💬 Quoted: “They’re effectively just making a zebra less stripey.”

Vigorous debates aren’t just reserved for sports fans and Parliament – scientists love a little mental tussle, too.

Researchers and conservationists at the Quagga Project say they’ve brought a zebra-like mammal, the quagga, back from the dead. But critics say their nearly four-decade long quest, started in 1987, has done nothing but create a similarly looking knockoff.

Per the Wall Street Journal:

• Quaggas, a sub-species of the plains zebra, were once endemic to southern Africa, but hunting decimated their population. The last known quagga died at the Amsterdam zoo in 1883.
• Unlike zebras, quaggas only had stripes on their heads, necks, and sometimes backs. Their hindquarters were generally stripeless and brown, while their belly and legs were white.

The “revival” process… involved mating zebras with lighter, sparser, or browner stripes with each other, which resulted in reduced striping on the offsprings’ hind ends, legs, and bellies. The project says ~10% of the 150 animals it owns now would blend easily into a 19th-century herd of quaggas.

🧬 Zoom out: Scientists are also working to revive other extinct animals, including the Woolly mammoth and a type of giant Galápagos tortoise that died off in the 1800s.

Dive deeper into the quagga debate here.

🤖🎨 Stat of the Day: A painting of computer scientist and early AI pioneer Alan Turing, called “AI God,” sold for $1+ million at auction last week, in what Sotheby’s says is the first time a humanoid robot has sold a piece of art. The artwork was painted by Ai-Da, an “ultra-realistic robot artist” created by UK artist Aiden Meller. According to her website, Ai-Da uses a combination of cameras, algorithms, and a robotic arm to both draw and paint. In response to the recent sale, Ai-Da was quoted by Barron’s as saying: “The key value of my work is its capacity to serve as a catalyst for dialogue about emerging technologies.”

🤔 Did You Know? Movies that Will Smith or Adam Sandler starred in or produced grossed $3.7 billion from 2000-2015. These films accounted for 20% of Sony Pictures’ domestic gross, 23% of its profits, and over a third of its top 50 best-performing movies, per Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz.

📰 Worth a Read: How to tell a better story → (Psyche)