<h2>RoboStork</h2>
A team of Australian scientists built an underwater robot that can deliver larval coral to the Great Barrier reef, <a href="https://particle.scitech.org.au/tech/robots-to-the-rescue-of-the-great-barrier-reef/">where they hope</a> it will help restore the reef to some of its former glory, before it was ravaged by climate change.
The delivery drone, LarvalBot, is a more hospitable version of the underwater drone that has previously been <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/rangerbot-autonomous-drone-reef">used to hunt and kill</a> off the coral&#8217;s predators — yet another experiment in using robotics to protect and help recover the world&#8217;s coral reefs.
<h2>Fertilizing The Lawn</h2>
The scientists behind the project consider their work similar to fertilizing a lawn, <a href="https://particle.scitech.org.au/tech/robots-to-the-rescue-of-the-great-barrier-reef/">according to Particle</a>. Except instead of grass, it&#8217;s working on a beautiful and complex underwater ecosystem.
In order to re-seed the coral reef with larvae, scientists first need to gather that seed in the first place. <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/great-barrier-reef-scientist-sperm">Back in November</a>, the researchers gathered millions of coral sperm and egg cells for what they called at the time &#8220;IVF for coral.&#8221;
<h2>Planning In Advance</h2>
LarvalBot made its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1qtR2OAVDM">first delivery</a> back in December. Now the researchers are planning a second expedition to coincide with the reef&#8217;s natural mass spawning period, which will happen in October into November.
When that happens, LarvalBot will dive down, dropping millions of larvae that the researchers hope will be able to take root as brand new coral.
READ MORE: <a href="https://particle.scitech.org.au/tech/robots-to-the-rescue-of-the-great-barrier-reef/">ROBOTS TO THE RESCUE OF THE GREAT BARRIER REEF</a> [Particle]
More on the coral reef: <a href="https://futurism.com/endangered-coral-reefs-legal-recourse">To Protect Endangered Coral Reefs, Researchers Need Legal Recourse</a>

The drone is adapted from a robot that killed off coral's predators.

Undersea robots are helping save the Great Barrier Reef

Delivery Drones

Australian scientists are preparing to deliver millions of coral larvae to the Great Barrier Reef using an autonomous drone called "Larvalbot"

Undersea Robots Are Helping Save the Great Barrier Reef

Larvalbot helps shuttle lab-bred coral larvae back into the reef.

<h2>Rest in Peace</h2>
For the first time, a mammal has been driven extinct by human-caused climate change.
The Australian government has declared a small rodent called the Bramble Cay mosaic-tailed rat as extinct. The rising sea level coupled with worsening storms wiped out almost all of its food supply on the small island it inhabited, <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/climate-change-claims-its-first-mammal-extinction/">according to Scientific American</a> — a grim reminder of bleak effects of humans on the global environment.
<h2>Under The Rug</h2>
This year, Australia&#8217;s Department of the Environment and Energy <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/minister/price/media-releases/mr20190218a.html">put out a press release</a> describing a call to increase its efforts to protect the country&#8217;s endangered and threatened inhabitants.
The press release recommended moving the Bramble Cay rat, which Scientific American reports hasn&#8217;t been spotted since 2009, from being endangered to officially extinct.
<h2>No Doubt</h2>
The Australian government didn&#8217;t pull punches — <a href="https://futurism.com/climate-change-caused-humans">human-induced climate change</a> was listed as the primary cause of death for the small rodents.
While the loss of a rodent that only lived on one small island may not be a death toll for the entire world, it&#8217;s a stark reminder of the irreversible impact human civilization is making on the planet.
READ MORE: <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/climate-change-claims-its-first-mammal-extinction/">Climate Change Claims Its First Mammal Extinction</a> [Scientific American]
More on climate change: <a href="https://futurism.com/greenhouse-gas-clouds">Climate Change Is Eliminating Clouds. Without Them, Earth Burns</a>

The Bramble Cay melomys' official cause of death? "human-induced climate change."

Climate change just wiped out its first mammal

Gone Too Soon

First noticed in 2016, the Australian government recently confirmed the first mammalian extinction that was caused by human-induced climate change.

Climate Change Just Wiped out Its First Mammal

Rest in peace, little friend.

