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Has Jurassic Park fostered misunderstanding about extinction?
While the blockbuster franchise might have given us a distorted view of science's capabilities to address species extinction, new research might come close to "resurrecting" lost species' DNA.

- Jurassic Park has fueled public misconceptions about science's abilities to bring extinct species back to life.
- De-extinction technology can resurrect genetic material from extinct species into their living relatives in a way that can assist conservation efforts.
- Fostering empathy for other-than-human lives through stories might be the key to addressing the current ecological catastrophe.
In 1993, cutting-edge ancient DNA discoveries were yanked into the public spotlight when the blockbuster film Jurassic Park, based on Michael Crichton's book by the same name, hit theaters.
Science fiction and budding science converged for a cinematic bonanza when Steven Spielberg's film about paleontologists up against their resurrected dinosaur creations was released a day after juicy new research was published on the discovery of ancient insect DNA in amber. It was a perfect storm to fuel long-lasting public misconceptions about what exactly DNA science is capable of, including the belief that recently extinct species can actually be brought back to life.
"I've met people when I'm out in public that actually think we've already done it… they think there's a woolly mammoth out there somewhere," says Ben Novak, who studies ecology and evolution with an emphasis on paleontology. "The Jurassic Park franchise as a whole...has created this concept that it shouldn't be that difficult."
For the record, we can't bring back the dinosaurs, as there is no way to get their DNA. But, there is also a misunderstanding about how more-recently extinct animals might be resurrected.
Novak is part of the DNA rescue group "Revive and Restore," an organization that seeks to enhance and restore biodiversity through new techniques of genetic rescue. Although every extinction that has happened up to this point is absolutely final, this group is working on de-extinction technology that can revive the genes of lost species.
The Sixth Mass Extinction
Photo Credit: Wikimedia
What the Jurassic Park phenomenon showcased was modern science's response to a public platform regarding what was and wasn't possible using ancient DNA. Today, there is a new public outcry that science is working to address. And the stakes are much higher.
We are in the midst of the world's sixth great extinction, and the first to be caused by another species: humans. The National Biodiversity Network recently released a 2019 report showing the United Kingdom's most important wildlife has plummeted by an average of 60 percent since 1970. The study also found that the area that "priority species" inhabit has shrunk by 27 percent. Additionally, one in seven of the 8,400 United Kingdom plant, animal, and fungal species that were assessed are at risk of being annihilated. The catastrophic losses show no signs of letting up.
Around the globe, wildlife is being wiped out due to habitat loss and degradation caused by human expansion and development, the climate crisis, pollution, and invasive species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature says that more than 28,000 species are under the threat of extinction. And the IUCN has only been able to assess what they estimate is less than a quarter of the plant and animal species out there. A recent United Nations report has said that up to a million animal and plant species, both known and unknown, are under the threat of extinction.
The rates of extinction are so high and climate change so rapid, that scientists have given this moment a new name: the anthropocene. It is a geological epoch in which humans are a force of nature, changing the geological landscape and ecosystems.
What DNA Technology Can Do
While every species that has gone extinct up to this point can never be brought back, Novak's work on "de-extinction" is the closest modern science has come to that feat.
His work focuses on the ability to "resurrect" important genes of a species, the passenger pigeon, in a living relative of it through genome sequencing. The reason for the passenger pigeon's genes being edited back into the mix is because of its uniquely large impact in the dynamics of its habitat, driving regeneration cycles in the eastern United States. The result of Novak's research is not the lost species itself, which can never be created as a pure historic entity, but a new species that can fill its role in the ecosystem.
"What we are trying to do is make sure that the genes we bring over from the extinct pigeon into the living pigeon to create an organism fits the same ecotype as the passenger pigeon so, from an ecological perspective, we will be getting the passenger pigeon back from extinction," says Novak.
However, he emphasizes that it is infinitely easier to prevent a species from going extinct in the first place, rather than trying to recreate its ecological equivalent.
Academic philosopher and storyteller Thom van Dooren, who has written on extinction and the ethics of de-extinction efforts, argues that humans have a lot of work to do in learning to live sustainably with others before pulling lost species back into the world.
"Certainly, we should be avoiding the kind of technological hubris that allows us to downplay the significance of extinction through the imagination that we can simply put things back later," says van Dooren. "No matter how good de-extinction approaches get, decades of on-the-ground conservation work have shown us that restoring species and ecosystems is never easy."
This is why, as both van Dooren and Novak highlight, restoration of species' habitat is by far the most important factor in conservation efforts. Not genetic resurrection.
Beyond the numbers
Photo Credit: Wikimedia
There have, of course, been some success stories of species being revived from near-extinction. But the numbers of species in decline and revived don't tell the whole story. For one, there is the genetic side.
