Overview

For the last three billion years or so, life on Earth has been shaped by natural forces. Evolution happens slowly, with species crafted by natural selection 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 the fate of all living things is irrevocably intertwined with our own. We domesticated animals to suit our needs, and altered their DNA – wolves became dogs to help us hunt and junglefowl became chickens to provide us with eggs. As our knowledge grew we found new ways to tailor the DNA of animals more precisely; we’ve now cloned police dogs and created a little glow-in-the-dark fish – the world’s first genetically modified pet. The breakthroughs continue. Through climate change, humans have now affected even the most remote environments and their inhabitants, and studies suggest that through our actions we are forcing some animals to evolve at breakneck speed to survive. Whilst some are thriving, others are on the brink of extinction, and for others the only option is life in captivity. Today, it’s not just the fittest that survive; sometimes it’s the ones we decide to let live. In this entertaining and thought-provoking book, Helen Pilcher considers the many ways that we’ve shaped the DNA of the animal kingdom and in so doing, altered the fate of life on earth. In her post-natural history guide, she invites us to meet key species that have been sculpted by humanity, as well as the researchers and conservationists who create, manage and tend to these post-natural creations.

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9781472956705

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Helen Pilcher is a science writer and comedian, with a PhD in stem cell biology and years of stand-up comedy under her belt. Helen has worked as a freelance writer for the last 12 years, and she has written for the Guardian, New Scientist, BBC online, BBC Wildlife and Nature, for which she was formerly a reporter. Helen's previous book for Bloomsbury Sigma, Bring Back the King, was Radio 2 ‘Fact not Fiction’ book of the week; it was described by comedian Sara Pascoe as ‘science at its funniest’. @HelenPilcher1

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