With genetic engineering, humans have recently unleashed a surreal fantasia: pigs that excrete less environment-polluting phosphorus, ducklings hatched from chicken eggs, beagles that glow ruby red under ultraviolet light. Biotechnology poses unprecedented power and potential — but also follows a course thousands of years in the making.
In Life as We Made It, evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro pieces together a palimpsest of human tinkering. From domesticating dogs to hybridizing endangered Florida panthers, people have been bending evolutionary trajectories for millennia. Modern-day technologies capable of swapping, altering and switching genes on and off inspire understandable unease, Shapiro writes. But they also offer opportunities to accelerate adaptation for the better — creating plague-resistant ferrets, for instance, or rendering disease-carrying mosquitoes sterile to reduce their numbers.
For anyone curious about the past, present and future of human interference in nature, Life as We Made It offers a compelling survey of the possibilities and pitfalls. Shapiro is an engaging, clear-eyed guide, leading readers through the technical tangles and ethical thickets of this not-so-new frontier. Along the way, the book glitters with lively, humorous vignettes from Shapiro’s career in ancient DNA research.
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