Comments on: Resurrecting A Forest

By: Mark Anderson

Mark Anderson — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:27:29 +0000

My father, now 80 years old, was walking through the woods with me in West Virginia. He saw a six foot tall sapling growing out of an old stump. He got very excited and exclaimed, “Its a chestnut!” Then his eyes teared up.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I remember when chestnut trees covered these mountains and had the sweetest nuts in the forest. This little fella will probably be dead of the blight within a year or so.” Then he told me the story of American chestnuts and the blight.

Since then I’ve been following the American Chestnut Foundation’s work for years now and wish them all the best success bringing these trees back to the forests.

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 02:55:35 +0000

Several years ago it was a big deal when the human genome was written out but it didn’t stop there. In 50 or 100 yrs it may be possible to modle ecosystems based on genetic interaction. Managing species in a resurrected environment will mean massive genetic decoding and computer models of their interaction. In fact it may be necessary for their preservation, but what comes next I fear, may be a board that decides what properties are most valuable to selected interests, the way national forests are managed today. The logging of the chestnut forests was promoted by logging companies over the objection of scientists studying the fungus. In fact the logging spread the spores into new areas and cut all chestnuts before any blight resistant trees could be gathered.

The problem is that our represenatives are susceptible to coercion (for the greater good of course). But maybe we could genetically redefine better politicians too.

By: Cynthia Spurling

Cynthia Spurling — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 05:01:23 +0000

It sounds wonderful but won’t it be wise to save species still here before they too need to be ‘brought back’?

By: judith

judith — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 04:59:59 +0000

if they are adding wheat genes to chestnuts, how will that effect people with allergies to wheat?

By: DBaker

DBaker — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 20:01:35 +0000

“If, a century from now, Powell’s chestnuts tower once again over the eastern United States, how will we think of those forests? Will we think of them as nature restored to its former glory, ecosystems thriving once more?”
You should maybe mention that the most spectacular/numerous consumer of chestnuts was the passenger pigeon, the species Brand is foregrounding in his TED talk on de-extinction. So the question might also be, will we see American chesnuts restored to their original habitats, and passenger pigeons feeding on their fruit? If there’s space for these things in their original habitats, of course.)

By: mo

mo — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 11:28:00 +0000

Hello, can the TEDx de-extinction event also be watched not live, at later times?

By: Ian Dinsdale

Ian Dinsdale — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:54:57 +0000

I don’t know why my previous comment hasn’t been added, but as a follow up to it I will add a link to a news story I just read regarding Dutch Elm Disease and the research currently underway here in Ontario, Canada.
http://www.torontosun.com/2013/03/14/researchers-map-genome-that-causes-dutch-elm-disease

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:49:53 +0000

lol @Bob

By: Bob Harvey

Bob Harvey — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:20:19 +0000

I cried tears of joy that scientists like these exist

By: Ian Dinsdale

Ian Dinsdale — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:25:58 +0000

I hope they are able to do the same for the Elm which once covered much of southern Ontario. We had one of the last giants on one of our farms until a few years ago when it too finally succumbed to Dutch Elm disease. Researchers from the University of Guelph took tissue samples of it hoping that maybe a few had some sort of resistance but I’ve never heard anymore about it after that. Some long dormant seeds still sprout and in some cases they have reached over 12 inches in diameter but they always end up getting sick and dying. Very sad to have lost such majestic trees from our landscape.