Why did you have to go and mention Elvis? ...a conversation between a serious scientist and me...

Our friends at Bloomsbury Sigma will be publishing Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-extinction by scientist and comedy writer, Helen Pilcher, on the 22 September. Here, Helen Pilcher introduces her new book in conversation with... herself.

SERIOUS SCIENTIST
A new book about de-extinction? Well done, Helen. That’s brilliant. (SIGHS HEAVILY, ROLLS EYES OUT LOUD) But why did you have to go and ruin it all by including a chapter about Elvis Presley?

ME
What do you mean?

SERIOUS SCIENTIST
Well, Helen. Everyone knows that de-extinction is about bringing back extinct animals, not dead humans. It’s about returning lost genetic variation and biodiversity back into the world. It’s NOT about re-creating burger-eating, rock ’n’ roll icons, even if such a thing were possible, which it’s not.

ME
Whoa there, Pipette Lady. I know all that.

SERIOUS SCIENTIST
You do. OK, so why did you do it?

ME
Because I was curious. Because you can buy samples of Presley’s hair on eBay. Because scientists can extract DNA from hair, edit genomes, and create genetically identical animals through cloning. I’m interested in how far this technology can be taken.

SERIOUS SCIENTIST
Well, I don’t like it … and I’m not entirely happy about you starting sentences with the word ‘because.’

ME
Because?

SERIOUS SCIENTIST
Because… (PAUSES TO EXPRESS PROFOUND LOOK OF DISAPPOINTMENT) I am not happy because de-extinction is a serious endeavour that you deliberately seem to be making light of.

ME
Well spotted, my friend. My goal is that the whole book is tinged with humour and flippancy and wilful insouciance. It would be relatively easy to write a popular science book with ‘just’ facts in. But if you’re not careful, it can be dull as dishwater and that can put people off. My hope is that, by adding colour and laughs and light-heartedness, I can tempt people who would never normally read a popular science book to do just that.

SERIOUS SCIENTIST
Oh...

ME
And then, whilst they’re reading about Presley’s pickled wart and they’re being entertained and their guard is down, BAM, I hit them with some hard core molecular biology but it’s so subtle that they don’t even know what’s happened.

SERIOUS SCIENTIST
You literally hit them with a pipette?

ME
Yes, I do. It’s science by stealth. Incidentally, did you see the recent Nature paper suggesting gullibility is 80% heritable?

SERIOUS SCIENTIST
No … what just happened?

ME
Look, I hope this book will make people laugh. I hope it will seem inviting to people because it is a bit naughty. I hope it will inform and entertain, but I also hope that it will make people think very deeply. The book has a serious side – it talks about the current biodiversity crisis. Extinction rates are currently 1000 times higher than during pre-human times. We’re making a big fat mess of our planet and we need to work out what to do about it. De-extinction might be part of the solution. It might not, but we need to at least get people familiar with the idea so they can talk about it and participate in decisions about what happens next.

SERIOUS SCIENTIST
And you seriously think that Elvis Presley can do that?

ME
(LIP CURLED, HIPS GYRATING) Uh-huh-huh!

Bring Back the King by Helen Pilcher is published by Bloomsbury’s Sigma Science imprint and is out on 22 September.

Enter code BSA25 at the checkout to get 25% off Bring Back the King. Find the Bloomsbury website here: http://bloomsbury.com/uk/bring-back-the-king-9781472912251/