Saw a toot earlier from @arratoon that scientists from Colossal Biosciences have genetically created a 'woolly mouse' as an initial step towards bringing back the woolly mammoth and my brain just went - yep that's fine and a bit interesting. It has just caught up with me and WHAT! HANG ON?! THEY ARE BRINGING BACK WOOLLY MAMMOTHS?!?!?!?!?

So I had a look and yes; 'Dallas-based firm Colossal Biosciences is attempting to "de-extinct" the mammoth, the dodo, and the Tasmanian tiger, using genetic engineering.'

This is bananas. I'll be honest, I'm sure there are all sorts of ethical angles, but I think I'm here for it. Why not. As long as they are able to live comfortably and sustainably in todays environment.

But if this just a ploy from Big Science to genetically engineer some hairy meat, I am DEAD AGAINST IT. No to hairy meat. Yes to happy Mammoths, roaming around the Kent countryside or whatever.  

Next challenge; see if they can resurrect empathy and basic human kindness. I volunteer to lead this team of boffins. All I need is total funding and for someone to tell me who to speak to and about what, what they'll need, premises and presumably a huge laser of some kind and also one million pounds. With my limitless funding, scientist army, giant laser and one million pounds, I am going to save this planet so hard it'll make your head spin.

“‘You wouldn’t be like, ‘Hey, birds are doing great. We’ve got a huge biomass of chickens!’ It’s kind of the same thing with honeybees’”

Wait, does America suddenly have a record number of bees?

https://wapo.st/3TDPfnP

The thing happening here is of a piece with the enshittification Doctorow talks about (a useful model despite overuse) but it’s bigger than that. “The collapse of the value of knowable truth under the dead weight of financialization” is probably too simple, but idk.

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/

Thinking about the panicky rush to replace teetering systems of knowledge with plausible-word machines + the old days of plaster dust in milk and spent tea leaves boiled in sheep shit and resold as new.

This is the cabinet that I've been working on since May. I still have a few tweaks to make, but it was finished enough to get some Glamour Shots taken.

As soon as I started learning woodworking, I knew that I wanted to do a marquetry pangolin, and I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

Photos: John Polak Photography

#Marquetry #Woodworking #Woodcraft #Craft #Pangolin