(The winner will be announced in the March issue of mini-AIR, which with any luck will come out some time in the next day or two.)
CHRIS STRUDWICK:
If all you discover is goo –
Is it tusker, or cow or gnu?
Just pull out our kit
And sample a bit
And we’ll mail back the answer to you!
TIMOTHY COLLINSON:
Molecular markers can try
to sex elephants after they die.
Although its of use
to stop poaching abuse;
it’s unlikely to make CSI.
SHAYNA KRAVETZ:
The elephants’ death will no more
go unmourned on the forest’s dank floor.
Though they rot, we’ll still find
from their remnants–refined–
markers telling us what genes they wore.
DAVID SHAPIRO:
—[Halfway-limericked prolog:]
—Tusks long gone, little’s left,
—Lady pachyderm’s bereft.
—What might science bring?
—Gupta, Thangaraj, and Singh,
—Unmasking ignoble theft.
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust
So posit the poachers, so vast is their crust
They kill and dismember,
But bits still remember,
For this is the researchers’ thrust.