SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING ON GLOBAL
CONSERVATION 'Pilcher is both very funny and very, very clever.'
Gillian Burke 'Richly entertaining throughout.' Sunday Times For
the last three billion years or so, life on Earth was shaped by
natural forces. Evolution tended to happen slowly, with species
crafted across millennia. Then, a few hundred thousand years ago,
along came a bolshie, big-brained, bipedal primate we now call Homo
sapiens, and with that, the Earth's natural history came to an
abrupt end. We are now living through the post-natural phase, where
humans have become the leading force shaping evolution. This
thought-provoking book considers the many ways that we've altered
the DNA of living things and changed the fate of life on earth. We
have carved chihuahuas from wolves and fancy chickens from jungle
fowl. We've added spider genes to goats and coral genes to tropical
fish. It's possible to buy genetically-modified pets, eat
genetically-modified fish and watch cloned ponies thunder up and
down the polo field. Now, as our global dominance grows, our
influence extends far beyond these species. As we warm our world
and radically reshape the biosphere, we affect the evolution of all
living things, near and far, from the emergence of novel hybrids
such as the pizzly bear, to the entirely new strains of animals and
plants that are evolving at breakneck speed to cope with their
altered environment. In Life Changing, Helen introduces us to these
post-natural creations and talks to the scientists who create,
study and tend to them. At a time when the future of so many
species is uncertain, we meet some of the conservationists seeking
to steer evolution onto firmer footings with novel methods like the
'spermcopter', coral IVF and plans to release wild elephants into
Denmark. Helen explores the changing relationship between humans
and the natural world, and reveals how, with evidence-based
thinking, humans can help life change for the better.
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