According to Novak, one of the greatest tragedies of a species nearing extinction, even if it is revived later, is the loss of genetic diversity.
"Just because a species isn't gone doesn't mean that it hasn't suffered from loss," says Novak. "So when the sixth extinction is looked at through the lens of genetic diversity, it is billions of times worse than when you look at it through the number of species."
When a species loses genetic diversity, it becomes vulnerable to rapid changes in its environment. Changes that have been accelerated by the current climate catastrophe. But this is something that, according to Novak, is now restorable as long as the species is still alive. Pioneering de-extinction technology has the transformative ability to sequence the genomes of an extinct species and revive the genetic diversity of still-living species.
"Long term, this technology can fundamentally change how we recover diversity within the living species," Novak says.
Yet, cutting-edge technology can only get us so far. Bringing species, or their genetic diversity, back doesn't undo the experience of their loss for those who endured it. And it shouldn't be presented as an alternative to mourning the tragedy.
"In [some] cases whole sets of relationships are painfully unravelled," says van Dooren. "This might include the suffering and death that surrounds mass poisoning, poaching, starvation, and more for the animals in question."
It also includes the impacts on the lives of many people. For example, van Dooren highlights the indigenous communities whose cultural practices are threatened as species disappear. Even if these species and these practices can be resurrected, it does not undo the ethical significance of that prior loss.
Crichton's science fiction stories, despite fostering misconceptions, have opened a new imaginative lens to tackle the idea of extinction. But other-than-human stories that foster empathy for multi-species lives might be the key to addressing the current ecological catastrophe.
"We need more complex stories that convey the significance of species and their loss across multiple terrains," says van Dooren. "Each extinction unravels a little bit of the world. Stories provide us with an opportunity to try to take stock, however imperfectly, of that unraveling."
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‘Designer baby’ book trilogy explores the moral dilemmas humans may soon create
How would the ability to genetically customize children change society? Sci-fi author Eugene Clark explores the future on our horizon in Volume I of the "Genetic Pressure" series.
- A new sci-fi book series called "Genetic Pressure" explores the scientific and moral implications of a world with a burgeoning designer baby industry.
- It's currently illegal to implant genetically edited human embryos in most nations, but designer babies may someday become widespread.
- While gene-editing technology could help humans eliminate genetic diseases, some in the scientific community fear it may also usher in a new era of eugenics.
Tribalism and discrimination
<p>One question the "Genetic Pressure" series explores: What would tribalism and discrimination look like in a world with designer babies? As designer babies grow up, they could be noticeably different from other people, potentially being smarter, more attractive and healthier. This could breed resentment between the groups—as it does in the series.</p><p>"[Designer babies] slowly find that 'everyone else,' and even their own parents, becomes less and less tolerable," author Eugene Clark told Big Think. "Meanwhile, everyone else slowly feels threatened by the designer babies."</p><p>For example, one character in the series who was born a designer baby faces discrimination and harassment from "normal people"—they call her "soulless" and say she was "made in a factory," a "consumer product." </p><p>Would such divisions emerge in the real world? The answer may depend on who's able to afford designer baby services. If it's only the ultra-wealthy, then it's easy to imagine how being a designer baby could be seen by society as a kind of hyper-privilege, which designer babies would have to reckon with. </p><p>Even if people from all socioeconomic backgrounds can someday afford designer babies, people born designer babies may struggle with tough existential questions: Can they ever take full credit for things they achieve, or were they born with an unfair advantage? To what extent should they spend their lives helping the less fortunate? </p>Sexuality dilemmas
<p>Sexuality presents another set of thorny questions. If a designer baby industry someday allows people to optimize humans for attractiveness, designer babies could grow up to find themselves surrounded by ultra-attractive people. That may not sound like a big problem.</p><p>But consider that, if designer babies someday become the standard way to have children, there'd necessarily be a years-long gap in which only some people are having designer babies. Meanwhile, the rest of society would be having children the old-fashioned way. So, in terms of attractiveness, society could see increasingly apparent disparities in physical appearances between the two groups. "Normal people" could begin to seem increasingly ugly.</p><p>But ultra-attractive people who were born designer babies could face problems, too. One could be the loss of body image. </p><p>When designer babies grow up in the "Genetic Pressure" series, men look like all the other men, and women look like all the other women. This homogeneity of physical appearance occurs because parents of designer babies start following trends, all choosing similar traits for their children: tall, athletic build, olive skin, etc. </p><p>Sure, facial traits remain relatively unique, but everyone's more or less equally attractive. And this causes strange changes to sexual preferences.</p><p>"In a society of sexual equals, they start looking for other differentiators," he said, noting that violet-colored eyes become a rare trait that genetically engineered humans find especially attractive in the series.</p><p>But what about sexual relationships between genetically engineered humans and "normal" people? In the "Genetic Pressure" series, many "normal" people want to have kids with (or at least have sex with) genetically engineered humans. But a minority of engineered humans oppose breeding with "normal" people, and this leads to an ideology that considers engineered humans to be racially supreme. </p>Regulating designer babies
