Gene-editing breakthroughs could allow us to bring extinct species, like the woolly mammoth, back from the dead. But should we?
It really is worse than you think.
We’ve gorged ourselves on fossil fuels, vacuumed up the Earth’s forests and spewed toxic gases into the atmosphere for years on end. The planet is getting warmer, we’re poisoning insect populations with reckless abandon and pulling fish out of the ocean at an alarming rate. The most recent prognosis for a biodiverse Earth is incredibly grim, with 1 million species threatened with extinction in the coming decades.
The havoc we’ve generated has kickstarted Earth’s sixth great extinction event, the first by human hands. This rapid decrease in biodiversity due to human activity is unprecedented.
But we may be able to reverse it.
Continue reading… “Using CRISPR to resurrect the dead”
