The big idea: should we bring extinct creatures back to life?

We might be able to genetically engineer something like woolly mammoths, but is it a good idea?

We may weep for the dodo, but could and should we bring this lovely bird back from the dead? De-extinction is the science of restoring lost species and it has been in the news, sporadically, for decades.

The story in modern times began in 1990 when Michael Crichton published his science fiction novel Jurassic Park, in which he imagined a world where scientists were able to bring dinosaurs back to life. Crichton had trained as a biomedical scientist, so he was aware of the then new polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology that was revolutionising life-sciences labs. PCR enabled molecular biologists to make millions or billions of copies of DNA very quickly meaning that only tiny samples were needed.