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\n Scientists are debating whether engineering the DNA of plants and animals could help preserve them — and whether they should be released into the wild.
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Some scientists looking to preserve vulnerable species have turned to a controversial technique: synthetic biology. This catchall term often means genetic engineering \u2013 introducing new genes to an organism. And a recent narrow vote by the International Union for Conservation of Nature on using the technology shows how divided scientists are on the issue of releasing genetically altered species. Science correspondent Nate Rott<\/a> wades into the debate with us and reveals whether or not the Union voted to place a moratorium on releasing gene-edited species.<\/p>\n Read more of <\/strong>Nate’s reporting<\/strong><\/a> on the topic.<\/strong><\/p>\n Interested in more science debates? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org\/shortwave<\/a>.<\/p>\n Listen to Short Wave on Spotify<\/a> and Apple Podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n This episode was produced by Berly McCoy. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. The audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists are debating whether engineering the DNA of plants and animals could help preserve them — and whether…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[267,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-513860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-genetics","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115405401058725156","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}