Genetic and stem cell technologies are on the cusp of letting us clone even infertile endangered animals when intact DNA is available. And some extinct species could be brought back by tweaking the genome of a living close relative. It should also be possible to engineer lost traits into a population. Some targeted animals are the northern white rhino, which is now down to three infertile individuals living in Kenya, the black-footed ferret, the heath hen (currently extinct), and the passenger pigeon. Woolly mammoths are a little further over the horizon. A project is under way to endow Asian elephant eggs with mammoth DNA. After the legwork is done over the next year, the first cloning attempts are scheduled for 2018. (Sandrine Ceurstemont, New Scientist, Dec 17, 2016)

On the other hand, a totally unrelated – and scary – problem:  warm ocean water is flowing under the Totten glacier in East Antarctica at a rate of 220,000 cu. m. per second . The latest climate forecasts threaten us with a whopping sea level rise of 11 feet if and when the the Totten glacier in East Antarctica were to totally melt from below.

The resurrection of the wooly mammoth recedes into irrelevance if humanity, its farmland and cities are to be drowned in melted ice, entirely the fault of a greedy minority of mankind.  Pray that Trump doesn’t hasten the process!  One realises how thin the veneer of education and general knowledge is in raw reality.  Epicurus might blame our inadequate education system and the gullibility it leaves as a waste product.