Last month a company in Texas announced it had made an artificial egg, with the hope of bringing back to life extinct birds like the dodo. But there are perils with this new scientific realm of ‘de-extinction’, or reverse extinction. One is a concern it shifts the focus from protecting living species now. 

• Guest: Sadiah Qureshi, Chair of Modern British History, University of Manchester, UK. Writer and historian of science, race, and empire.  
• Author of Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction (Penguin, 2025)
• And an article this year in Aeon magazine, titled ‘Reversing extinction’
• Producer: Ann Arnold