Carl Zimmer recently spoke at the TEDx De-Extinction symposium, an assembly of conservation biologists and environmentalists centered on the question of whether extinction reversal is something we should concern ourselves with. Should woolly mammoths stalk the earth once more?

When it comes to bringing bygone animals back to life it is no longer a matter of could, but should. Should we use our scientific and economic resources to restore lost species, many of which were stamped out by our own hands? By altering the climate through industrialization and urbanization and by hunting certain animals to oblivion, we have transformed the global ecology to such an extent that we are now barreling toward the sixth mass extinction. Current extinction rates have ballooned to as much as 1000x higher than background rate, the majority of which can be chalked up to environmental tragedy. As we come to grips with humanity’s singular influence on the planet over the last few centuries, many scientists have even proposed a new name for the current epoch: the Anthropocene.

Is it our duty, ethical or otherwise, to right the wrongs already committed? But alas, there is more than just resurrection of species to consider. Restoration of habitat is just as important. If the environment these once-thriving animals left is also not brought back, these attempts might very well be futile. Our new friends may quickly drift back into retirement. The older the species and the more removed the ecosystem is from its historical counterpart, the more critical this concern becomes.

Likewise, is behavior something that can be reconstituted? Even if we could compile bit-for-bit working copies of a species’ genome, how would we ever know if its behavior matches that of its extinct predecessors? After all, animal behavior is moderated by both environment and genes, and if we can only recover the latter, have we really achieved our goal? What reference could we check against? Most of what we rely on for our behavioral understanding of long-extinct species is locked up in non-scientific observations recorded in literature and crude note-taking by amateurs. Would the 21st century Tasmanian tiger really be the Tasmanian tiger of yore?

There is also health risk to consider—to humans and non. De-extincted species might become new vectors for transmissible diseases. Moreover, the old genomes of creatures like the passenger pigeon, the great auk and heath hen may prove defenseless against today’s viruses and bacteria that have evolved greatly since their passing. Rewilding these species could be a second death sentence for them and reintroduce medical horrors for us. That is, unless we were to insert the proper mutations into their reconstructed genomes by way of gene editing. This, as you can well imagine, is no small task, especially given the nascency of gene therapy.

Finally, we can ask what are some of the candidate species that provide the lowest chance of risk and highest chance of wrinkle-free assimilation? Some lay completely outside the bounds of possibility, of course. DNA fragments over time and has a shelf life much like radioisotopes. The bi-stranded helical structure of DNA prefers cold, dry, insulated environments, which explains how the now iconic Ötzi, a 5,300 year-old human fossil entombed in a glacier 10,530 ft high on the Alps, yielded intact DNA. We’ve even plucked nuclear DNA from a 700,000 year-old horse fossil, thanks to it being preserved in permafrost. This likely approximates the upper limit of usable DNA we will get our hands on, leaving Jurassic Park-like fauna, along with the overwhelming majority of all extinct species reaching millions of years in the past, off the table for now.

However, animals like the woolly mammoth, the Red River giant softshell turtle, Steller’s sea cow, Tasmanian tiger, gastric brooding frog and passenger pigeon are all real possibilities. We have full nuclear and mitochondrial DNA for both the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) and the gastric-brooding frog. For older species in which we have only fragments, the task will be more challenging but not impossible.

Let’s take the woolly mammoth, for example, a favored candidate of folks like Harvard geneticist George Church. Some of its DNA has been recovered from frozen nuclei, and this has revealed its close relationship to the Asian elephant. Ideally the two species would interbreed. The Asian elephant is an endangered species, living in conflict in high human density areas. Deextincting a keystone species like the mammoth would not only a) revitalize Asian elephant populations but b) be a boon to the environment by reseeding the tundra across Canada, Alaska and Siberia, returning the region to the mammoth steppe it once was. Bringing back niche players has the potential to revitalize ecosystems in need.

Yet the central question remains: should we use science in this way—to give these animals a second chance? It’s true that there are some conservationists whose wish to restore lost species is borne purely out of an idyllic lust for biodiversity. An understandable impulse, but good luck procuring funding. The debate must move beyond what is noble. Tangible, practical applications that aren’t prohibitively high to implement constitute sound ambition (and aren’t necessarily at loggerheads with the “purer” ideals of some conservationists).This is not a zero-sum game and in this sense deextinction can be thought of as a parallel effort of conservation biology.

The hardest questions to answer given our current understanding of past and present bio-ecology involve what roles and functions the species would fill in their new environment, whether their reintroduction would have a positive or negative impact on existing food chains and local and macro-ecologies, and whether we should instead commit all resources to keeping endangered species alive. Listen as Carl Zimmer works through some of these gritty issues at the TEDx conference below.
 

