Stephen Wilkes for The New York Times; Woolly Mammoth, Royal BC Museum, Victoria, British Columbia

The New York Times has a fascinating article about the possibility of restoring extinct animals to existence and in sufficient numbers to create breeding populations. I'm of two minds about it all. On the one hand, how amazing and wonderful would it be to again see passenger pigeons, dodos, great auks, or mammoth? On the other hand, as a life-long science fiction nerd I know exactly where that inevitable leads--Ragnarok!

Stephen Wilkes for The New York Times. Passenger pigeon, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.