That’s what a recent paper in PLoS Biology asks—and doesn’t really answer.

Instead, it lays out a great argument, giving the pros and cons of using the controversial technique in addressing conservation issues. It also urges the two parties—synthetic biologists and conservation biologists—to get in the same room and talk about the possibilities and problems with open minds. In fact, the authors of paper organized a meeting this week in the United Kingdom, bringing the two groups of scientists together. (Ed Yong has an article about the meeting at National Geographic.)

The paper describes several examples of how synthetic biology could work to help conservation efforts—restoring habitats, supporting endangered species, and even reviving extinct species. It also lays out several examples of how synthetic biology could wreak havoc on the natural world. (The open-access article is very readable. We encourage you to review it or at least take a look at the examples in Table 1.)

The paper and meeting come on the heels of huge media coverage on de-extinction. National Geographic’s April issue on the topic garnered a lot of press and generated public interest. In some cases, these articles say, de-extinction could be just a few years away, if not closer.

The PLoS paper and de-extinction topic seemed to be a great opportunity to speak to Terry Gosliner, the Academy’s Dean of Science and Research, about the subject.

“Do you really want to encounter a saber-toothed cat in Muir Woods?” Terry joked when we sat down.

He sees huge potential risks in using synthetic biology for conservation, but admits that the meeting and discussion are a great idea. “Open dialogue is the only way to explore the topic, see the potential and understand what the concerns and dangers are,” he says. “Bad things happen when there isn’t discussion. Informed dialogue is the best way to deal with controversial issues.”

Terry believes some aspects of synthetic biology in the natural world could work, with appropriate regulation.

But he also sees that synthetic biology may not be the right approach. When thinking about threatened species, the problem is usually “habitat loss, not necessarily genetic constraints.” He uses the re-emergence of California condors as an example of this.

And in some cases, extinction is a natural process, Terry reminds us. Synthetic biology could just be more of humans interfering with nature, and not in a good way.

The resources going toward de-extinction could be better used to protect life before it goes extinct, Terry thinks. “If we use the same resources to address climate change and how we use energy,” Terry says, “We literally could save hundreds and thousands of species.”

And those energy and climate resources could be from synthetic biology. The PLoS paper cites a 2009 report on synthetic biology: “Many believe that synthetic biology will be one of the transformative technologies necessary to combat climate change, energy shortages, food security issues and water deficits.”

What do you think? Can synthetic biology save wildlife? Where do you stand on the issue?

Earth

The Gulf oil spill—the number of gallons spilled and the controversy surrounding the damage seems to top many lists this year. Nature even named Jane Lubchenco, head of NOAA, its newsmaker of the year for how she handled the crisis.

Natural disasters often took the front page in 2010 with the Haitian earthquake and the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull topping many lists. The hard-to-pronounce Icelandic volcano also made many of the best science images of the year lists.

DiscoveryNews ends the year on a positive note with “How Humans Helped the Earth in 2010,” a slide show with text concerning recent strides in alternative energy, species and habitat conservation efforts and individual efforts to go green (electric cars, white roofs and saving energy).

For more environmental news of the year, New Scientist’s Short Sharp Science has a great review and the Nature Conservancy has a best/worst list on its site.

Life

Teeny, modified life stole the spotlight this year—the J. Craig Venter Institute’s so-called “synthetic cell” and GFAJ-1—the bacteria that incorporates arsenic into its DNA—or so NASA scientists claimed.  Science writer Carl Zimmer discredited the arsenic bacteria paper on Slate; NASA author Felisa Wolfe-Simon defended herself in Science. Fun stuff!

The spread of pesky bedbugs was number six in Discover’s “Top 100 Science Stories of 2010.”

Nature’s great article this past summer on eradicating mosquitoes was among its readers’ top choices of the year.

Looking for something a little bigger and less controversial? New Scientist has “The coolest animals of 2010,” which includes a scorpion-eating bat and a fly thought to be extinct for over 160 years!

NPR found it was a very good year for Neanderthals—their genome was sequenced, brain examined and diet expanded.

Remarkably, the Census of Marine Life tops the BP oil spill in the Deep Type Flow blog’s biggest marine science stories of the year for its sheer numbers:

…over 500 research expeditions covering every ocean, over 2,500 scientists and the discovery of over 6,000 species new to science and published in over 2600 peer-reviewed papers.

Space

ScienceNow’s most popular story of all time, not just 2010, was “Does Our Universe Live Inside a Wormhole?” A wonderful theory that we also covered last spring.

Exoplanets, in part thanks to the Kepler mission, were all over the news this year—whether it had to do with size, atmosphere or number within a star system. Discover’s interview with local exoplanet hunter (and California Academy of Sciences Fellow) Geoff Marcy made number 11(!) on their 100 top stories list.

A little closer to home, Jupiter’s missing stripe and Neptune’s tale of cannibalism are included in New Scientist’s most popular space stories of 2010.

Our Moon and Saturn’s moons made news throughout the year and the top lists on Universe Today and Wired this week.

Universe Today also included SDO’s new views of the sun in their top stories list. Stunning!

Hubble celebrated its 20^th year in space this year by taking even more beautiful images. Several are included in Bad Astronomy’s “Top 14 Astronomy Pictures of 2010.”

Technology

Electric cars and NASA’s new foray into commercial spacecraft are included in Scientific American’s top ten stories of the year.

The Large Hadron Collider was very busy this year, and topped many lists. Another machine at CERN made news (and also topped Nature’s readers’ choice list) when it was able to capture antimatter for a sixth of a second!

Graphene not only garnered a Nobel Prize this year, the material (and it’s potential) also made news and top science lists of the year.

DiscoveryNews put plastics on their 2010 list—whether its finding new ways of removing plastic from the oceans or engineering smarter plastics.

What was your favorite science story of the year? Share with us by adding it to the comment section below!

Image by Les Stone, International Bird Rescue Research Center/Wikipedia