how to clone a mammoth the science of de extinction

This article was originally published with the title 'How to Clone a Mammoth' in Scientific American 312, 5, 82 (May 2015)ĭoi:10. Most poignantly, Shapiro argues that without revitalizing ecosystems in which a resurrected species might flourish, in many cases de-extinction could be too cruel to countenance. From deciding which species should be restored to anticipating how revived populations might be overseen in the wild.

Cloning a mammoth from frozen remains, for example, is unlikely to succeed, she writes, because it requires living cells efforts to introduce mammoth genes into existing elephant species are more plausible. In How to Clone a Mammoth, Beth Shapiro, an evolutionary biologist and pioneer in ancient DNA research, addresses this intriguing question by walking readers through the astonishing and controversial process of de-extinction. In this lucid road map for the nascent discipline of “de-extinction,” Shapiro, an evolutionary biologist, examines not only how we can resurrect long-vanished species but also when we cannot or should not. But the hairy elephants could return within decades, brought back to life by recent breakthroughs in biotechnology. But in fact Shapiro both denies this is possible, and denies there would be good reason to do it even if it were possible. It has been several millennia since the last mammoths died out, after more than 100,000 years of dominating Arctic ecosystems. The title of Beth Shapiro’s ‘How to Clone a Mammoth’ contains an implicature: it suggests that it is indeed possible to clone a mammoth, to bring extinct species back from the dead. How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-extinction

How to clone a mammoth the science of de extinction