Alright, so I got the no-brainer out of the way.\u00a0 I identified a critical technology that\u2019s been allowed to languish for sixty years.\u00a0 Now let me look at actual innovation.<\/p>\n
Probably the most powerful new technology is the current ability we have to modify the living genome.\u00a0 This is the CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology.\u00a0 With this set of tools or techniques we can replace genes inside of living organisms and even produce gene lines that include or exclude traits that biology identifies for these changes.\u00a0 This kind of control over the machinery of life is unprecedented.\u00a0 Currently it is being used to create treatments for everything from genetic diseases to cancer.\u00a0 In the future once the risks have been measured it may be used to edit the genes of human embryos to eliminate disease.\u00a0 And obviously, as much as the idea is currently denounced by medical ethicists, in the future it will be used eugenically.\u00a0 In some future time, in the same way as we currently inoculate our children against measles and chicken pox, we will modify our children\u2019s genes against cancer and other diseases.\u00a0 And after that we will alter their genetic code to make them more intelligent and longer lived.\u00a0 And finally, after that we\u2019ll use this technology for trivial purposes like making them taller and better looking.<\/p>\n
And these things will happen because they can happen and because some of them will make human life better and happier.\u00a0 Of course, sometime far in the future we may regret tampering with our DNA.\u00a0 But the same can be said for all of the changes that man\u2019s ascent out of the jungle have created.\u00a0 These will be just the most premeditated.<\/p>\n
And this CRISPR technology can also be used to modify all the other plants, animals and microbes that share the planet with us.\u00a0 Imagine designing an insect whose only reason for existing is eating ticks so that they won\u2019t have a chance to bite humans and spread disease.\u00a0 Or how about a robber fly that is designed to eat specific mosquitoes that transmit malaria or even just live in my backyard in Dunwich?\u00a0 Or how about a caterpillar whose favorite food is poison ivy?\u00a0 And these are just parlor tricks.\u00a0 The plant side is where the real benefits accrue.\u00a0 Currently we have to plant grain every year.\u00a0 This is expensive and fraught with problems.\u00a0 What if corn and wheat and rice weren\u2019t annuals but perennials.\u00a0 What if we could chop the tops off of these plants and leave the root and the stem to grow again next year?\u00a0 What if all plants could fix nitrogen from the air and thus reduce their need for fertilizers?\u00a0 What if we could come up with microorganisms that attack the pathogens that cause tree blights like the ones that have decimated chestnut, elm and ash trees?\u00a0 We can build living things that do a lot of the things we currently use chemistry to do.\u00a0 And they\u2019ll be a lot better at it.\u00a0 Pesticides and herbicides can be biological.\u00a0 We can even design creatures that excrete octane (well, maybe something a little less volatile).\u00a0 Now that\u2019s a trick I\u2019d like to see come to fruition.<\/p>\n
Anyway, you get the idea.\u00a0 Biology is the next frontier.\u00a0 But what will the third post in this series be about?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alright, so I got the no-brainer out of the way.\u00a0 I identified a critical technology that\u2019s been allowed to languish for sixty years.\u00a0 Now let<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1263,3545],"tags":[4502,5241,4860,165],"class_list":["post-37283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-science","tag-biology","tag-crispr","tag-genetic-engineering","tag-science"],"yoast_head":"\n