<h2>Clear Skies</h2>
In addition to trapping heat, new research suggests that greenhouse gases are eliminating the sky&#8217;s clouds — which could drastically speed up the pace of global warming over the coming century.
As carbon accumulates in the atmosphere, it breaks up the low-hanging stratocumulus clouds that help cool the planet. With those clouds out of the way, the planet could experience a rapid, global temperature increase of a catastrophic 14 degrees Fahrenheit, according to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0310-1">research published Monday</a> in the journal Nature Geoscience.
<h2>Another Scorcher</h2>
Scientists have long been collecting fragments of an understanding of how <a href="https://futurism.com/rising-clouds-endanger-tropical-forests">climate change affects cloud cover</a> and vice versa, but this new research fills in the gaps.
&#8220;This research points to a blind spot in climate modeling,&#8221; Tapio Schneider, the project&#8217;s lead researcher who works at California Institute of Technology and NASA&#8217;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190225123036.htm">university-published press release</a>.
Specifically, the new supercomputer calculations found that once atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations reach about 1,200 parts per million (PPM), the clouds will vanish and the world will rapidly heat up, mirroring a historic mass extinction event from 56 million years ago, <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/cloud-loss-could-add-8-degrees-to-global-warming-20190225/">writes Quanta Magazine&#8217;s Natalie Wolchover</a>.
We&#8217;re currently at around 410 PPM, but based on the world&#8217;s ongoing dependence on fossil fuels, our atmosphere may reach the 1,200 PPM threshold before the end of the century.
<h2>Whole New World</h2>
Just in case there weren&#8217;t enough reasons to move away from fossil fuels, bear in mind that the last time the stratocumulus cloud went away, the entire planet experienced mass extinctions.
A 14-degree temperature increase would render areas near the equator all but uninhabitable, and alligators would be able to comfortably swim in the Arctic Ocean, according to Quanta.
If the global temperature rises just four degrees, enough to further limit the amount of clouds that form around the world, it would spell &#8220;the destruction of the world&#8217;s coral reefs, massive loss of animal species, and catastrophic extreme weather events,&#8221; in addition to &#8220;meters of sea-level rise that would challenge our capacity for adaptation,&#8221; climate scientist Michael Mann told Quanta.
&#8220;It would mean the end of human civilization in its current form,&#8221; he said.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/cloud-loss-could-add-8-degrees-to-global-warming-20190225/">A World Without Clouds</a> [Quanta Magazine]
More on climate change: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/climate-change-map-transform-540-cities">Terrifying App Shows How Climate Change Will Transform 540 Cities</a>

We could see a 14-degree Fahrenheit increase by 2100.

Greenhouse gases are eliminating clouds. Without them, Earth burns

Cloud Cover

New research explains the role of cloud cover in climate change. If we keep burning fossil fuels, the clouds will go away and climate change will worsen.

Climate Change Is Eliminating Clouds. Without Them, Earth Burns

"It would mean the end of human civilization in its current form."

<h2>Mega-steak</h2>
Those massive animals we know and love, like polar bears, blue whales, and ostriches, may be running out of time on Earth and our insatiable appetite for meat may be part of the problem.
A fresh look at conservation data published in the journal <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12627">Conservation Letters</a> recently found that of most megafauna, defined here as species with ≥100 kg (220.4 lbs) body mass for mammals, ray‐finned fish, and cartilaginous fish, and ≥40 kg (88.1 lbs) for amphibians, birds, and reptiles, 70% will face continued population decline while 60% are likely to become extinct and our taste for meat may be to blame. The extinction of these massive animals could have drastic consequences and lead to a dramatic ripple of damage throughout ecosystems, threatening their ability to sustain life.
<h2>Supper Time</h2>
Of the 292 megafauna species identified based on the size-based classification of megafauna, the number one threat to each megafauna class (mammals, reptiles, ray-fin fish, etc.) was human harvesting. This included hunting for meat, for specific animal parts thought to have medicinal purposes, or the harvesting of animal eggs. Other major threats included unintended bycatch (notably in fish) as well as live trade.
Since the Pleistocene era, the largest megafauna have faced continued population decline and inevitable extinction, a trend only exacerbated by the emergence of humans as hunters toward the later end of the era. This pattern of human behavior has continued into the modern age, where the invention and continued development of projectile weapons have made hunting bigger and more dangerous animals more easily accomplished from a safe distance.
<h2>Dominoes</h2>
Between the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12627">1760s and 2012</a> nine megafauna species either became extinct or become extinct in the wild. While this may not seem like a lot, the study&#8217;s authors assert that the absence of these large animals can have an impact greatly out of proportion to their numbers on their environment, impacting processes like seed dispersal and the destabilization of other animal communities which feed these animals.
Preventing the extinction of these animals won&#8217;t be easy and takes the kind of collective, collaborative problem solving that isn&#8217;t one of humanity&#8217;s stronger skills. The study&#8217;s authors conclude that, &#8220;our heightened abilities as hunters must be matched by a sober ability to consider, critique, and adjust our behaviors to avoid consuming the last of the Earth&#8217;s megafauna.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-are-quickly-eating-the-world-s-largest-animals-to-extinction">We Are Eating The Planet&#8217;s Last &#8216;Megafauna&#8217; to Extinction</a> [ScienceAlert] 
 
