The Re-Origin of Species: a second chance for extinct animals

By Torill Kornfeldt and Fiona Graham

What does a mammoth smell like? Do dinosaurs bob their heads as they walk, like today’s birds? Do aurochs low like cows? You may soon find out.

From the Siberian permafrost to balmy California, scientists across the globe are working to resurrect all kinds of extinct animals, from ones that just left us to those that have been gone for many thousands of years. Their tools in this hunt are both fossils and cutting-edge genetic technologies. Some of these scientists are driven by sheer curiosity; others view the lost species as a powerful weapon in the fight to preserve rapidly changing ecosystems.

It seems certain that these animals will walk the earth again, but what world will that give us? And is any of this a good idea? Science journalist Torill Kornfeldt travelled the world to meet the men and women working to bring these animals back from the dead. Along the way, she has seen the mammoth that has been frozen for 20,000 years, and visited the places where these furry giants will live again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribe Publications
• Release date: Jul 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781925693003

Torill Kornfeldt

Torill Kornfeldt is a Swedish science journalist with a background in biology. She has worked for Sweden’s leading newspaper Dagens Nyheter and for Swedish public radio.

Book preview

THE RE-ORIGIN OF SPECIES

Torill Kornfeldt is a Swedish science journalist with a background in biology. She has worked for Sweden’s leading morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, and for the Sveriges Radio public broadcaster, where she created the successful radio show Tekniksafari. Her focus is on how emerging bioengineering and technology will shape our future. The Re-Origin of Species is her first book.

Scribe Publications

18–20 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3056, Australia

2 John Street, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom

Originally published as Mammutens återkomst in Swedish by Fri Tanke Förlag, Sweden in 2016

First published in English by Scribe in 2018

Published by agreement with the Kontext Agency

Text copyright © Torill Kornfeldt 2016

Translation copyright © Fiona Graham 2018

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted.

9781925713060 (ANZ edition)

9781911617228 (UK edition)

9781947534360 (US edition)

9781925693003 (e-book)

CiP data records for this title are available from the National Library of Australia and the British Library.

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for

Tobias, Torgny, and Ruth-Aimée

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

The passages quoting those scientists who were interviewed in English are not verbatim transcriptions. In many cases, they are a compressed or summarised representation of what the interviewees said, based sometimes on sound recordings and sometimes on written notes. It was not possible to have access to all of this material.

CONTENTS

Introduction: A Whole New World

1. Summer in Siberia

2. Who Wants to Build a Mammoth?

3. Zombie Spring

4. A Winged Storm

5. New Kid on the Block

6. The Rhino That Came in from the Cold

7. ‘It’s Not Quite That Simple’

8. God’s Toolkit

9. The Growing Dead

10. If It Walks Like a Duck and Quacks Like a Duck — Is It an Aurochs?

11. A Wilder Europe

12. ‘Most People Would Call This Totally Insane’

13. A Chicken’s Inner Dinosaur

14. The Fine Line Between Utopia and Dystopia

15. A Melting Giant

Conclusion: Life Will Find a Way

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Sources, Notes, and Further Reading

INTRODUCTION

A Whole New World

Greek mythology tells the tale of Prometheus, who defied the gods to bring humankind the knowledge of fire and how to use it. Prometheus was harshly punished by Zeus, yet the Greeks regarded fire as the source of all art and science. This narrative resembles the Biblical Fall; while the fruit of knowledge comes at a high price, it is a precondition for becoming fully human.

A couple of thousand years later, in 1818, Mary Shelley published her novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. The story showed what might happen if human pride and ambition overreached themselves in a bid to emulate God. At the time the book was written, scientists had just discovered that they could make a dead frog twitch by delivering jolts of electricity to the corpse. There were theories that a divine, life-giving force might have been discovered. Taking inspiration from Jewish legends about golems, Mary Shelley created a terrifying scenario in which a scientist applied that force without really comprehending or being able to control it. For the book is also the story of a scientist who refuses to accept responsibility for his work — a man who flees, leaving the newly awakened monster to his fate. It’s clear that if Victor Frankenstein had had the courage to stay and take care of his creature, tragedy could have been averted.

