >> reporter: his status as the company's first silicon valley investor earned him the full hollywood treatment. >> sean, he'll be right with you. >> reporter: when he was portrayed in "the social network." >> congratulations. we're going to start you off with $500,000. >> reporter: when did the lightbulb go off for you that this could be something? >> i spent a lot of time looking at all the social networking businesses for a few years before then. so, i was pretty primed and ready to go. i basically told them i'd invest after meeting them for an hour or so. i was ready to go. >> reporter: more than gut instinct. thiel is also a genius. literally. as a child, he was a math phenom and chess champion. so, don't try this at home. >> the only mistake that you

made, just in general principle ises, when you moved your knight to the side you never want to do that. in general, a knight in the middle it can move to more squares. >> reporter: thank you. i'll never do that again. thiel's known for making excentric moves. >> and if you are doing something genuinely new it will always look a little bit weird and strange. >> reporter: he funds this institute, devoted to making self-governing communities in the middle of the ocean. and he's donated millions to promote research into extending human life expectancy by reversing the aging process. would you personally want to live for 200 years? >> i -- i enjoy my life. i think it's -- i certainly would like to live longer. >> reporter: so, people who know thiel really weren't all that surprised that his latest project is a little out there. >> college is sort of on the one

hand, giving people learning, on the other hand, taking away future opportunities by loading the next generation down with debt. >> reporter: he started a $2 million fund to pay promising teens all under the age of $20100,000 each to drop out of college and start up a business. students like jim danielson, one of theme's fellows who is pulling the plug on purdue because he's worried about missing the boat on electric cars. >> no engine at all. >> reporter: he started tinkering in high school and managed to turn this car into a fully electric car. he learned to do it on the internet for free. >> if i waited until i finished my college degree, a lot could be changed. >> reporter: the critics will say, well, peter thiel, he went to stanford, he has his law degree, easy for him to say, well, not everybody has to go to college. >> facebook was started in 2004. that was the right time to start that company. if all the people involved had

finished their college education and waited until 2006, 2007, it would have been too late for that business. >> reporter: his theory is right on time. "new york magazine" recently rated the worthlessness of a college degree as one of the year's most fashionable ideas. >> it's gone up by a factor of more than ten. adjusted for inflation, it's gone up by about 300%. more than housing or tech stocks. it's been an incredible runup. >> reporter: isn't it a long-term investment? for example, the typical person who has graduated from college is likely to make two times more over their lifetime than the person who just has a high school diploma. >> doesn't that say something that's gone wrong with our society that it's become so critical to get these credentials? and what does it say when anyone with just a high school degree has no prospects in our society? >> reporter: that kind of thinking has made him the poster boy for the growing movement in

silicon valley that believes government hinders innovation. but he doesn't hue to the conservative stereotype. people have said you are a walking contradiction if they you are gay, republican, very religious. >> i probably am a bit of an outsider in many ways and that has good things and bad things about it. it does have the tremendous benefit of forcing you to really think about what's going on with institutions, with our society and then look for ways to make them better. >> reporter: back in our chess game that intense focus was on full display. despite a packed schedule, he only got excited when it seemed we might not have time to finish our game. >> give me one more minute. i need one more minute. competitive mania here. >> reporter: because once peter thiel starts something, he's determined not only to finish but to win. >> all right, well, i'm going to go check mate. >> reporter: in san francisco, for "nightline," linsey davis,

abc news. >> nice try there. and thanks for that story. just ahead, a four-legged wonder that went extinct in the 19th century. but now, by all appearances, is back. how can that be? the stronger the rapids, the more we loved it.

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with terry moran. >> we humans are adaptable. we can live right on top of each other in high rise cities. we're not tied to any one source of water or food. our greatest advantage might be that unlike many animals, we can survive living with us. tonight, jeremy hubbard checks out an effort to bring back one of the species humans have

driven to extinct for our series "into the wild." >> reporter: what if the saber tooth tiger and the mighty wooly mammoth roamed the earth once more, like it was 10,000 b.c.? is it so farfetched? japanese scientists say this beast could be cloned back in as few as four years. >> years ago i would have same impossible. now, it is just within the bounds of possibility. >> reporter: certainly sounds like the stuff of "jurassic park." but it was a real scientific breakthrough that was said to inspire the tale in 1984, this special kind of zebra became the first animal from which sign timss successfully retrieved ancient dna. the last remaini inin ining one captivity back in 1883. >> and went extinct because

settlers found it very easy to shoot. it was inquisitive and had no fear of the new animals that were arriving. >> reporter: now, a group is working to bring it back from the bone yard. >> it started when a local taxidermist thought it might be feasible to rebreed, using living plain zebra animals by choosing some of the lesser striped ones. >> reporter: eric harley has been working for 25 years on a project to restore this animal back to life, by breeding it back from its most common an sesor. how is that possible? researchers say it hinges on the notion that it's not a separate species, merely, a sub species of plain zebra. >> and it also means that the genes may still be there in the current living population of plain zebra, but in dliluted form. and we can get back animals