More on meat-alternatives: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/lab-grown-steak-aleph-farms">For the First Time, a Startup Grew a Steak in a Lab</a>
&nbsp;

The world's largest animals are dying off and filling our dinner plates.

We may be eating most megafauna to extinction

Forbidden Steak

A fresh look at conservation data found that most megafauna are likely to face extinction and our taste for meat may be to blame.

We May Be Eating Most Megafauna To Extinction

On the matter of meat, there are more than lives at stake.

Despite how much they know about the natural world, ecologists and wildlife experts sit atop a treasure trove of unexamined information. They&#8217;re collecting a ton or data about the natural world, but it&#8217;s incredibly daunting (and, often, very tedious) to go through it all and figure out what it means.
One way they&#8217;re collecting data: Motion-capture cameras. They&#8217;re set up in the wild and are taking millions of photos of animals doing, well, animal things in their natural habitats. Once analyzed, they could reveal undiscovered patterns of behavior, or show us how to better protect the environment. But for the most part, we can&#8217;t be more specific about what those &#8220;animal things&#8221; are, because it takes people thousands of mind-numbing hours to sort through and analyze all of these photos.
Now, though, we might find out the lessons from those snapshots. Using an artificial intelligence system, scientists found a way to automate the whole process — their algorithm can recognize 48 different animal species and determine what that animal is doing in each photo, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/06/04/1719367115">according to new research</a> published in PNAS.
Those mind-numbing hours of sifting through photos? Scientists wouldn&#8217;t usually do it themselves. Often, they would rely on science-curious volunteers who agreed to look through and tag pictures. One group with a network of cameras, <a href="https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zooniverse/snapshot-serengeti">Snapshot Serengeti</a>, that relies on citizen scientists to tag them, provided the millions of animal photos and their descriptions. The AI system went through those previously tagged photos and learned to identify species such as wildebeest and gazelle, and their actions, such as resting, eating, or interacting with each other. After sifting through all those photos, the AI system was practically as good as a person at tagging new photos recorded in the wild.
More specifically, the new classification tool is right 99.3 percent of the time. Human volunteers generally perform about 0.3 percent better. But the AI system&#8217;s lowered performance came from particularly difficult photos, like the close up of an impala&#8217;s leg that the AI mistook for a zebra. If those photos are left to the humans, the AI handles the rest just as well as the crowd-sourcing volunteers do. And even with that little bit of human assistance, the AI can classify the Snapshot Serengeti photoset in 17,000 fewer hours than it would take a team of humans to do the whole thing, according to the researchers’ calculations.
This new algorithm and other time-saving tools could completely change the game for biologists and ecologists. Lots of scientific discoveries happen when researchers dig back through the archives, and problems with wildlife observation leave gaps in our knowledge of the world. For instance, scientists only confirmed last year that <a href="https://www.inverse.com/article/32512-aardvark-drinking-water-spotted">wild aardvarks drink water</a>, because no one had seen it happen.
Taking a big data approach to wildlife conservation might give us new strategies for how to better protect ecosystems that modern industrialization and development have been slowly killing. By using artificial intelligence to learn as much as we can — and more quickly than we could have only with a team of human volunteers — about how these animals act and interact, ecologists may find new ways to keep them alive as the world changes around them.

The algorithm can do menial tasks that would take humans thousands of work hours.

