Woolly by Ben Mezrich *****

Reading and writing. The three-billion-dollar Human Genome Project established the technology to read DNA. While the first human gene sequence cost the aforementioned $3,000,000,000 in 2003, the same feat can now be completed for under $1,000. Woolly by Ben Mezrich explores the possibilities for writing DNA, also known as synthetic biology.

Returning animals from extinction has already been demonstrated. In 2003, a Spanish team cloned the extinct Pyrenean ibex. They started with a sample that had been preserved in 2000. The process has been demonstrated, the only question is finding an appropriate DNA source. Unfortunately, the further scientists reach back, the harder it is to find well-preserved samples. No one expects to ever find viable sample after 65 million years. Therefore, Jurassic Park will remain forever a fantasy.

The permafrost is a ticking time bomb for climate change. Enormous volumes of methane are trapped in the permafrost ("three times more carbon than all the forests on Earth combined"). If climate change destroys the permafrost, the result will accelerate additional climate change, a deleterious feedback loop. Leaving the winter snowfields fallow insulates the permafrost from the cold and allows the thawing process to progress. Churning the fields exposes the permafrost to the cold and rebuilds it.

Rebuilding the herds that lived in the coldest climates does this. Woolly mammoths are the animals most suited to save the permafrost if we could only find some. The four key traits for mammoths are: hair, small ears, subcutaneous fat, and hemoglobin. Mammoth hemoglobin works at a lower temperature than any know mammal hemoglobin.

The book has several fun characterizations of scientists, such as when Bobby Dhadwar crosses the U.S. border and when asked what he plans to do in the U.S. responds with

"I'm going to be implanting genetically altered DNA from naked mole rats into laboratory mice to try to reverse the aging process."

When the border agents became suspicious, he presented them with his Ph.D. dissertation (Yes, he had it in his trunk) to clarify the matter.

Another anecdote was when Dr. Church suggested he might need some "extremely adventurous female humans" to gestate Neandertal embryos, many people replied to volunteer.

If you were fascinated by Jurassic Park, you'll love this book which hypothesizes ways to return extinct animals without the terror of Michael Crichton's imagination, but with the benefits of forestalling climate change and improving human health.