"Ian Stewart - Environmental Friendship Fossle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Ian)

Cloned mammoths.

Genetically modified elephants--ivory looks like mammoth.

Aliens who abduct(ed) mammoths.

Aliens who abduct(ed) cloned genetically modified elephants.

Chemical process that makes elephant ivory look like mammoth.

Synthetic ivory.

Drugs inducing the illusion of hunting mammoths.

Virtual reality mammoths.

Resurrected mammoths.

Alien creatures resembling mammoths, hunted on Earth.

Alien creatures resembling mammoths, hunted off Earth.
Robot mammoths. Cybermammoths. Mammdroids.

The brainstorm file on my wristband went on for several pages. I looked at the list for the hundredth time,
sighed, and closed the file. I had plenty of wild theories, very few facts, and nothing made any sense
whatsoever. The first few theories had been the most likely until my search turned up the tusk, but now
I'd deleted them, leaving the remnants in case something caused me to reinstate any of them.

Everything about this business smelt of organized crime--a mainland tong, a Hong Kong triad. I was
treading on dangerous turf. Not for the first time.

I was having the tusk tested, through SCITES, to find out what animal it was from. Privately, I was
betting on "elephant." The test wouldn't tell me whether the elephant had been the proud possessor of a
woolly coat, but the photos were enough evidence of that.

Some theories I could rule out by making other tests on the tusk, as I intended to once I'd gotten the
results of the first test. For instance, if the tusk had been made by a chemical process that makes modern
elephant ivory look like fossil mammoth ivory, the result almost certainly wouldn't be perfect. The fine
detail of the ivory's structure, under a microscope, would be a dead giveaway. There might even be
traces of the chemicals used.

Other theories were more problematic. For instance, if someone had managed to clone mammoths using
preserved DNA from the Siberian tundra burials, would it be illegal to slaughter them for their ivory?
SCITES had made that illegal for bona fide elephants, but I didn't need to read the treaty to know that it
did not mention live mammoths.

Could we argue in court that a living mammoth was really an elephant? Could that argument succeed? I'd
seen sillier unorthodox interpretations stand up in a court of law. I'd seen more sensible ones thrown out.

Suppose Tsong had unknowingly hunted robot mammoths, as part of some elaborate scheme to make