One hundred and seventy-five years later, in 1993, the film Jurassic Park showed resurrected dinosaurs running amok because scientists had let their enthusiasm and curiosity get the better of them. The moral that revolutionary knowledge and godlike powers can cost us dear has been thoroughly rammed home. At the same time, the idea persists that we would no longer be human if we lacked that very drive.

It may sound silly to let yourself be influenced by ancient myths today, yet I believe these stories were the reason for my mixed feelings when I heard that scientists were working towards resurrecting extinct animals with the help of modern gene technology.

My first reaction was one of boundless enthusiasm. I felt like an excited ten-year-old at the thought of being able to see a real live mammoth, or a dinosaur, or any of the creatures that have died out in the course of history — at the idea of actually seeing them move and hearing the sounds they made. What does a mammoth smell like? Do dinosaurs bob their heads as they walk, like today’s birds? Do aurochs low like cows?

Scientists are also trying to restore many less spectacular creatures that are at least equally fascinating. The Australian gastric-brooding frog is one example. The female frog would eat her eggs and let them develop from frogspawn into baby frogs inside her belly. Then she would regurgitate a litter of croaking froglets ready to meet the world. This genus died out in the 1980s, struck by a fungal disease that continues to threaten many other types of frog. The project to resurrect the gastric-brooding frog has been dubbed ‘Lazarus’, after the story of how Jesus brought a man back from the dead.

All the projects I describe in this book began with the thought: ‘Wow! We could actually do this. Of course we’ll give it a try!’ They are driven by the same enthusiasm and curiosity that makes a child learn the name of every dinosaur that ever walked the earth, or an explorer set sail for the distant horizon. It’s easy to be swept along and to feel the same effervescent energy.

My second feeling was one of age-old unease. Is this really a good idea? What if it has unforeseen negative consequences? Would it mean unleashing forces that we would later be unable to control? This unease is not born of mythology alone. There’s no shortage of examples of well-intentioned people who have wreaked havoc on the natural world.

One example — absurd from today’s perspective, but a good illustration — is afforded by Eugene Schieffelin, an American who began releasing European birds in New York in 1890. His aim was to make sure that every single type of bird mentioned in the works of Shakespeare was represented in the United States. Schieffelin was a member of a highly respected scientific association, and his project enjoyed widespread support. It was associated with the acclimatisation movement, which actively dispersed species from continent to continent.

While most of the species died out within just a few years, the hundred starlings released in Central Park multiplied rapidly. They displaced large numbers of native birds as they spread out over the continent. Today, the United States has about 200 million European starlings, creating problems both for the ecosystem and for farming. And all this sprang from the worthiest of aims — biological and cultural enrichment.

Each day as a science journalist brings me examples of how scientific curiosity and zeal are improving life for almost all human beings. These range from the technology we use to the medicines we take, the food we eat and the clothes we wear. I am genuinely convinced that the world is getting better all the time, and that the main reason for this is new research. And yet — for all my optimism and confidence in the future — that uneasy feeling in my stomach persists.

Gene technology and biotechnology are developing at the same rate today as information technology did in the 1990s, possibly even faster. This means scientists can already do things considered impossible just a few years ago. It also means they will very soon be able to achieve things that seem impossible today. Recreating the mammoth may be one example.

New methods for restructuring genetic material in everything from bacteria to human beings have created a whole new world of opportunities, but also of fears. This potential seems all the more terrifying because of its novelty. Just as with the advent of computers, we lack a context for this development that could help us understand it and predict where it will lead.

I believe that genetics and biotech are going to transform our society in just as fundamental a way as digital technology has done. I am also convinced that most of that change will be positive. At the same time, major problems are bound to arise. I don’t think we will make any progress unless we take this fear seriously, examine it, and analyse the cases in which it is relevant. This means looking at the practical aspects: how can we avoid making the same kind of mistakes as Victor Frankenstein or Eugene Schieffelin? But it also means examining the philosophical side: how will the capacity to manipulate life affect us as human beings, our culture and our society?

