Mendel's Ark (eBook)

Preface1. The Future of Extinction1.1 Goodbye to the Baiji1.2 Welcome to the Anthropocene1.3 Wicked Problems and Socio-Technical Imaginaries1.4 Taking Control of Nature’s Realm1.5 Telling Stories about Extinction1.6 The Once and Future BaijiReferences2. A Political History of Extinction2.1 The Biodiversity and Extinction Crisis2.2 The Ladder of Life:  The Question of Extinction in Classical Antiquity2.3 The Order of Things: Classifying Nature in the Age of Enlightenment2.4 The Second Alexandrian Tragedy: Extinction in the Progressive Era2.5 Spaceship Earth: Modern Environmental Movements2.6 Extinction in the AnthropoceneReferences3. Bio-Inventories:  The Digitization of Species3.1 They Had to Count Them All:  An Introduction to Bioinformatics3.2 The Encyclopaedia of Life3.3 A Barcode for Every Species3.3.1 Transforming Ecology: From Species to Genes3.3.2 The Taxonomic Impediment3.3.3 Citizen Scientists and Democratic Natures3.3.4 Digitizing Taxonomy as Big Science3.4 Discussion3.4.1 Biological Citizenship3.4.2 Digital Natures3.4.3 Scientific Frontiers and the New ModernityReferences4. Bio-Interventions: Cloning Endangered Species4.1 The Molecular Frontier: Genetics in the 20th Century4.2 Life as Code: A New Metaphor4.3 From Wistar Rats to Oncomice: Engineering Animals4.4 Dolly and Polly: The Era of Animal Transgenics4.5 Noah’s Ark: Cloning on the Edge of Extinction4.5.1 Moral Hazards4.5.2 Technological Fixes4.5.3 Cloning and Animal Ethics4.6 Discussion4.6.1 Preservation in a Petri Dish4.6.2 Bio-hype and Biovalue4.6.3 At Least We Will Still Have TigersReferences5. Bio-Identities: Cloning the Recently Extinct5.1 Liminal Lives: The Biopolitics of De-extinction5.2 The Past Comes Alive: Ancient DNA as Time Travel5.2.1 Everything Old is New Again5.3 So You’re Extinct: Tales of the Tasmanian Tiger5.3.1 You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Until You Lose It5.3.2 The Thylacine as Environmental Icon5.4 The Thylacine Cloning Project5.4.1 Bring ‘Em Back Alive5.4.2 Spectacular Science5.4.3 Biovalue and the Vital Past5.5 Discussion5.5.1 The Tiger in the Room5.5.2 Bringing Back the Bucardo5.5.4 Reviving and Restoring6. Bio-Imaginaries: Bringing Back the Woolly Mammoth6.1. Pleistocene Dreams: The Woolly Mammoth as Icon6.2 Genes in Deep Time6.2.1 Sequencing Ancient Genomes6.2.2  Drawing Boundaries around Ancient DNA 6.2.3 Paleogenomics6.3 Mammoth Cloning6.3.1 How to Resurrect a Woolly Mammoth6.3.2 Science, the Endless Frontier6.3.3 How Much is a Woolly Mammoth Worth?6.3.4 Genome Hacking: Mammoth-ifying the Elephant6.4 Discussion6.4.1 Pleistocene Parks and Paleolithic Futures6.4.3 Why Not the Neanderthals, Too?References7. Restoration to Resurrection: Extinction in the 21st Century7.1 Escaping the Black Hole of Extinction7.2 Rewilding7.3 De-Extinction7.4 Synthetic Biology 7.5 Anticipatory Animals and Promissory Natures7.6 In Search of Lost WorldsReferences.