Bring Back the King

Helen Pilcher was a stand-up comedian for more than ten years, before the arrival of children meant she couldn’t physically stay awake beyond 9pm. During this time, she performed at the Edinburgh comedy festival, at London’s Comedy Store, and at various smoky pubs and clubs across Britain. She was a finalist for Jongleurs New Act of the Year (1998, 1999), the BBC New Stand Up Competition (1999) and Channel 4’s So You Think You’re Funny (1999). In 2002, she teamed up with fellow comedian Timandra Harkness to write and perform ‘The Comedy Research Project’ a stand-up comedy show commissioned for the very first Cheltenham Science Festival. Unusually, Helen is also a professional science writer, with a PhD in stem-cell biology. She was formerly a journalist for Nature online, specialising in genetics; before that, she ran the Science in Society programme at the Royal Society, and before that, she worked as a senior scientist for a biotechnology company, engineering a series of human stem cell lines for transplantation into damaged human brains, this following on from her doctoral research into stem-cell therapy for Alzheimer’s disease.

Introduction: Bringin’ it Back
Extinction may not be forever / The Science of De-extinction / The human genome project / How to choose what to bring back
Chapter 1: The King of the Dinosaurs
The demise of the dinosaurs and their lasting legacy / What could possibly go wrong? / Candidates for resurrection / How to care
for your dinosaur / The science of dinosaur de-extinction.
Chapter 2: The King of the Ancient Humans
The discovery of Neanderthals / I want my mummy / Could we clone a Neanderthal? / What’s in it for them? / How would a
Neanderthal fare today?
Chapter 3: The King of the Elephants
The giant animals of the late Pleistocene / Meet the mammophant / Pleistocene Park / Sea-cow resurgence
Chapter 4: The King of the Birds
The story of the Dodo / The Great Comeback – the Passenger Pigeon / As undead as a Dodo / Could the Dodo get its own back?
Chapter 5: Australia’s King of Beasts … and the Gastric Brooding Frog
Benjamin – last of the Thylacines / Thank heavens for alcohol / Reviving the Thylacine from a pickled pup / Call the Midwife:
Return of the gastric brooding frog.
Chapter 6: The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll
The Malthusian growth model of Elvis / A brief history of human cloning / The Second Comeback Special / Resurrecting humans /
Legal, ethical and technical issues.
Chapter 7: All Shook Up
We are more than our genes / The role of epigenetics / The torrid tale of the Burcardo
Chapter 8: It’s Now or Never
Just because we could, should we? The ethics of de-extinction / Likely candidates / The hurdles / The future of conservation / Has Elvis really left the building?