AI that counts and identifies wildlife could be a game-changer for ecologists

Earth & Energy

A deep-learning artificial intelligence algorithm is practically as good at classifying wildlife photos as people and may improve conservation projects.

AI That Counts And Identifies Wildlife Could Be A Game-changer For Ecologists

Letting an algorithm monitor motion-sensor cameras could change how we handle conservation.

Around the world, large predators at the top of their respective food chains are on the move. Recently, animals like alligators, otters, killer whales, mountain lions, and wolves have turned up in new, surprising places.
These new habitats, as it turns out, are a lot like their old ones — well, they are their old ones, the ones they occupied before humans dramatically reduced their populations. And that shows that humans have done something right for the environment for once.
&nbsp;
Large predators may be expanding into their previously-occupied habitats thanks to successful conservation programs, according to new research <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)30430-5?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982218304305%3Fshowall%3Dtrue">published in Current Biology</a>. Predators been found in habitats we don&#8217;t usually associate with them — mountain lions have turned up in grasslands, sea otters  in areas without kelp forests — but these were the environments these species used to inhabit, when their populations were larger. If individuals are now hanging out there, it&#8217;s a sign that there are enough of the animals for them to spread out and repopulate those areas.
We did it, right? Conservation efforts can cease and we can all go about our lives. Well, maybe we ought to hold off, especially since we live in a world where people look for any excuse to <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/dinograndoni/alaska-hunting-bear-wolf-airplanes?utm_term=.lfxOmoGeb#.tymaV9jw2">shoot wolves from airplanes</a> and recently stoned a kangaroo to death <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2018/04/20/a-kangaroo-wouldnt-hop-so-zoo-visitors-stoned-it-to-death/?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.c9d109bb3d44">for not hopping enough</a>.
So we can celebrate that previously-threatened animals are returning to pre-human-interference population levels, but let&#8217;s also keep the ball rolling. There’s no sign, at least not yet, that apex predators living in broader habitats poses any threat to people, though Quartz mentioned that more people have been <a href="https://qz.com/1273747/alligators-otters-and-killer-whales-are-repopulating-old-hunting-grounds-research-shows/">bitten by alligators</a> lately.
The best part? Letting these animals stay in their new (or original, depending how you look at it) habitats will actually make things easier for the conservationists of the future. The researchers found that many of the ecosystems that animals repopulated became more robust as a result. For example, sea otters who moved to estuaries without any kelp forests feed on crabs that, in turn, feed on slugs that eat algae. Without any otters, crabs had been eating too many of the slugs which let the algae grow rampant and <a href="https://nicholas.duke.edu/about/news/alligators-beach-killer-whales-rivers-get-used-it">smother local plant life</a>.
Solving a problem like that left with our own, blunt, human tools would cost time and money, not to mention the <a href="https://www.popsci.com/new-zealand-needs-to-kill-those-adorable-rabbits-on-its-sheep">virtual certainty of possibly catastrophic</a> unintended consequences. With predators like the sea otter back in place, some conservation problems are actually taking care of themselves.

We protected a lot of animals. Now we should make room for them.

Animals that used to be threatened are expanding back into their old habitats

Future Society

Large predators have been spreading out lately. New research suggests they're returning to the areas they lived before people drove them off.

Predators That Used To Be Threatened Are Expanding Back Into Their Old Habitats

That's good news. But it doesn’t mean we should stop protecting them.

Scientists are melding modern elephants with ancient mammoths to help them combat climate change and poaching.

To save endangered elephants from modern threats, scientists are combining elephants' genetic code with that of ancient mammoths. How very Jurassic Park.