The third thought that came to mind when I first heard about these projects was that the desire to bring extinct creatures back to life sprang from nostalgia, a yearning to return to a lost world. I have met old men who seem to be dreaming of immortality. Four of the keenest researchers in this field are in their 60s. I have also met Ben, not yet 30, who has resolved to devote the rest of his career to resurrecting an extinct species of pigeon. All of them have a deep-seated feeling that the world and humanity have lost something important, and that there is a chance we could recover it. Exactly what it is we have lost, and when it happened, are questions to which they all have different answers.

Those three emotions — enthusiasm, fear, and nostalgia — have accompanied me throughout my work on this book. However, I have also realised that there is more, much more, to tell about the scientists who are determined to try to bring creatures back from the dead. And there is another aspect to their efforts that is arguably even more significant.

All the scientists I have spoken with seek to make the world a richer, wilder, and better place. They are convinced that reviving extinct fauna can contribute to such a future. Henri, who aims to breed an aurochs; George, who is trying to piece together a mammoth; William, who wants to see majestic American chestnut trees again; and so on. All of them are aiming to create a whole species that can be returned to nature, not merely a single individual.

The sole exception is Jack, who is trying to recreate a dinosaur. That experiment is different from all the rest, so if the only reason you picked up this book was to read about the chances of there being a real-life Jurassic Park, I suggest you go straight to Chapter 13. I hope you will find it so fascinating that you will come back to the beginning. And if you want to know more about the various projects, there are sources and notes at the back of this book and on the associated website.

It remains to be seen how resurrecting a species would work in practice. Essentially, all the projects I refer to in the book depend on at least one major scientific breakthrough in the future if they are to succeed. However, such breakthroughs are now coming so thick and fast that it is hard to see this as much of an obstacle.

What really fascinates me in the idea of reviving extinct creatures is that the mere thought of it expands my horizons, opening up dazzling new possibilities. Yet there is a fundamental question we need to ask ourselves collectively, and that is how far human beings should go in controlling nature. Now that we are on the threshold of being able to recreate lost creatures, reconstruct wild species, create entirely new forms of life that would never have come into being unaided — what do we do with that knowledge?

Is it a good idea to resurrect lost animal species? I shall do my best to explain how this aim might be achieved, and then you may answer the question yourself.

CHAPTER 1

Summer in Siberia

The only way to reach Chersky in eastern Siberia is to fly there in a small, battered prop plane. There are twice-weekly flights from the new airport in Yakutsk, the coldest city on Earth. In winter, the temperature here can fall to minus 50 degrees Celsius, but today, in mid-July, it’s oppressively hot.

We are sitting in a small bus, waiting to board: 13 adults, two children, and a tiny dog with tufty paws and ears. A man holds an orchid in a plant pot; a woman grasps what appears to be a Christmas decoration the same size as herself, wrapped in a black plastic sack; another woman has a set of curtain rails. I am the only non-Russian-speaker, the only one not heading home after a shopping expedition to the metropolis of Yakutsk.

The plane looks as though it might fall apart at any moment, and a mechanic in dungarees wanders around, poking about under the inspection hatches with a screwdriver. One of the pilots goes and fumbles with the propellers to check whether they will turn. I sit in the bus, growing increasingly nervous. Should I decide not to board the plane after all? But what else can I do? After all, this is the only way to get to Chersky, and no one else seems to be particularly concerned about the safety of the flight. Finally, I climb the rickety steps along with everyone else.

No one pays any attention to the seat numbers printed on the tickets. The two female cabin attendants instruct us to sit right at the front. They speak no English, but point and gesture. The ramshackle seats are so worn-out that the backrest won’t stay in place, so we passengers spend the whole journey semi-recumbent. The promised lifejacket supposedly stowed under the seat is conspicuous by its absence. The cabin staff walk along the narrow aisle distributing sick-bags and coffee, while the little dog scampers around between the seats. The plane shakes and rattles menacingly, but once airborne it flies smoothly, setting a course almost due east. Nonetheless, my pulse rate is higher than usual for the five hours of the flight.

‘That plane hasn’t crashed in 50 years,’ says Nikita Zimov once I’m back on terra firma. ‘So why should it crash this time?’

We are sitting in the spacious, round common room that is the heart of the research station I have come to Chersky to visit. It was Nikita’s father, Sergey, who set up the station in the 1980s. It is a few kilometres outside the town — which itself is about as far away from anywhere else as you can possibly get.

