genetic engineering

The Kolbert Report

Elizabeth Kolbert’s new book asks what it means to protect nature in the Anthropocene.

Elizabeth Kolbert’s new book, Under a White Sky, opens with the story of the battle to keep invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. The problem exists because of two earlier interventions with nature. A century ago, we reversed the flow of the Chicago river to keep the city’s pollutants out of Lake Michigan …

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De-Extinction Conference

Last month, I participated in a conference on the topic of de-extinction — efforts to resurrect all or part of the genome of extinct animals. The goal would be to have something very much akin to the wooly mammoth or the passenger pigeon, perhaps released into the wild. (And no, this isn’t going to work …

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A new twist in the Christmas tree debate — GloTrees!

(Warning — tongue firmly in cheek.) Megan and Dan have written on how an environmentally-minded winter holiday enthusiast should choose between a real and an artificial Christmas tree. The comparison already isn’t easy, but it could get even more complicated. What if the “natural” tree were genetically engineered to glow in the dark? Two UK …

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