Woolly Mammoth DNA Could Help Save Today's Elephants

Woolly Mammoth DNA Could Help Save Today’s Elephants

Imagine you’re heading out for a dinner date. You’re hungry and left enough time to get there and not be late, but when you step outside you find that conditions aren&#8217;t quite what you expected — you run into a 30-foot wall every few steps. What would you do? If you’re anything like me, you would probably just give up — stymied, hungry, un-romanced.
This is what&#8217;s happening for fish and aquatic wildlife in Europe: <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-04-european-fish-canoes-barriers-kilometer.html">according to new research</a>, there is a dam or other manmade obstruction blocking the continent’s rivers and streams every kilometer. The researchers figured this out by scraping whatever information they could find online, then went out and confirmed it for a total 1,000 kilometers. And, notably, the number of barriers they found was about thirty times larger than the number reported in existing (and outdated) databases.
Those researchers are launching an app that will allow people update the status of river and stream barriers as they come across them.
But, ultimately, a better database doesn’t help the trapped fish (that is, unless someone does something about it). What&#8217;s more, that project would create a database that is far from comprehensive, since this problem goes beyond Europe.
Look at <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/1/eaao1642">the Amazon River</a>, for example. As of February, there were 142 hydroelectric dams that were at least partially constructed and another 160 proposed across the mighty river; as a result, migratory fish like the migratory dorado catfish have already begun to disappear. And in the Pacific Northwest, salmon are being blocked by dams and need to be transported upstream so they can spawn.
This is not a new problem. Back in 2001, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1011036127663">computer models already showed</a> how river fragmentation directly lead to extinction. And yet the U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency &amp; Renewable Energy’s best solution is — no seriously — a <a href="https://www.energy.gov/eere/videos/whooshh-innovations-salmon-cannon-gives-fish-boost-over-dams">literal goddamn Salmon Cannon</a>.
Yes, interventions like this can help some fish survive, as long as people are there to place them on their personal waterslide. But it doesn’t address the other problems caused by river fragmentation, <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/dam-building-binge-amazon-will-shred-ecosystems-scientists-warn">like the changes</a> to the Amazon’s floodplains and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26267672">other areas around dams</a>. And even when people build dams that have bypass channels specifically intended to help fish get through, large populations of fish <a href="https://defenders.org/press-release/plan-yellowstone-dam-and-fish-bypass-%E2%80%9Cwon%E2%80%99t-pass%E2%80%9D-pallid-sturgeon">simply don&#8217;t go into them</a>.
An obvious solution: stop building so many dams. But the hydroelectric power the structures generate can be a crucial source of emission-free energy for industrializing nations that were left with <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/paris-2015-tracking-country-climate-pledges">very little room</a> to industrialize under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
The better answer seems to be to drain the dams we no longer need. That research into European river barriers also found that a number of the dams and other blocks out there are totally obsolete. These, like many other dams around the world, are still physically in place. Local governments have <a href="https://climateone.org/audio/tear-down-dam">slowly made efforts</a> to do this, but those are isolated cases.
So if you’re hiking a river trail and documenting barriers for that new app, we’re not saying you should knock over a barrier or two, but we’ll understand why you did it.

Imagine trying to feed or mate with a 30-foot wall in your way.

The world’s rivers are all backed up, leaving fish with no place to go

According to new research, there's a dam or other barrier per kilometer of European waterways. That's making life tough for fish.

Our Rivers Are All Backed Up, Leaving Fish With No Place To Go

They deserve better than a “salmon cannon.”

The World’s Rivers Are All Backed Up, Leaving Fish With No Place To Go

If you happen to be thirsty in the woods, there are a lot of things you can stick in your canteen to help clean up your drinking water. There are chlorine pills and filters (not crystals — <a href="https://gizmodo.com/national-geographic-just-sent-me-a-crystal-healing-wate-1823398246">never crystals</a>). And now scientists have identified a certain kind of moss that could do it, too.
The moss is called Warnstorfia fluitans. It grows in Swedish wetlands contaminated with the toxic arsenic from nearby mining operations. Researchers found that the moss brought the arsenic levels of water down to drinkable levels surprisingly quickly, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026974911731206X?via%3Dihub">according to research</a> published in the journal Environmental Pollution.
In northern Sweden, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2800070/">iron mines have contaminated</a> much of the water with arsenic, a metal that is also <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs372/en/">toxic to humans</a>. That harmful combination works its way into agricultural products like rice, traveling throughout the food web.
Researchers from the University of Stockholm hope that introducing this moss into wetlands could help clean up the area.
To test it in a controlled lab setting (that&#8217;s science-ese for “no one has tested this in the field yet,”) the researchers started with water that contained ten times the amount of arsenic deemed safe by the Environmental Protection Agency. When they exposed the moss to it, the moss took just an hour to absorb 82 percent of the arsenic.
But further tests showed that higher concentrations of arsenic, plus mixing in other miscellaneous compounds, slowed down the filtration process. That&#8217;s a bit closer to real-world conditions, so that lab ideal would be far from how this moss performs in an actual arsenic-contaminated wetland. But even so, researchers found that the moss was able to tolerate arsenic concentrations 1,000 times higher than the EPA’s maximum before it showed any signs of toxicity itself.
So how did the moss survive after taking in all that harmful arsenic? The researchers found that most of the toxin was being bound to the moss tissue, rendering it harmless. And because very few organisms <a href="http://www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/education/sphagnum%20moss.pdf">eat wetland moss</a>, this could help break the cycle of arsenic poisoning in which predators become sick after eating contaminated prey.
The road from laboratory tests to successful environmental cleanups is long and arduous, but if researchers find that it helps to grow this moss in and around streams with dangerous levels of arsenic, we may be on our way to an inexpensive, handy solution to a serious ecological hazard.

