by Al Gore
Ransom Myers and Boris Worm, “Rapid Worldwide Depletion of Predatory Fish Communities,” Nature, May 15, 2003.
439 The world reached “peak fish” twenty-five years ago
Brad Plumer, “The End of Fish, in One Chart,” Washington Post, May 20, 2012.
440 “with 14% of assessed stocks collapsed in 2007”
Convention on Biological Diversity, “Global Biodiversity Outlook 3: Biodiversity in 2010,” 2010, http://www.cbd.int/gbo3/?pub=6667§ion=6709.
441 large marine area in the Pacific Ocean
Suzanne Goldberg, “Bush Designates Ocean Conservation Areas in Final Week as President,” Guardian, January 5, 2009.
442 61 percent of which will occur in China
OECD-FAO, “Agricultural Outlook 2011–2020.”
443 can be tainted by pollution, antibiotics, and antifungals
Laurel Adams, Center for Public Integrity, “FDA Screening of Fish Imports Not Catching Antibiotics and Drug Residue,” May 18, 2011, http://www.publicintegrity.org/environment/natural-resources?page=3; George Mateljan, “Is There Any Nutritional Difference Between Wild-Caught and Farm-Raised Fish? Is One Type Better for Me Than the Other?,” World’s Healthiest Foods, http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=96.
444 five pounds of wild fish for each pound of farmed salmon produced
U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Trout-Grain Project,” 2012.
445 Over half of the fish food in agriculture
NOAA Fisheries Service–National Marine Fisheries Service, “Feeds for Aquaculture,” 2012.
446 Although more than 10 percent of all cropland
Elizabeth Weise, “More of World’s Crops Are Genetically Engineered,” USA Today, February 22, 2011.
CHAPTER 5: THE REINVENTION OF LIFE AND DEATH
1 introduce human genes into other animals
Richard Gray, “Genetically Modified Cows Produce ‘Human’ Milk,” Telegraph, April 2, 2011.
2 mixing the genes of spiders and goats
Adam Rutherford, “Synthetic Biology and the Rise of the ‘Spider-Goats,’ ” Guardian, January 14, 2012.
3 computer chips into the gray matter of human brains
Daniel H. Wilson, “Bionic Brains and Beyond,” Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2012.
4 parents who wish to design their own children
Keith Kleiner, “Designer Babies—Like It or Not, Here They Come,” Singularity Hub, February 25, 2009, http://singularityhub.com/2009/02/25/designer-babies-like-it-or-not-here-they-come/.
5 sometimes noted, “There Be Monsters”
H. P. Newquist, Here There Be Monsters: The Legendary Kraken and the Giant Squid (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2010).
6 they seized knowledge that had been forbidden them
Genesis 3:16–19.
7 so he could endure the same fate the next morning
Thomas Chen and Peter Chen, “The Myth of Prometheus and the Liver,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 87 (December 1994): 754.
8 replacement livers in their laboratory bioreactors
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, 10-30-10, “Researchers Engineer Miniature Human Livers in the Lab,” October 30, 2010, http://www.wakehealth.edu/News-Releases/2010/Researchers_Engineer_Miniature_Human_Livers_in_the_Lab.htm.
9 almost certainly become the model for medical care
“Personalized Medicine,” USA Today, January 20, 2011.
10 volume of fine-grained information about every individual
“Do Not Ask or Do Not Answer?,” Economist, August 23, 2007.
11 reduce medical errors and enhance the skills of physicians
Farhad Manjoo, “Why the Highest-Paid Doctors Are the Most Vulnerable to Automation,” Slate, September 27, 2011, http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/robot_invasion/2011/09/will_robots_steal_your_job_3.html.
12 “all are subject to radical transformation”
Topol, The Creative Destruction of Medicine, p. 243.
13 unhealthy behaviors in order to manage chronic diseases
David H. Freeman, “The Perfected Self,” Atlantic, June 2012; Mark Bowden, “The Measured Man,” Atlantic, July/August 2012.
