The genesis machine : our quest to rewrite life in the age of synthetic biology / Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel.
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : PublicAffairs, 2022Description: x, 352 pages : 24 cmISBN:- 9781541797918
- 572.8 WEB
Item type | Current library | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Moylish Library Main Collection | 572.8 WEB (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 39002100605113 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Named one of The New Yorker's BEST BOOKS OF 2022 SO FAR
The next frontier in technology is inside our own bodies.
Synthetic biology will revolutionize how we define family, how we identify disease and treat aging, where we make our homes, and how we nourish ourselves. This fast-growing field--which uses computers to modify or rewrite genetic code--has created revolutionary, groundbreaking solutions such as the mRNA COVID vaccines, IVF, and lab-grown hamburger that tastes like the real thing. It gives us options to deal with existential threats: climate change, food insecurity, and access to fuel.
But there are significant risks.
Who should decide how to engineer living organisms? Whether engineered organisms should be planted, farmed, and released into the wild? Should there be limits to human enhancements? What cyber-biological risks are looming? Could a future biological war, using engineered organisms, cause a mass extinction event?
Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel's riveting examination of synthetic biology and the bioeconomy provide the background for thinking through the upcoming risks and moral dilemmas posed by redesigning life, as well as the vast opportunities waiting for us on the horizon.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- Introduction: Should Life Be a Game of Chance? (p. 1)
- Part 1 Origin
- 1 Saying No to Bad Genes: The Birth of the Genesis Machine (p. 13)
- 2 A Race to the Starting Line (p. 29)
- 3 The Bricks of Life (p. 47)
- 4 God, a Church, and a (Mostly) Woolly Mammoth (p. 67)
- Part 2 Now
- 5 The Bioeconomy (p. 89)
- 6 The Biological Age (p. 109)
- 7 Nine Risks (p. 137)
- 8 The Story of Golden Rice (p. 171)
- Part 3 Futures
- 9 Exploring the Recently Plausible (p. 191)
- 10 Scenario One: Creating Your Child with Wellspring (p. 199)
- 11 Scenario Two: What Happened When We Canceled Aging (p. 205)
- 12 Scenario Three: Akira Gold's "Where to Eat" 2037 (p. 215)
- 13 Scenario Four: The Underground (p. 225)
- 14 Scenario Five: The Memo (p. 237)
- Part 4 The Way Forward
- 15 A New Beginning (p. 247)
- Epilogue (p. 277)
- Acknowledgments (p. 279)
- Notes (p. 285)
- Bibliography (p. 321)
- Index (p. 339)