We may be on our way to an inexpensive, handy solution to a serious ecological hazard.

A moss can naturally clean harmful arsenic from water

A kind of moss that originated in arsenic-contaminated wetlands can bring the arsenic levels of water down to drinkable levels, a new study shows.

A Moss Can Naturally Clean Harmful Arsenic From Water

That's good news for Sweden, which has a lot of toxic arsenic in its water. 

This week scientists at Harvard University announced that they had assembled a nearly <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2018/02/27/moa-extinct-bird-genome/">complete genome of the little bush moa.</a> Never spotted one of these at your backyard feeder? Well, neither has anyone else alive today: the flightless bird has been extinct for about 700 years.
But if scientists get their way, that could soon change. Assembling the complete genome of the moa — and those of other long-gone creatures like the woolly mammoth, passenger pigeons, or even our Neanderthal cousins — is the first step in bringing those species back to life. Or at least, scientists&#8217; closest approximation.
The researchers first got their hands on the moa DNA by extracting it from a big toe of a museum specimen, <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2018/02/27/moa-extinct-bird-genome/">they told Stat News</a>.
Using modern technology to revive extinct species is known simply <a href="https://qz.com/1111810/de-extinction-four-extinct-animals-that-could-be-brought-back-to-life-through-gene-sequencing/">as &#8220;de-extinction,&#8221;</a> though the process is not what you&#8217;d call simple.
It’s like putting together a jigzaw puzzle that has 900 million pieces. And is still missing some. And you don’t have the picture on the box. But you have a puzzle that’s similar as reference.
The key components of all species&#8217; DNA are nucleotides: <a href="http://knowgenetics.org/nucleotides-and-bases/">adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine</a> — noted by the letters A, C, G, and T, respectively. The Harvard team started with 900 million of the moa&#8217;s nucleotides to start piecing together its entire genome (they aren&#8217;t saying how many they needed for a complete genome). Using the genome of a modern bird relative, the emu, to fill in the blanks, the researchers were able to piece together about 85 percent of the bird&#8217;s genome — on par with the genomes of other extinct species.
Once scientists organize the genome, the next step is deciding how to best <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/should-we-bring-extinct-species-back-dead">attempt to revive the species</a>. Researchers can opt for <a href="http://d2ufo47lrtsv5s.cloudfront.net/content/350/6265/1144">&#8220;backbreeding,&#8221;</a> a process in which they take a closely related species and selectively breed it until they produce something akin to the extinct species. If the species hasn&#8217;t been extinct for very long and researchers have a sample from, perhaps, the last living member, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/04/species-revival-bringing-back-extinct-animals/">cloning may also be a viable option</a>. The third option — using genetic engineering — is relatively new. With an accurate assembly of an extinct species&#8217; genetic data, researchers can inject them<a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/50157/title/CRISPR-May-Prove-Useful-in-De-Extinction-Efforts/"> into an egg of a living species</a> that&#8217;s genetically close to the one they&#8217;re attempting to bring back to life.
<figure style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/resurrection-biology-all-about-de-extinction/"><img src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/03/Homepage-Thumbnail-22.jpg" alt="Resurrection Biology: All About De-Extinction" ></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text center"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/resurrection-biology-all-about-de-extinction/" target="_blank">Click to View Full Infographic</a></figcaption></figure>
So bringing species back from the dead is feasible, if improbable and resource-intensive. But the question remains: why revive extinct species at all? If we&#8217;ve <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRNX6XJOeGU">learned anything from Jurassic Park</a> (which, let&#8217;s be honest, we all have) it&#8217;s that &#8220;just because we can, doesn&#8217;t mean we should.&#8221; Here are some reasons that scientists have used to justify their work.
<h2>To Improve Our Science</h2>
Every time scientists make sense of an extinct species&#8217; genetic information, they get better at doing it. Yes, the human researchers improve, but so do the computer algorithms that help them parse out the data. With each attempt, researchers learn more about the sequencing process, and can train the technology to perform its tasks more accurately and efficiently. And the genomes researchers are reconstructing now could be useful for assembling the DNA of other species in the future. Little by little, they&#8217;re assembling a genetic Rolodex for nearly every species on Earth.