showing the full appearance of the original. >> reporter: dr. fleischer had studied all from around the world. >> they might actually have been a distinct specie. the science is a little bit muddies so far. >> reporter: or is it? dr. harley and his team say they have been successful, they've done it. they've restored the animal from the dead. >> i think people get really excited, because, here is an example of where anal ma is thought to be extinct and we managed to bring it back again. >> reporter: so, are they roaming south africa's nature reserves really the animal? >> the goal of the project is simple. to retrieve or restore the animal with a physical appearance of the original. but since there's no particular reason to suppose that it had any special adaptations, there's

really no need to suppose that if we get an animal back that looks like it that it would not reasonably justified in calling it that. >> reporter: it looks the same, it lives the same, but it is not the same. >> right. be like saying if you took a volkswagen car, removed the body and replace itted with a porsche body, well, you still have a volkswagen. >> reporter: is there still some significance what they are doing? >> moving zebras into that habitat that is probably a fine thing to do. they certainly are genetically close enough, they can be an equivalent. but if they are trying to make the claim that they are restoring this exact species, i think that's falling short. >> reporter: but the scientists working on the prairie of south africa disagree, and they are undeterred. convinced they are already resurrected one breed of animal. could a wooly mammoth one day stomp around? the science fiction geek in me wants to believe this opens the

door for dinosaurs to roam the earth again. >> well, the science fiction nerd in me thinks this is really interesting and fascinating. but the science nerd in me -- >> reporter: the real scientist. >> the science nerd says that this is maybe not something that is that feasible and if it is, do we need to do it or should we? >> reporter: a modern day "ice age?" >> does this look like a petting zoo to you? >> reporter: maybe we're better off leaving the wooly mammoths on ice. i'm jeremy hubbard for on ice. i'm jeremy hubbard for "nightline" in washington. me ev well, hotels know they can't fill every room every day. like this one. and this one. and oops, my bad. so, they give expedia ginormous discounts with these: unpublished rates. which means i get an even more rockin' hotel, for less. .

every night at craigie on main, his local restaurant in massachusetts, chef tony maws demonstrates that animals can be delicious from nose to tail. he was declared the best chef in the northeast this year. he shows us how it's done in tonight's "plate list." >> i'm a boston boy. he grew up here, absolutely. i'm a red sox fan. i grew up in a family that loved great food, you know, whether friday was pizza night. we were about, where's the best pizza? or sunday night was chinese food night, we had our favorite spot. so, you know, some how it just all clicked. so, what we have here is actually a mix of two different flours. the rye and the double zero. so you can see it going around right now. and we're adding the carroway.

just yolks for richness. now we're going to finish with water. now we're going to led this knead. i had no dreams or aspirations. i was just so thrilled to be cooking food. i almost wish i was a line cook again. i wish i could have those days back. now i have to worry about all of it and everybody. and now we've got spirals the aroma is simply incredible. my son is 2 1/2 and this is one of our favorite things to do. he can zillionsit for hours and the noodles come out. a little bit of water, olive oil. you want to cook your pasta in your sauce for a little while because the noodle is going to absorb that sauce and you'll have much better flavor and texture. some beautiful grated cheese. we have ourselves an awesome treat for lunch. where did my fork go?

that is awesome. there are a lot of people who love food, don't get to do this job. in some ways, it's the best job in the world and some ways it's the worst job in the world. sometimes i don't wish this upon anybody. people ask, will your son become a chef? yikes. what often gets missed is this one part, right here. got a lot of great fat. it is also part of the fish that's not used a lot when it's swimming. so, it's tender. normally when you cut a fish, one of the first things you do is cut off the filet right here. we're going to put this away for right now. so, what we're going to do is, we're going to cut this piece off. you can do this -- the easiest way is just with some kitchen shears. we made a really simple rub. we're just going to cover it. we used the olive oil, chopped up ginger and garlic. then we're going to be off to the grill. i'm expected to perform at the

highest level every night for every plate. if i don't bat 1,000 in my job i'm crap. we're on this wheel of trying to get to perfection, knowing that we're never going to get there. we're has sew fists. it's unbelievable. and yet that's the thrill of it. medium high heat on the drill. so, here we have our super tasty male. sometimes you don't have to do a lot to make something really tasty. this is meant to be picked apart with your hands. man. i mean, it's sensual. it's emotional, physical. but bottom line, good food makes you happy. and very few things have that power. if anything else. and that, to me, is magical. >> you can find those recipes for those dishes on our website at abcnews.com/nightline. weod luck in the kitchen this