Extinction is supposed to be forever. But in labs around the world, scientists -- using the latest biotechnology -- are trying to bring extinct animals back to life. From passenger pigeons to woolly mammoths, Britt Wray delves into the science, the ethics, and the implications of de-extinction for all animals, including us humans.

Participants in the program:

Mark Peck, Ornithology Technician at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.

Stewart Brand, writer and co-founder of Revive and Restore and The Long Now Foundation, San Francisco.

Ben Novak, Research and Science Consultant at Revive and Restore, San Francisco.

Dr. Beth Shapiro, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of California Santa Cruz and Co-Director of UCSC Paleogenomics Center.

Dr. Hendrik Poinar, Director of the Ancient DNA Centre at McMaster University, Hamilton and Canada Research Chair in Paleogenetics.

Norman Carlin, Lawyer practicing environmental and land use law and Partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, San Francisco.

Dr. Dolly Jorgensen, Environmental Historian and Professor at Umea University, Sweden.

Dr. Thomas Van Dooren, Professor in Environmental Humanities at University of New South Wales, Australia.


Special thanks to the Macaulay Library at Cornell University for 'field recordings' of extinct and endangered animals.


Image Gallery






Reading List

Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves, by George M. Church and Ed Regis, published by Basic Books, 2012.

Biology Is Technology: The Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Life, by Robert H. Carlson, published by Harvard University Press, 2011.

The Last Tasmanian Tiger: The History and Extinction of the Thylacine by Robert Paddle, published by Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Mammoths: Giants of the Ice Age, by Adrian Lister, Paul Brand, Richard Green and Jean M. Auel, published by University of California Press, 2007.

Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America, by Jon Mooallem, published by Penguin Press, 2013.

A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction, by Joel Greenberg, published by Bloomsbury USA, 2014.

"Reintroduction and Deextinction" by Dolly Jorgensen, Bioscience, 2013.

How We Grieve: Relearning the World, by Thomas Attig, published by Oxford University Press, 1996.

The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert, published by Henry Holt &Co, 2014.


Related Websites

• Revive and Restore 

• TEDxDeExtinction

• Pleistocene Park

• The Tauros Programme

• The Quagga Project