This is the Siberian back country; the town lies to the north and slightly to the east of Japan, but not quite as far east as the Kamchatka Peninsula. To reach the northern, Arctic Ocean coast takes a few days by boat along the broad River Kolyma. There are no roads to Chersky; the only way to get here is by plane or boat. Prisoners were sent here in Soviet times, and the Russian Gold Rush came here in Chersky’s boomtown days. Now about a third of the houses are abandoned, and the population has shrunk to barely 3,000. I’m told there were two swimming baths for a while in the ’80s, but now they’re gone, just like the restaurants.

Setting aside the decrepit buildings in town, this is a very beautiful place: a broad, flat landscape full of meandering rivers and shallow lakes. Sallow and larch woods cover the land beyond the river floodplains. Succulent green tufts of grass grow in stretches of shallow mud. The river bends enclose long shorelines, and there are bushy dwarf birches on the hillsides, where the soil is dryer. Now, in July, rosebay willowherb and tansy, bright-pink carnations and blue spike speedwells are in bloom everywhere.

‘I’ve heard you Swedes can hold your liquor,’ says Nikita, handing me a shot of vodka on my first evening. Everyone drinks vodka at dinner. Sergey has at least one glass over lunch.

It would be easy to resort to stereotypes and clichés in attempting to describe Sergey Zimov. A Russian scientist living an isolated life in the remote wilds of Siberia, he has long grey hair and a beard that is almost equally long and grey. He flits around the station in a T-shirt, a beret on his head and a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. His wife, Galina, deals with most of the paperwork.

Sergey has a whole set of opinions on what is fitting for each sex. But he is by no means the only one; throughout my time here, for example, I can’t get into a boat or climb out of one without being offered a helping hand. Sergey is clearly proud of having a son, Nikita, to take over the station. He talks rather less about his daughter, a novelist living in St Petersburg. But there’s nothing wrong with women scientists — some of the best scientists to visit the station have been women, Sergey tells me on the first evening.

He began his research out here at a time when the Soviet Union was doing its utmost to spread resources and influence in northern Siberia. That was an attempt to cement Russian influence over the country as a whole; Russian is not the mother tongue of the locals in this area, who have a written language of their own. ‘Ethnic Russians’ were sent here in an attempt to hold the country together, and quantities of research stations, mines, and other projects were set up, while air traffic expanded at the same time.

‘This was a good place to be. I had plenty of freedom, and I was a long way away from any Communist propaganda,’ he says over an evening meal of elk burgers.

The food at the station is excellent, provided you like elk meat (moose to North Americans). In the evenings, when we drink beer and play cards, everyone chews dried, salted squid. It’s tasty, if a little tough.

When the Soviet Union fell apart, support for the station dried up. Sergey was ordered to pack up his family, leave the station, and return to the University of Novosibirsk. He refused. Instead, he decided to stay and set up Russia’s first private research station, together with his family.

It was hard in the beginning. Nikita recalls the 1990s, when he was a teenager, as a grey time. The family could barely afford food sometimes. The situation is different now, with 50-odd international scientists, mainly Americans, coming here each year to study the natural environment and the permafrost. I am one of about 15 visitors, including some German scientists and a group of students from the US who play their guitars in the evenings.

‘The hero of Forrest Gump becomes a successful shrimp fisherman by chance, just because a storm has destroyed all the other boats. It was like that

