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Commentary: A research project to bring the Tasmanian tiger back from oblivion reignites debate about de-extinction. A preserved thylacine body lies curled up on a metal table. Two scientists in white lab coats handle the body. PIC at LINK (Getty) The preserved body of a thylacine being prepared for display in an Australian museum in 2005. When Hank Greely, a law professor at Stanford University, took to the stage at 2013's TEDx De-extinction conference in Washington, DC, he posed a simple question. "De-extinction," he started. "Hubris? Or hope?" The answer, he offered to a smattering of laughter, was "Yes." Greely's...

It’s reviled by city slickers, but revered by chefs. A vintage postcard of a pigeon plant. Wikimedia Commons ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Brobson Lutz remembers his first squab with perfect clarity. It was the 1970s at the now-closed French restaurant Lutèce in New York City. “I came from North Alabama where there was a lot of dove and quail hunting and I knew how tasty little birds were,” the fast-talking Southerner recalls. “I’m not even sure if I knew then if it was a baby pigeon or not. But I became enamored with them.” When he returned home, however, the New Orleans-based physician...

Tomorrow marks exactly 100 years since the last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. At their peak, millions — some argue billions — of passenger pigeons flew together, creating such a ruckus as to make normal conversation a challenge. Yet their numbers diminished rapidly, plunging perilously close to extinction within just a few decades thanks to our voracious appetite for the birds. Then they flamed out completely, the last wild one shot in 1900 and Martha dying 14 years later. “The bird was hunted out of existence,” wrote journalist Barry Yeoman in Audubon...