130 reporting by Alex Schwartz, Donavyn Coffey, and Marion Renault / illustrations by Rami Niemi
I WISH SOMEONE
WOULD INVENT...
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accompanied by return postage. Microfi lm editions are available from Xerox University Microfi lms Serial Bid Coordinator, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106.CLEARLY, WE COULD USE YOUR INVENTION IDEAS! TWEET @POPSCI, EMAIL [email protected], OR TELL US ON FACEBOOK.HUMANS EXCEL AT FORCING ANIMALS INTO
extinction, but DNA construction tech isn’t yet advanced enough
to bring them back gene for gene. Ben Novak, lead scientist forRevive & Restore, a nonprofit aiming to resurrect laid-to-rest fauna, has
a workaround. By plugging bits of preserved DNA that made an extinct
organism unique into the code of a close living relative, researchers could
piece together a novel genome to create an entirely new creature. This
“proxy” would be a near-exact copy of the long-gone beast that’d fi ll its
vacant ecological role. Using surrogates or artifi cial wombs, passenger
pigeon and woolly mammoth proxies could appear within our lifetime.
A sunshade to cool Earth
ELEANOR IN THE OFFICE
We’re running out of time to solve climate change,
but a massive umbrella could buy us a few years.
Lifting a solid sun shield into orbit would be risky, so
we could instead mimic an event already present in
nature: chill-inducing sulfur dioxide plumes born
from volcanic eruptions. An aerosol parasol in the
stratosphere could cool the planet by 1 degree Cel-
sius, says Indiana University climate scientist Ben
Kravitz. But sulfur could damage the ozone layer,
and injections could cost $100 billion annually.
Such a shield is decades out, and the planet will still
broil if we fail to slash carbon emissions.An extinct animal resurrector
JOE IN THE OFFICEAn asteroid defense system
@JAKE_BITTLE ON TWITTER
A medium-size asteroid could wipe out an entire
city, but NASA has a contingency plan: Nudge them
off course decades in advance. An uncrewed craft
called DART, or Double Asteroid Redirection Test, is
in the agency’s $290 million dry run. It’ll launch in
2021, and smack into a nonthreatening asteroid
6.8 million miles away. The 15,000 mph collision
will obliterate the spacecraft but alter the rock’s
trajectory so it misses its target. If it works, DART
scientist Nancy Chabot says, a fleet of similar ships
could be stationed around Earth in a few decades.