Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work.
Maybe in a few years.Ī Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Metzl devotes plenty of space to the fierce ethical debate, but the reality is that, given the choice, few parents are likely to choose “natural” reproduction and bear a child guaranteed to be less intelligent, talented, and healthy than otherwise.Ī thoughtful, exciting, and mostly accessible account of how genetic manipulation will vastly improve our species. In future decades, advanced IVF will increasingly compete with sex as the primary way we procreate. Metzl’s explanation of how CRISPR works is no more comprehensible than those of earlier authors, but its dazzling possibilities are obvious. The new, Nobel-worthy CRISPR breakthrough makes this not only possible, but practical, and the first applications are emerging from the laboratory. The obvious next step is to remove defects or insert improved DNA into the genome. Advances will enable a mother to produce huge numbers of eggs and doctors to test for countless traits-e.g., resistance to diseases, personality, even longevity-before implanting the best. In today’s in vitro fertilization, doctors pick among multiple eggs, perhaps test for a few traits, usually absence of some defect, and implant a selection. One technique does not involve manipulating DNA.
Futurist Metzl ( Eternal Sonata, 2016, etc.), a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has also served in the State Department and the White House, maintains that this process will become so routine that most of us will not understand what’s happening and those that do might disapprove. Some prefer the term “genetic engineering” to describe the process of changing an organism’s DNA to produce useful products or, more recently, correct defects. “Hacking” is the unauthorized intrusion into a computer system, usually to alter its software. Numerous books explain the genetic revolution now in progress this one describes where it might lead, and it’s a wild ride.
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