Reviews for The Re-Origin of Species

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"A Second Chance for Extinct Animals"? What exactly does that mean? Kornfeldt examines the various "de-extinction" projects going on around the world, as well as past attempts at species re-creation (the aurochs). She looks at the ethics of the projects themselves, as well as potential ramifications of success. She does a great job of explaining the projects themselves as well as the people working on them (from trained scientists in top-of-the-line labs to breeders not unlike cat/dog breeders.) As a non-scientist, I found this book to be very well done, with the science explained at a level of detail perfect for me.What is currently going on? There is cloning (only possible for the Northern White Rhino, which is functionally extinct but cells from many individuals are alive but frozen); controlled breeding of close species (the auroch); genentic modification (the American chestnut tree, also functionally extinct, as discussed in Richard Powers' The Overstory; corals); DNA and cell manipulation of related species (wooly mammoth, passenger pigeon, dinosaurs). The science that enabled people in Jurassic Park to create dinosaurs absolutely does not exist right now. (Pet peeve: not until the endnotes does the author acknowledge that Jurassic Park was a book before it was a movie, the entire text refers to the movie.)She also looks at the ethics with these various projects. Is it ethical to be trying to evolve chickens back into dinosaurs as...pets? Is it ethical to try to recreate the passenger pigeon, that would be released into a very different world (also--no chestnut trees)? Is it a good idea to try to create a coral that can survive higher temperatures, or would it be better to search for such a coral that might occur naturally? Is it worthwhile to try to revolve a new woolly mammoth to help save the permafrost (explained in detail in chapter 15)--or would it be better to simply introduce lots of musk ox and horses to accomplish the same goal faster? How could you clone a Northern White Rhinoceros given that there are no artificial wombs to actually grow the clone? Could a Southern White Rhino be used? They are not exactly lab or domestic animals, is it even feasible?In addition to the ethics of these projects, Kornfeldt also looks at questions that would arise given success: is a wooly mammoth engineered from an Asian elephant actually a woolly mammoth, or is it a new species or a GMO elephant? Is a reverse-bred auroch an auroch or a new species of cattle? Would passenger pigeons based on band-tailed pigeons be passenger pigeons? Does it matter? Would that passenger pigeon behave like a passenger pigeon or a band-tailed pigeon, which have very very different behaviors? Would any of these creates know how to fill their ancestors' niches, or would they need to be taught, and who could do the teaching? Given the history of invasive species, would releasing any of these projects into the wild be smart or potentially catastrophic? How would the modern world deal with passenger pigeons that acted like passenger pigeons, or how would Europe deal with auroch in all the open land?There is a lot to think about in this book, and I found it fascinating. The translation (from Swedish) is also very well done, it did not feel awkward at all.

[beammey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

With this book I don't think I was entirely sure what to think. Reading the original 'The Origin of Species' has always been on my to be read list. This was a good book, really informative, but I wouldn't call it an easy book to read by any means. This one took me awhile, but it left me thinking long after I finished, so I think that's a mark of a great book. I would recommend it.

[drneutron_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Torill Kornfeldt got interested in efforts to “bring back” extinct species through genetic manipulation and other techniques like cloning. I say”bring back” because what that really means depends on who’s doing the research - for instance, some methods involve adding genes from extinct species to existing animals, while others involve reproducing the whole animal in toto through cloning. All sorts of side issues get raised through this work like questions of how ancient animals fit into today’s environment or can we do harm to ourselves and the world around us by reintroducing extinct species. A thought-provoking and interesting book.Unfortunately, all I could think of while reading this was “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.” Really, have any of these scientists watched science fiction movies?!

[bragan_8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There are scientists who, right now, are working on things like resurrecting the mammoth or back-engineering a chicken into something resembling a dinosaur. Some of these de-extinction projects, especially ones focused on recently vanished or still-vanishing animals, involve cloning. In others, it's more a case of altering existing creatures to recreate features of their extinct relatives, such as giving a modern elephant wool and a high tolerance for cold. But this book doesn't focus so much on the how as on the why, and on the question of what you then do with the resulting animals and whether it's a good idea. It turns out that that's a very debatable question, as the ultimate aims of some of these researchers involve re-introducing these animals into the wild, and people can and do make some pretty good arguments about why that's either highly desirable or terribly misguided.It's a really interesting question, and one that we definitely want to be thinking about before we have the technology to make it happen and not after. I will confess, though, I didn't find the book to be quite as fascinating as I'd hoped. I think part of it is that I would have liked a rather deeper dive into the ecological science of the issue. (What Kornfeldt does describe about the possible ecological roles of creatures like mammoths is really interesting.) I also think that the author's presentation of the arguments of the various scientists she's interviewed as they consider the subject is a lot more interesting than her own musings about her mixed feelings on the subject, which aren't bad, but do get a little repetitive. I also can't help but wonder if the writing reads a little better in the original Swedish. There's nothing wrong with it, mind you, but there is so often a slightly unnatural quality to writing in translation, and I think there is a bit of that here, too. (Also, just as a slightly amusing side note, according the the translator's note, a lot of the scientists were originally interviewed in English, but transcripts of the original English interviews weren't available, so they've been re-translated back into English from Swedish. Which has the slightly odd result of making the Americans among them sound like Brits!)Anyway, the upshot here is that I didn't find it to be one of those page-turnery works of non-fiction, but I did find its explorations of the questions it raises interesting and very much worth considering, and I very much like the way Kornfeldt even-handedly gives us the perspectives of various people who disagree with each other. I've read a bit about these de-extinction projects before, but I think this one offers a perspective on them that my previous exposures to the idea were lacking.