Update: Here’s an excellent podcast for getting up to speed on the current status of de-extinction efforts and the attendant ecological and ethical implications. Guests include Carl Zimmer, Mike Archer (paleobiologist) and Wendell Wallach (bioethicist).

Feature image courtesy of Royal BC Museum in Victoria

 
 
Vision scientist Mark Changizi disassembles the aura of optical illusions in this brief talk for TedEd. Why do we see illusions? Aren’t our eyes and brains complex enough to avoid being fooled by simple visual tomfoolery?

The answer lies in the communication protocols linking our optical and brain arrays. The architecture of our central nervous system is such that a gap of 1/10th of a second exists between the moment light first hits our photoreceptors and when that signal is processed by the brain. Our brain compensates for this delay by projecting images 1/10th of a second into the future.

These premonitions aid us in catching a thrown ball, for example, but trick our senses when viewing certain static imagery on a 2D surface. The result of this neural lag is that we can mistake inert images for motion often intuiting motion-like characteristics (as in the image above). The illusion that is the focus of this talk is called Hering’s geometrical illusion of curvature.

Changizi displays some interesting optical illusions to drive home this latency in communication feedback. Much of this and more is described in greater detail in his fascinating book, The Vision Revolution. You can find my review here.

External link: Why do we see illusions? – Mark Changizi

Feature image courtesy of comicsandmemes.com

 
 
Here’s a fun TEDx talk by Steven Levy recounting his persevering quest to understand just what happened to Einstein’s brain. As the story goes, the doctor who performed Einstein’s autopsy in 1955, pathologist Thomas Harvey, kept several pieces of the late physicist’s brain for himself. It was not until Levy’s surreptitious meeting with Harvey as a young journalist twenty years later that the old doctor came clean, the story broke, and the scientific community began to study the surviving brain matter to look for disparities with other brains.

External link: My Search for Einstein’s Brain: Steven Levy at TEDxBeaconStreet

 
 
Carl Zimmer’s latest TED talk is up over at TEDEd: “The Jewel Wasp’s Zombie Slave.” The topic is parasitic wasps: the inimitably horrific behavior of the jewel and ichneumon wasps, both of which essentially turn their prey into zombies.

One would be hard-pressed to find more disturbing behavior in all of the animal kingdom than what we observe in the jewel (Ampulex compressa) and the ichneumon wasps. The two species share one distinctive characteristic: their parasite-like reproductive cycle, which includes the prolonged suffering of their hosts. While the ichneumon prefer caterpillars as their victims and the jewel wasps cockroaches, both immobilize their prey and rely on their implanted larvae to kill their victims from the inside out.

Observing this process in action makes Alien fiction seem rather pedestrian. Ichneumon is Greek for “tracker”, a fitting descriptor for these winged predators. The ichneumon wasp scans its environment for a suitable caterpillar and descends to waylay the soon-to-be host of its offspring. The caterpillar is no match for the sudden ambush as the wasp injects her eggs into the caterpillar’s body. Once the eggs hatch, the larvae slowly eat the living caterpillar from the inside, targeting the less essential organs first and slowly killing it before eating its way out of the host.

The jewel wasp adopts an even darker, more insidious approach. Its process is first to sting the prey and chew off just the right amount of the cockroach’s antenna to keep it alive for the impending torture ritual. With the roach’s motor functions compromised, the wasp leads the cockroach to its den like a dog on a leash, where the wasp lays its eggs. After three days in this paralytic state, the hatched larvae feed on the roach’s exoskeleton for 4-5 days, chewing their way into the abdomen to continue their reproductive ceremony. Over the next eight days, the wasp larvae consume the roach’s internal organs in an order which maximizes the length of time the roach will stay alive. Finally, the fully grown wasp emerges from the roach’s carapace, ending its life in the process.

The wasps’ unusual reproductive habits have been known for some time. In fact the ichneumon creature provoked particular disquiet for theologians in centuries prior. Many regarded these revelations of nature especially problematic as there are clearly other reproductive options available; no other wasp species reproduce in this way. Even Darwin himself was vexed, writing in a letter to Asa Gray:
 

Enjoy the video.
 

External link: Parasite tales: The jewel wasp’s zombie slave – Carl Zimmer

Feature image credit: insectimages.org

 
 
In this brief TED presentation, Louie Schwartzberg shares with us clips of his 35-year collection of time-lapse footage. The footage is borrowed from his film “Wings of Life”, with the focus concentrated on pollination. The video captures in exquisite detail nature’s four primary pollinators: bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and bats. Of particular motivation for his film is the worrying decline of the honeybee, nature’s most assiduous pollinator.

