It totally boggles the mind what science can do these days. I can’t say I understood everything in this article, it got a bit science-y, but the gist of it is that scientists can create life.
Now, they are talking about a yeast chromosome, which might not get you real excited right off the bat because in a simple word association exercise, ‘yeast’ is most often followed by ‘infection,’ but it’s also a key element in the making of bread and beer. Laboratories and factories churning out unlimited amounts of bread and beer, at affordable prices, would be a seriously good thing.
But this is just the beginning. Soon, there will be tiny, single minded, cancer cell eating cells, and then little beetles that can eat garbage and excrete salad dressing, then artificial meat to solve the world’s hunger problem and, even greater miracle, to do it without pissing off the good folks at PETA, then little creatures who look like leprechauns and really aren’t very bright but are able to survive in deep space, and on and on.
Science does not stop. Each new development inspires millions of college kids, old guys tinkering in their garages, crazy old hermits living with piles of garbage and herds of cats, and serious scientists, to make something better. They may not be as numerous as the army of people posting videos to YouTube, but they are smart, they are ambitious, and they are working 24/7, in all corners of the world.
We are going to breeze through the robot and cyborg phases of our development in three or four decades, and eventually just go ahead and design a race of supermen. They will be able to walk through fire, read fine print at over a mile away, and hear a human heart beating when it’s buried under a meter of snow. They will look like Legolas and Galadriel.
Science is so cool.
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