[ghr4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In The Re-Origin of the Species, science journalist Torill Kornfeldt expertly leads us on a highly accessible world tour of the ongoing efforts to resurrect extinct animal species. In her Introduction, she smartly frames these endeavors with references to the the tale of Prometheus, who defied the gods to bring knowledge to humankind, and Mary Shelley's classic Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus: "...what might happen if human pride and ambition overreached themselves in a bid to emulate God." While recent scientific techniques enable us to envision and attempt the re-creation of long gone species, the resulting questions are inevitable: It it the right thing to do? Is it ethical? Has science gone too far? Will there be unforeseen consequences of these best intentions? How would the introduction of a "new" species affect the existing ecosystem as a whole? With a light touch, clear and concise explanations, and painstaking evenhandedness, Kornfeldt explores these efforts by visiting the sites of the cutting-edge scientific studies and interviewing the researchers doing the work. It should be noted that Fiona Graham's English translation from the original Swedish flows effortlessly, and is certainly an integral element in the book's overall appeal.

[lorax_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Kornfeldt addresses the interesting and decidedly niche area of research into "de-extinction" - re-creating extinct species, either by cloning from DNA in preserved specimens or by editing genes of closely related surviving species to produce something as close as possible to the vanished species. The researchers she meets with focus on species ranging from the not-technically-extinct (the northern white rhino, with two surviving animals, both female, as well as the American chestnut tree, the only plant described in the book - mostly wiped out by a blight a century ago, it survives as young shoots sprouting from old stumps as well as a few rare, closely guarded, mature trees) to the long-gone (dinosaurs), with the primary focus being on species wiped out within the last few hundred years. If people have heard of de-extinction at all, outside of Jurassic Park, it's likely to be in the context of mammoths; there are extremely well-preserved specimens found in the Siberian permafrost (including anecdotal stories of the finders of some cooking and eating the meat, and describing it as freezer-burned but edible), and the book opens with a visit to the scientists attempting to re-introduce mammoths to Siberia. For the most part, they describe what they're doing in guarded language - "cold-resistant Asian elephants", rather than "mammoths", using an approach not of cloning those frozen mammoth calves but of using the DNA they can get from the calves to tweak elephant DNA in a mammoth direction. They explain this approach allows for a greater genetic diversity than cloning would, which is critical since these scientists are thinking big - they want herds of mammoths wandering the steppes, not a handful in a zoo, the functional equivalent of wooly mammoths if not exactly the same species. The issue of how, exactly, these cold-resistant social animals will learn to navigate the steppes of Siberia from non-cold-resistant parents is unaddressed. The scientists attempting to re-introduce the passenger pigeon take a similar approach, of extracting DNA from museum specimens and editing the closest living relative (the Band-tailed Pigeon of the western United States) to match. As with the mammoths, the scientists involved talk about the role of the passenger pigeon in the ecosystem, describing the effects that the sky-blackening flocks described by nineteenth-century Americans would have had. This is not a universally held belief, however; some historians (I encountered this argument in Charles Mann's excellent 1491) suggest that the relative absence of passenger pigeon bones from pre-Columbian Native American sites in eastern North America indicates that the species exploded to those astonishing numbers only after European arrival and the near-depopulation of the natives. If flocks of millions of birds were a response to a disturbed ecosystem, attempts to re-introduce them to an even more disturbed ecosystem would surely be disastrous. The book concludes with a discussion of the ethical arguments for and against de-extinction, including the potential benefits of spinoff technologies (recreating herds of mammoths would require being able to artifically gestate an elephant, for instance, since there aren't enough Asian elephants to keep that species in good condition, far less to serve as surrogate mothers for another) and the common and straightforward argument that conservation dollars are better spent preserving what we have now than on stunts like "cold-resistant Asian elephants". It's a fast and interesting read that assumes no knowledge of the area while treating the readers as intelligent (often a difficult line to walk), and I recommend it.

