National Geographic - USA (2021-12)

(Antfer) #1
ILLUSTRATION: KATY WIEDEMANN. SOURCE: KENNETH R. WOOD, NATIONAL TROPICAL BOTANICAL GARDEN

BY


SARAH GIBBENS

SMELL


TELEPHONES WERE A new invention, the Model T Ford
was selling briskly, and William Howard Taft was U.S.
president the last time anyone might have smelled
a Hibiscadelphus wilderianus tree blooming in the
wild. A distant cousin of Hawaii’s famous hibiscus

flowers, the tree was native to the southern slope of Mount Hale-


akala, on the island of Maui. It’s likely that H. wilderianus went


extinct between 1910 and 1913, judging from reported sightings of


it dying along with other tree species that ranchers had slashed


to clear space for cattle.


More than a century later, a group of scientists would wonder

whether extinction was truly the end of the species’ story. What


if this plant no longer seen in the wild—found only between dry


pages in an archive—could be brought back to life, at least partially?


“We were sitting around and thinking, What if we could do

Jurassic Park?” says Christina Agapakis, the creative director at


Ginkgo Bioworks, a Boston-based biotech company. “It was this


sort of dreamy conversation, and we thought maybe we could.”


Within five years, they had opened an aromatic window to the

past. Using DNA reconstruction and synthetic biology, they resur-


rected the tart juniper scent of the vanished Hawaiian tree’s bloom.


See the facing page for a scratch-and-sniff sample of the recon-
structed H. wilderianus fragrance and descriptions of two
other plants whose scents were retrieved.

Resurrecting a smell isn’t just about smelling something that no

longer exists, says Sissel Tolaas, a researcher and artist whose Smell


Research Lab in Berlin worked with Ginkgo on the plant project.


“Through smell you engage with memory and emotion,” she says.


Calling forth a long-lost smell is a way of experiencing the extinct


feelings it might have sparked, a whiff of the past.


Today an estimated 40 percent of Earth’s plants are in danger

of going extinct, according to a 2020 report by the Royal Botanic


Gardens, Kew. Many more will disappear before scientists even


realize they exist.


BRINGING BACK WHAT WAS LOST wasn’t easy. Agapakis and her


team first had to find enough of their targets’ remains. Scientists in


the fictional Jurassic Park tapped a mosquito preserved in amber;


Agapakis first hypothesized permafrost might contain preserved


remnants of extinct plants. When that proved a dead end, she


tried the Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries, a 20-minute


drive from Ginkgo’s headquarters. In Harvard’s collection of dried


T

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