Dr. Singh clocks into her shift at the hospital early Thursday morning. Her coworkers are already hard at work treating patients, and she’s prepared for another busy day. Ever since the Alpha-gal epidemic began, they’ve had to completely change the way they treat patients. After all, they can’t risk patients being affected by the medications they’re using to treat a variety of conditions.

Mysterious meat allergy passed by ticks may affect hundreds of thousands in US, CDC estimates | CNN

Alpha-gal syndrome – a reaction to a sugar found red meat and dairy products that is caused by lone star ticks – may now be the 10th most common food allergy in the United States, according to new CDC estimates. It is also one of the least recognized.

CNNBrenda Goodman

The disease is spread by ticks, like the one that bit Lucas, age 15. Lucas is a local high school student who loves spending his afternoons tromping through the de-extinct plant gardens. Here, he gets to fulfill his passion for botany through studying plants that didn’t even exist when his parents were younger. He considers himself really lucky to live so close to a de-extinction garden, even if there are sometimes protests.

Back from the Dead: New Hope for Resurrecting Extinct Plants

Armed with new technology, botanists are proposing what was once thought impractical: reviving long-lost plant species by using seeds from dried specimens in collections. The challenges remain daunting, but researchers are now searching for the best de-extinction candidates.

Yale E360Janet Marinelli

Marisol loves her garden, but the pest problem has become too much to handle. Efforts to protect endangered species have gone too far, she claims, especially when some of those endangered species are devastating her garden and spreading diseases like Alpha-gal. Additionally, some of those pests are driving other species to extinction, making it hard for her to attract helpful pollinators into her garden.

Her irritation with the pest problem led to a slippery slope, and now Marisol joins a group of protesters every Sunday outside the de-extinction garden. They believe that extinct species should stay extinct, and more radical members even believe that more species, like ticks and mosquitoes, should be driven to extinction.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/09/04/invasive-species-un-report/ scanhit sourced by Jim Murray

“After all, they’re just pests,” one protester states. “It’s not like they’re actually doing anything important.”

Viewpoint: Bringing the mammoth back — Is it time to slow down de-extinction mania?

De-extinction is the science of restoring lost species and it has been in the news, sporadically, for decades.

Genetic Literacy ProjectMegan Heenan

How do you feel about common garden pests? Do you think extinct species should stay extinct? Join us in the FutureSlack community for discussions on this and other futures topics.

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