[janerawoof · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Eye-opening to me, scientific research is being done on bringing back extinct species of both animals and plants. The author, a scientist herself, travels around the world, beginning and ending in Siberia, to indicate the various types of research being done and on what. She speaks with a family in Siberia interested in crossing an elephant with genes of the wooly mammoth and repopulating the land with them. By so doing they hope to make the land as it used to be in ancient days--mostly grassy steppe. All of the scientists she speaks with use some aspect of gene technology or frozen cells for their "pet" animal or plant: the American chestnut tree, the passenger pigeon, dinosaurs, etc. The only experiment so far successful is growing a snout and teeth in chickens, who come from a branch of dinosaurs which gave rise to birds. The danger would be unintended consequences, such as when a 19th century scientist released all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare in the U.S., and how one species, the starling, has become ubiquitous. But scientists are aware of this fact and desire to discover new knowledge and improve our planet while avoiding this. I decry the lack of an index. I consider one essential for a nonfiction book. The author's notes were full and complete, though.

[waltzmn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

You can't always have the last word.Extinction has always been the "last word" for the species -- until now. Suddenly, using all sorts of scientific methods, we are seeing people trying to resurrect extinct creatures. Some are trying to breed back; some are trying to reconstruct DNA; some are frankly doing not much more than mumbo-jumbo rituals. This book is an attempt to cover the whole gamut.Unlike most people involved in this topic, I have never seen "Jurassic Park." I am interested in science fiction; I am interested in fantasy; I have no interest in bad fantasy trying to masquerade as proper science. It just plain bugs me. Give author Kornfeldt credit: She holds off on addressing the "Jurassic Park" scenario for most of the book. But she gets there.And that is, in a way, the problem: there is a lot of research in this book, but it still misses some science. For example, the "Jurassic Park" section looks at a scientist, Jack Horner (yes, his real name), who knows better than to try to get usable DNA from 70 million year old sources (never gonna happen, as Crichton & Co. should have known) -- but who still wants to recreate "dinosaurs." Horner's proposed method (one used by several others in this field as well)? Try to combine the genes of birds to try to get back to the dinosaurs.Sadly, it's not going to work. Yes, birds are dinosaurs. And there were zillions of species of dinosaurs, and there are zillions of species of birds, and so surely you can get enough genes out of the birds to recreate the dinosaurs, right?Of course not right.Birds are dinosaurs, but they are all descendants of a specific group of dinosaurs, the theropods, and probably a very small group of theropods at that. So the thousands of species of birds, even though they have thousands of species' worth of DNA, can have no more dinosaur DNA than whatever was in those ancestral theropods. And they probably won't have all of that; evolution and genetic drift will have irretrievably changed some of it. You might be able to reconstruct 80% of the theropod DNA. And what do you have if you have only 80% of a creature? Answer: You've got nothing. You can't make a theropod out of just 80% of its DNA.And this point -- which is basic stemmatics -- doesn't come out in the book.And yet, it's the basic problem of most of the research the book covers. People are hoping to, e.g., recreate mammoths by grafting a few odds and ends of mammoth DNA, or something that seems to act like mammoth DNA, into an elephant. That's more likely to "work" than the attempt to rebuild a dinosaur, in the sense that you can probably get a viable critter out of it -- but it isn't a mammoth, and while it may look and act like what you think a mammoth looked and acted like, you can't know. Personally, I sense the lure of recreating mammoths -- but I don't see the lure of creating fake mammoths.Mostly, author Kornfeldt gets that. She missed the stemmatic argument, which is vital, but she tried to talk with most of the people trying to recreate species, and describes their attempts -- and does a decent job of describing both the defects and the roadblocks. As well as mentioning the moral qualms some people have, and some of the ecological dangers. Sadly, this doesn't flow very well; although it is well-written (kudos to both author and translator for that), the result is more like a series of essays than a connected book. I never detected an over-arching theme, other than maybe worry. Perhaps that's fair. Maybe there is no over-arching theme in all these attempts. This is a good first book on a topic that will need a lot of discussion. But it definitely isn't the last word.

