Bring Back The King The New Science Of De – Extinction – Helen Pilcher

The passenger pigeon became nothing more than a memory. Realising her significance, zookeepers froze her in a giant ice cube and shipped her to Washington, DC, where she was thawed, skinned, stuffed and put on public display at the Smithsonian Institution. She has since left her resting place only twice, once to appear at a San Diego conference, and once to visit her old haunt, the Cincinnati zoo. Both times, she was flown first class under the private supervision of a dedicated flight attendant. Born, raised and died in captivity, it’s ironic that Martha flew further in death than she ever did in her 27-year-long life.

And that’s the end of the passenger pigeon … except that it might not be. In 2012, a group of ornithologists, geneticists and conservationists, including Beth Shapiro and George Church, got together at Harvard Medical School to discuss whether or not this iconic species could be brought back to life. The meeting was organised by Ryan Phelan and Stewart Brand, who had been thinking about de-extinction and wondering whether it was possible.

The experts concluded that it was. Shapiro had already managed to tease nuclear DNA from the toe pads of museum birds, and gene editing technology was improving all the time. Sure there were technical hurdles, but the mood was optimistic. ‘The meeting was a green light for us,’ says Phelan. The duo went on to set up Revive and Restore, an influential, friendly, non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing the science of de-extinction (and more besides; see Chapter 8).

‘The Great Passenger Pigeon Comeback’ was hatched. Today, the project is in full swing, at its helm a young scientist by the name of Ben Novak. Funded by Revive and Restore, and working under the guidance of Shapiro in her Santa Cruz laboratory, Novak is doing something that all of us want, but few of us ever manage – living his childhood dream.5 He has been thinking about de-extinction since he was 13 years old.

As a kid, he did a science fair project about the possibility of bringing dodos back to life.

Also available in the Bloomsbury Sigma series: Sex on Earth by Jules Howard p53: The Gene that Cracked the Cancer Code by Sue Armstrong Atoms Under the Floorboards by Chris Woodford Spirals in Time by Helen Scales Chilled by Tom Jackson A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup Breaking the Chains of Gravity by Amy Shira Teitel Suspicious Minds by Rob Brotherton Herding Hemingway’s Cats by Kat Arney Electronic Dreams by Tom Lean Sorting the Beef from the Bull by Richard Evershed and Nicola Temple Death on Earth by Jules Howard The Tyrannosaur Chronicles by David Hone Soccermatics by David Sumpter Big Data by Timandra Harkness Goldilocks and the Water Bears by Louisa Preston Science and the City by Laurie Winkless 1kitap1.com/en for Amy, Jess, Sam, Joe, Mum and Higgs the Dog Particle …

to the moon and back … … and for my Dad … … who gave me my love of wild things. 1kitap1.com/en 1kitap1.com/en Contents Preface Introduction Bringin’ It Back Chapter 1: King of the Dinosaurs Chapter 2: King of the Cavemen Chapter 3: King of the Ice Age Chapter 4: King of the Birds Chapter 5: King of Down Under Chapter 6: King of Rock ’n’ Roll Chapter 7: Blue Christmas Chapter 8: I Just Can’t Help Believing Chapter 9: Now You See It …

P.S. Key References Little Less Conversation, a Little More Reading Acknowledgements Index 1kitap1.com/en Preface When I was a kid, we used to go on family holidays to the Jurassic Coast, where dark grey cliffs cast ominous shadows on the shingle-smattered beach. It was chilly, wet and windy. My brother and I were forced to wear itchy, woolly hats, high-waisted flares and unflattering cagoules. We drank tepid chocolate from a flimsy Thermos and sat on slimy boulders munching biscuits.

My parents called it ‘character building’ and ‘cheaper than a package deal’. I called it ‘borderline pneumonia’. The sun never shone on the holidays of my childhood, but there was always a chink in the clouds. There was always the possibility that one day we might stumble across the remains of some prehistoric behemoth. For hidden among the rocks at Charmouth in Dorset are the fossilised remains of creatures that swam, walked and flew 200 million years ago – pterosaurs, ‘Nessie-like’ plesiosaurs and an armoured dinosaur called Scelidosaurus.

How much I longed to find them. How much I longed to meet them. But holidays came and went, hopes raised and dashed. I never found a Scelidosaurus bone, or any other fossil for that matter. But I never gave up.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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