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| Famous last words, perhaps? Click to view full size. |
In a previous entry on this blog, I wrote about my visit to
the Museum of Natural History in New York City. Part of what I wrote concerned the destruction of the
passenger pigeon. Once numbering in the billions, the last surviving member of
that species died almost 100 years ago, in 1914. But what if there was a way to
bring back the passenger pigeon? Or the woolly mammoth? Or any number of other
extinct species?
Incredibly, utilising science, technology and advances in
DNA research, scientists are now close to the point where it is possible to
bring extinct species back to life. In this TED Talk, Stewart Brand (the Whole
Earth Catalog, The WELL, the Global Business Network, the Long Now Foundation,
etc), outlines ongoing research and long term plans to de-extinct some of the
animals that have disappeared from the planet.
Granted, resurrecting the woolly mammoth using ancient DNA
may sound like mad science. But Brand’s Revive and Restore project has an
entirely rational goal: to learn what causes extinctions so we can protect
currently endangered species, preserve genetic and biological diversity, repair
depleted ecosystems, and essentially “undo harm that humans have caused in the
past.”
Stewart Brand's newest book is Whole
Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto. He is also the author of How
Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built.