[tonstant.weader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was reading The Re-Origin of Species when He Jiankui announced he had edited the genes of two babies to make them resistant to the AIDS virus. When noted geneticist George Church rushed to his defense, it made sense considering what he had to say in this book. After all, he's trying to create a mammoth. People were surprised by Church's defense of He, but that's because they had not read this book.The Re-Origin of Species is an around-the-world tour of people working on reviving past species using all sorts of different approaches. Some, like Church, are working on searching for mammoth genes, finding fragments and piecing them together like a jigsaw puzzle in order to create a complete piece of DNA they can use to create some Asian elephant and mammoth hybrid that can replace the mammoth in Siberia, restoring the land to good health and perhaps saving the permafrost. Some would rather use what they learn from mammoth genes to alter the Asian elephant so it can live in the colder Siberian steppes since it is losing habitat.Torill Kornfeldt goes from Siberia to the US to Europe and back to Siberia in her quest to understand the people working on resurrecting extinct species. There are several strategies employed, from trying to recreate the genetic map of the mammoth to trying to cross-breed several living species to create the characteristics of an extinct animal so this new critter could serve the same role in the environment.There are good reasons to revive lost species or a simulacrum of them. For example, the loss of passenger pigeons may contribute to the massive wildfires in the West. The return of the mammoth could transform the landscape in ways that may save the permafrost and keep it from releasing the carbon and methane that would speed up climate change. Bringing back aurochs, or something like them could create a more diverse ecology in Europe.I enjoyed The Re-Origin of Species very much. Kornfeldt has the good reporter's ability to explain quickly and with clarity. She also paints the landscape with vivid imagery. She not only explores the various efforts of de-extinction, but also the conflicts, controversies, and ethical dilemmas. You can almost feel her wavering from one side to the other and she makes a good case for conservationists and de-extinctionists to talk more to each other.I was fascinated by the idea that large herbivores like the auroch and the mammoth could change the environment in ways that would create a healthier, more diverse landscape. This book reminds us of what we have lost but gives us hope that something new may be found. I found myself thinking many of the ideas, some in conflict with each other, made a lot of sense. Kornfeldt even provides a handy list of pros and cons at the end.One objection to de-extinction seemed very nonpersuasive to me. Susan Clayborn, a psychologist, thinks it would change our relationship with nature because we would feel less humbled by its vastness and variety. She fears that knowing we could bring back a species would reduce the beneficial effect people receive from spending time in nature. It's as though she has never heard of dominion theology or seen mankind's profligate assumption that nature is our servant, one we can exploit without regard for its well-being and health. We have erased many species from the face of the earth, I don't think restoring a few of them will make us feel much differently.This is a fascinating and timely book. We are already seeing the effects of climate change. The permafrost is melting. Who knew that we might find some way to mitigate that by looking to long-lost species. Should we bring back lost species? This book won't tell you the answer, but it will give you the information you need to answer for yourself. I received a review copy of The Re-Origin of Species from the publisher.The Re-Origin of Species: A Second Chance for Extinct Animals at Scribe PublicationsNotes and further reading from the authorTorill Kornfeldt author site

[the_hibernator · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Summary: With a hefty dose of skepticism, Torill Kornfeldt interviewed several scientists who are trying various methods to clone or genetically reinvent extinct animals – mostly for the sake of recovering their ecological purpose (for instance, mammoths knock down trees and stomp down permafrost, passenger pigeons devastate forests with the same (but less threatening) ecological benefits of forest fires, etc.) Kornfeldt briefly describes the science behind each project, but does not go into a lot of detail, so the book is good for someone who has very little science background.My thoughts: I’m a little torn about bringing back extinct species. My instinct is against introducing potential “invasive species” which might not act exactly the same as the original animals did. There is, also, the worry that creating new animals will somehow create new viruses that can move to humans – though that may be worrying too much. Overall, I think the book was well-written and interesting, though it could have been more engaging at times. I liked Kornfeldt’s mixture of awe and skepticism, which managed to present both sides of the story well. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in endangered species, as it really does provide some interesting food for thought.