<p>On a policy level, there are many open questions about how governments might legislate a world with designer babies. But it's not totally new territory, considering the West's dark history of eugenics experiments.</p><p>In the 20th century, the U.S. conducted multiple eugenics programs, including immigration restrictions based on genetic inferiority and forced sterilizations. In 1927, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that forcibly sterilizing the mentally handicapped didn't violate the Constitution. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote, "… three generations of imbeciles are enough." </p><p>After the Holocaust, eugenics programs became increasingly taboo and regulated in the U.S. (though some states continued forced sterilizations <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/" target="_blank">into the 1970s</a>). In recent years, some policymakers and scientists have expressed concerns about how gene-editing technologies could reanimate the eugenics nightmares of the 20th century. </p><p>Currently, the U.S. doesn't explicitly ban human germline genetic editing on the federal level, but a combination of laws effectively render it <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">illegal to implant a genetically modified embryo</a>. Part of the reason is that scientists still aren't sure of the unintended consequences of new gene-editing technologies. </p><p>But there are also concerns that these technologies could usher in a new era of eugenics. After all, the function of a designer baby industry, like the one in the "Genetic Pressure" series, wouldn't necessarily be limited to eliminating genetic diseases; it could also work to increase the occurrence of "desirable" traits. </p><p>If the industry did that, it'd effectively signal that the <em>opposites of those traits are undesirable. </em>As the International Bioethics Committee <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrote</a>, this would "jeopardize the inherent and therefore equal dignity of all human beings and renew eugenics, disguised as the fulfillment of the wish for a better, improved life."</p><p><em>"Genetic Pressure Volume I: Baby Steps"</em><em> by Eugene Clark is <a href="http://bigth.ink/38VhJn3" target="_blank">available now.</a></em></p>Octopus-like creatures inhabit Jupiter’s moon, claims space scientist
A leading British space scientist thinks there is life under the ice sheets of Europa.
Jupiter's moon Europa has a huge ocean beneath its sheets of ice.
- A British scientist named Professor Monica Grady recently came out in support of extraterrestrial life on Europa.
- Europa, the sixth largest moon in the solar system, may have favorable conditions for life under its miles of ice.
- The moon is one of Jupiter's 79.
Neil deGrasse Tyson wants to go ice fishing on Europa
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="GLGsRX7e" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="f4790eb8f0515e036b24c4195299df28"> <div id="botr_GLGsRX7e_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/GLGsRX7e-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/GLGsRX7e-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/GLGsRX7e-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div>Water Vapor Above Europa’s Surface Deteced for First Time
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9c4abc8473e1b89170cc8941beeb1f2d"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WQ-E1lnSOzc?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>Astrophysicists find unique "hot Jupiter" planet without clouds
A unique exoplanet without clouds or haze was found by astrophysicists from Harvard and Smithsonian.
Illustration of WASP-62b, the Jupiter-like planet without clouds or haze in its atmosphere.
- Astronomers from Harvard and Smithsonian find a very rare "hot Jupiter" exoplanet without clouds or haze.
- Such planets were formed differently from others and offer unique research opportunities.
- Only one other such exoplanet was found previously.
Munazza Alam – a graduate student at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
Credit: Jackie Faherty
Jupiter's Colorful Cloud Bands Studied by Spacecraft
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8a72dfe5b407b584cf867852c36211dc"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GzUzCesfVuw?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>Lair of giant predator worms from 20 million years ago found
Scientists discover burrows of giant predator worms that lived on the seafloor 20 million years ago.
Bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois)
- Scientists in Taiwan find the lair of giant predator worms that inhabited the seafloor 20 million years ago.
- The worm is possibly related to the modern bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois).
- The creatures can reach several meters in length and famously ambush their pray.
A three-dimensional model of the feeding behavior of Bobbit worms and the proposed formation of Pennichnus formosae.
Credit: Scientific Reports
Beware the Bobbit Worm!
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1f9918e77851242c91382369581d3aac"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_As1pHhyDHY?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>FOSTA-SESTA: Have controversial sex trafficking acts done more harm than good?
The idea behind the law was simple: make it more difficult for online sex traffickers to find victims.