Science for science&#8217;s sake is a noble effort, but there are also many arguments for <a href="https://futurism.com/images/resurrection-biology-all-about-de-extinction/">&#8220;resurrection biology,&#8221;</a> which frame the effort as being less about the de-extinction of species that have been lost to us, and more about preventing the extinction of endangered species.
<h2>To Save Endangered Species</h2>
As humans have taken up more space and resources, we&#8217;ve <a href="https://futurism.com/companies-bring-end-deforestation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">destroyed natural habitats</a> and endangered species. Many of those species eventually go extinct, pushing biodiversity levels <a href="https://futurism.com/research-shows-that-worlds-biodiversity-is-below-safe-levels/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">below the “safe” threshold</a> — the level at which the ecosystems can regenerate and sustain us — around the globe. The less biodiversity in an ecosystem, the greater chance species after species will go extinct.
We&#8217;ll feel the effects of biodiversity loss, especially when it comes to plants. The medications that we take are produced from or with plant extracts; the textiles and fabrics that we use in our clothing, and much of what we eat, all come from plant species. Plants depend the animals and insects in their environments for pollination and propagation. In return, those critters rely on crops for nutrition and housing just as we do. If those pollinators go extinct, the plants — and the species, like us, that rely on those plants —also go extinct.
<figure style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/animals-that-went-extinct-in-the-21st-century-infographic/"><img src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2016/07/Homepage-Thumbnail-13-900x600.jpg" alt="Animals That Went Extinct In The 21st Century [Infographic]" ></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text center"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/animals-that-went-extinct-in-the-21st-century-infographic/" target="_blank">Click to View Full Infographic</a></figcaption></figure>
Some species, called <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/keystone-species">keystone species</a>, are more important than others in maintaining that biodiversity. The passenger pigeon, for example, (a relatively recent extinction and thus a good candidate for resurrection) shaped many of North America&#8217;s forests. When the species was lost, the forests lost the <a href="http://reviverestore.org/projects/the-great-passenger-pigeon-comeback/">main driver of their regulation cycle</a> and have never been the same.
Reviving extinct keystone species, then, could help us preserve biodiversity, and, possibly, the ecosystems as a whole.
<h2>To Preserve the Planet</h2>
Bringing now-dead species back to life might help Earth survive in the long run. At least, that&#8217;s what Beth Shapiro, a biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, thinks. Shapiro has worked on several de-extinction projects (including the moa&#8217;s). In <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/these-are-extinct-animals-we-can-should-resurrect-180954955/">a </a><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/these-are-extinct-animals-we-can-should-resurrect-180954955/">2015 interview</a> with Smithsonian Magazine, Shapiro said she believed that land conservation efforts are simply not enough to preserve the planet. Much of the world&#8217;s biodiversity has been lost as a result of human interference: either directly via practices like deforestation, or indirectly, through our refusal to accept the realities of climate change.
If we want to get an idea of what happens to the world&#8217;s ecosystems after a major climate shift, we need not look further than previous extinction events. The woolly mammoth, for example, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleistocene-park/517779/">used to fertilize the grasslands of Siberia</a>; after it went extinct, the entire region became icy and barren.
&#8220;De-extinction may not be the answer to the biodiversity crisis that we are facing today, but the technologies that are being developed in the name of de-extinction may become powerful new tools in an active conservation regime,&#8221; Shapiro told Smithsonian. &#8220;Why not provide populations a little bit of genomic assistance so they can survive in a world that is changing too quickly for natural evolutionary processes to keep up?&#8221;
Considering that humans have, for millennia, pushed out species that were here long before us&#8230; that seems like the very least we could do.

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