Beth Shapiro
Princeton University Press, April 2015
The majestic mammoth will never again roam the Earth. That is, unless we want it to. As University of California, Santa Cruz, ancient-DNA researcher Beth Shapiro explains in How to Clone a Mammoth, the scientific know-how exists to accomplish such goals of “de-extinction.”
From her front-row seat as one of the pioneers of ancient-DNA research, Shapiro explains the fieldwork, lab science, and prospective ecology involved with the so-far hypothetical endeavor. As paleogenomic science has progressed to the point that cloning a mammoth has become possible (sort of), such propositions have also attracted controversy. Shapiro calls herself “an enthusiastic realist,” writing that while recklessly resurrecting bygone species for Jurassic Park jollies would be “scientifically and ethically unjustified,” de-extinction has ...
