Science fiction becomes reality in this Jurassic
Park-like story of the genetic resurrection of an extinct species—the woolly
mammoth—by the bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and The
37th Parallel.
“With his knack for turning narrative nonfiction into stories worthy of the
best thriller fiction” (Omnivoracious), Ben Mezrich takes us on an exhilarating
true adventure story from the icy terrain of Siberia to the cutting-edge genetic
labs of Harvard University. A group of young scientists, under the guidance of
Dr. George Church, the most brilliant geneticist of our time, works to make
fantasy reality by sequencing the DNA of a frozen woolly mammoth harvested from
above the Arctic circle, and splicing elements of that sequence into the DNA of
a modern elephant. Will they be able to turn the hybrid cells into a functional
embryo and bring the extinct creatures to life in our modern world?
Along with Church and his team of Harvard scientists, a world-famous
conservationist and a genius Russian scientist plan to turn a tract of the
Siberian tundra into Pleistocene Park, populating the permafrost with ancient
herbivores as a hedge against an environmental ticking time bomb. More than a
story of genetics, this is a thriller illuminating the race against global
warming, the incredible power of modern technology, the brave fossil hunters
who battle polar bears and extreme weather conditions, and the ethical quandary
of cloning extinct animals. Can we right the wrongs of our ancestors who hunted
the woolly mammoth to extinction—and at what cost?