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We've seen this mentioned over the last few years. Now a new book, reviewed below, explores the possibilities and issues. I don't share her pessimism/objections, especially on more recently extinct species.
I will post more if asked. I don't know if WSJ Book Review is paywalled as the main articles.
IAC, if one googles the title one can usually find a successful google referral link.
The New Science of De-extinction
Could scientists bring back Tyrannosaurus, king of the dinosaurs, or the king of the birds, the dodo? And what about the King himself, Elvis Presley? Brian Switek reviews “Bring Back the King” by Helen Pilcher.
Brian Switek - Wall Street Journal - Jan. 20, 2017
The New Science of De-extinction
I will post more if asked. I don't know if WSJ Book Review is paywalled as the main articles.
IAC, if one googles the title one can usually find a successful google referral link.
The New Science of De-extinction
Could scientists bring back Tyrannosaurus, king of the dinosaurs, or the king of the birds, the dodo? And what about the King himself, Elvis Presley? Brian Switek reviews “Bring Back the King” by Helen Pilcher.
Brian Switek - Wall Street Journal - Jan. 20, 2017
The New Science of De-extinction
Mammoths went extinct practically yesterday. This might not seem to be the case in the context of a human life span—the last of the woollies perished on an island north of Siberia around 4,000 years ago—but from the perspective of all Earth’s history we’re living on a planet with a mammoth-shaped hole in it. As Helen Pilcher explains in “Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-Extinction,” some researchers want to change that
Almost every new mammoth discovery raises questions of cloning. In 2013, for example, Russian researchers presented an incredibly well-preserved mammoth found on the Lyakhovsky Islands off the Siberian coast, intact down to what was later confirmed to be degraded blood running from the thawing carcass. Blaring headlines touted not what the specimen could tell us about an extinct species but how we’d soon all be lining up to see resurrected mammoths at the zoo. But just as “Jurassic Park” skipped over the difficulties in turning ancient DNA into living organisms, modern fantasies about riding extinct elephants to work “Flintstones”-style have overlooked the extremely complicated nature of trying to re-create what has been lost.
The push for de-extinction, Ms. Pilcher says, is going on at various labs all over the world and is focused on everything from gastric-brooding frogs that incubate their young in their stomachs (and went extinct only some 30 years ago) to the passenger pigeon and, of course, our favorite shaggy Ice Age beast. Chapter by chapter she presents a short roll call of creatures that have been name-dropped as candidates for de-extinction, with a few extra centered on various prominent “King” species (“King of the Cavemen,” “King of the Birds” and so on). Celebrity is important here. De-extinction advocates are savvy marketers and know that any animal worth putting their effort into “has to be a well-known, larger than life showstopper,” as Ms. Pilcher writes. So, then, could scientists bring back Tyrannosaurus, king of the dinosaurs, or, in Ms. Pilcher’s pick for king of the birds, the dodo? And what about the King himself, Elvis Presley? Can genetic innovation return us to lost worlds, be they the Cretaceous or Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” heyday?
The answer, for the most part, is “no.”"..."
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Almost every new mammoth discovery raises questions of cloning. In 2013, for example, Russian researchers presented an incredibly well-preserved mammoth found on the Lyakhovsky Islands off the Siberian coast, intact down to what was later confirmed to be degraded blood running from the thawing carcass. Blaring headlines touted not what the specimen could tell us about an extinct species but how we’d soon all be lining up to see resurrected mammoths at the zoo. But just as “Jurassic Park” skipped over the difficulties in turning ancient DNA into living organisms, modern fantasies about riding extinct elephants to work “Flintstones”-style have overlooked the extremely complicated nature of trying to re-create what has been lost.
The push for de-extinction, Ms. Pilcher says, is going on at various labs all over the world and is focused on everything from gastric-brooding frogs that incubate their young in their stomachs (and went extinct only some 30 years ago) to the passenger pigeon and, of course, our favorite shaggy Ice Age beast. Chapter by chapter she presents a short roll call of creatures that have been name-dropped as candidates for de-extinction, with a few extra centered on various prominent “King” species (“King of the Cavemen,” “King of the Birds” and so on). Celebrity is important here. De-extinction advocates are savvy marketers and know that any animal worth putting their effort into “has to be a well-known, larger than life showstopper,” as Ms. Pilcher writes. So, then, could scientists bring back Tyrannosaurus, king of the dinosaurs, or, in Ms. Pilcher’s pick for king of the birds, the dodo? And what about the King himself, Elvis Presley? Can genetic innovation return us to lost worlds, be they the Cretaceous or Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” heyday?
The answer, for the most part, is “no.”"..."
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