External link: Louie Schwartzberg: The hidden beauty of pollination

Feature image: “Syrphid’s Feast” by user Niels Straiting

 
 
Bill Gates gave a TED talk in 2009 titled Mosquitoes, malaria and education. It’s far-ranging and incisive. Here are a few points that stuck out for me:

• Gates is an optimist, who obviously has the resources to tackle big problems. After three decades at Microsoft, he stepped down as Microsoft CEO and decided to turn his nonpareil wealth and status toward more philanthropic aims.

• Historical data lends good reason for Gates’ optimism. As recently as 1960, of the 110 million children born each year, 20 million died before the age of 5. Medical breakthroughs continue to sharply reverse this trend, and child death has now been reduced to under 9 million globally. This is a MONUMENTAL drop.

• New York passed a law prohibiting teacher improvement data from being used in tenure decisions. This is a recipe for failure and can only amplify the education crisis currently besetting American classrooms.

• More money is spent annually on male baldness drugs than on malaria research (and probably a lot of other things).

• In retrospect, Gates’ name may one day be primarily associated with philanthropy, not computing.

External Link: Bill Gates: Mosquitos, malaria and education

 
 
No problem worth solving is simple.

In this brief TED talk, Dan Meyer discusses the backwardness of math education in America and how we can improve the situation. Partly stemming from a misunderstanding of what it means to think mathematically, and fractionally from mainstream America’s inexorable advance toward instant gratification and quick solutions, we now have a society not only impatient with irresolution, but a society with ineffective math instruction. Meyer explains how math education can be retooled to better prep students for problem-solving and for life.
 

External link: Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover

Feature image via Weird ART Corporation

 
 
Medical ethicist Harvey Fineberg presented at TED back in March 2011. His talk, “Are we ready for neo-evolution?,” was one of the more memorable talks of its kind. Understanding that we are products of the evolutionary process, Fineberg emphasizes that we are not a final culmination, but still subject to the same variety of environmental, biological and climatic forces that shaped us in the first place. We are, however, in a different position from all other animals with which we share the planet. Namely, we have the capacity to alter our evolution in ways other species cannot, both indirectly and, soon, perhaps directly.

Fineberg’s talk deals exclusively with the trajectory of human evolution in the coming millennia and the paths we might take. I’ve listed a few key points and open questions for discussion below.

• Has the pace of human evolution slowed compared with previous eons? What factors might have led to this declivitous slide toward genetic stabilization?

• How will we adapt to the changing conditions of our universe, such as climate change? Will those adaptations be sufficient to prevent our demise?

• What about our physiology will be different just 100,000 years from today (e.g., less body hair, longer fingers)?

Fineberg offers three possibilities:

1st possibility: No further evolution. Medicine and modern treatments have preserved the genes which would normally die out sans these palliatives.

2nd possibility: Natural evolution will continue via small infusions of genomic changes over time.

3rd possibility: Neo-evolution (aka self-directed evolution). This is evolution guided by us in the choices we make, such as choosing the sex of our children, making adjustments to our own genome and that of our offspring to reduce certain predispositions to illness, and other pre-programmed emendations that lie not too far off in our future. In this way, artificial selection could work much faster than its natural counterpart.

One can draw parallels to the dystopian Gattaca, where one day intelligence, life longevity and predefined health conditions are not only chosen at birth but necessary to maintain pace with society. Would neo-evolution continually raise the bar higher until traditionally idolized traits are rendered meaningless? Would words like ‘talent’ and ‘skill’ lose all context? And who would have access to these tinkerings? Would the benefits of guided evolution offset the costs of individuality, hyper-conformity and an inflating genetic lacuna between rich and poor? These are complex questions with perhaps no convergent answers.

External link: Are we ready for neo-evolution?

 
 
Barry Schwartz’s “The Paradox of Choice” remains one of the greatest talks in the TED catalog. Incisive and comprehensively applicable, the way he connects choice psychology to marketing, human welfare and social policy is masterful.

The basic idea is as follows: Humans value choices. And it has often been assumed that too little choice is inhibiting. Thus every year, we have more choices than we did the year before. This has psychological implications which affect every one of us. Due to the escalation of expectations, too much choice is unfavorable, if not equally so compared with too little choice, which suggests there is clearly some optimal amount of choice.

Have we struck this balance, or are we bogged down daily with a deluge of unnecessary options which belabor decision-making? Is there such a balance? What might it look like?

This ideas presented here have far-ranging implications for everything from department store models, online shopping and general consumerism to academia and video games.
 

“If you shatter the fish bowl so that everything is possible, you don’t have freedom; you have paralysis and decreased satisfaction. Everybody needs a fishbowl. The absence of a fishbowl is a recipe for misery and disaster.”

External link: Barry Schwartz: The Paradox of Choice

Feature image: “Stripes of Gold” by colindub.com