23 November 2008

De-extinction

There is little doubt that it would be fun to see a living, breathing woolly mammoth...We’re just not sure that it would be all that much fun for the mammoth. The first mammoth would be a lonely zoo freak, vulnerable to diseases unknown to its ancestors.
-- from an editorial in The New York Times. Update, 25 Nov:
The absence of mammoths isn’t exactly a pressing problem. What is pressing is the number of species we are currently in danger of losing.
adds Olivia Judson, who has also written recently on celebrating new species (All hail the apple maggot!) .

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