14 digital monitors that are on—and inside—the patient’s body
Topol, The Creative Destruction of Medicine, pp. 59–76.
15 leads to an improvement in the amount of progress made
Janelle Nanos, “Are Smartphones Changing What It Means to Be Human?,” Boston, February 28, 2012.
16 will see their progress or lack thereof
Freeman, “The Perfected Self.”
17 global access to large-scale digital programs
John Havens, “How Big Data Can Make Us Happier and Healthier,” Mashable, October 8, 2012, http://mashable.com/2012/10/08/the-power-of-quantified-self/.
18 living systems are also being applied to the human brain
Matthew Hougan and Bruce Altevogt, From Molecules to Minds: Challenges for the 21st Century, Board on Health Sciences Policy, Institute of Medicine, 2008.
19 prosthetic arms and legs with their brains
Associated Press, “Man with Bionic Leg Climbs Chicago Skyscraper,” November 5, 2012.
20 curing some brain diseases
Meghan Rosen, “Beginnings of Bionic,” Science News 182, no. 10 (November 17, 2012): 18.
21 mapping of what brain scientists call the “connectome”
Olaf Sporns, a professor of computational cognitive neuroscience at Indiana University, was the first to coin the word “connectome.” The National Institutes of Health now have a “Human Connectome Project.” Ian Sample, “Quest for the Connectome: Scientists Investigate Ways of Mapping the Brain,” Guardian, May 7, 2012.
22 greater than that required for mapping the genome
Hougan and Altevogt, From Molecules to Minds.
23 technologies necessary to complete the map are still in development
“Brain Researchers Start Mapping the Human ‘Connectome,’ ” ScienceDaily, July 2, 2012, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120702152652.htm.
24 complete the first “larger-scale maps of neural wiring”
Sample, “Quest for the Connectome.”
25 “artificially perfect the thinking instrument itself”
Eric Steinhart, “Teilhard de Chardin and Transhumanism,” Journal of Evolution and Technology 20, no. 1 (December 2008): 1–22.
26 for the brains of people who have Parkinson’s disease
Wilson, “Bionic Brains and Beyond.”
27 provide deep brain stimulation to alleviate their symptoms
Ibid.
28 activated in stages to give the brain a chance to adjust to them
Johns Hopkins Medicine, Cochlear Implant Information, http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/otolaryngology/specialty_areas/listencenter/cochlear_info.html#activation.
29 “designer babies” may be highly appealing to some parents
Kleiner, “Designer Babies”; Mark Henderson, “Demand for ‘Designer Babies’ to Grow Dramatically,” Times (London), January 7, 2010.
30 competitive parenting has already done for the test preparation industry
Jose Ferreira, “A Short History of the Standardized Test Prep Industry,” Knewton Blog, February 17, 2010, http://www.knewton.com/blog/edtech/2010/02/17/a-short-history-of-the-standardized-test-prep-industry/; Julian Brookes, “Chris Hayes on the Twilight of the Elites and the End of Meritocracy,” Rolling Stone, July 11, 2012.
31 other parents may feel that they have to do the same
Armand Marie Leroi, “The Future of Neo-Eugenics,” EMBO Reports 7 (2006): 1184–87.
32 may trigger collateral genetic changes that are not yet fully understood
Mike Steere, “Designer Babies: Creating the Perfect Child,” CNN, October 30, 2008.
33 “We will have converted old-style evolution into neo-evolution”
Harvey Fineberg, “Are We Ready for Neo-Evolution?,” TED Talks, 2011.
34 the United States is decreasing its investment in biomedical research
Robert D. Atkinson et al., Leadership in Decline: Assessing U.S. International Competitiveness in Biomedical Research (Washington, DC: Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 2012).
35 “It’s time for everyone to pull their heads out of the sand”
“Designer Baby Row Over US Clinic,” BBC, March 2, 2009.
36 “who deserves to be born?”
Andrew Pollack, “DNA Blueprint for Fetus Built Using Tests of Parents,” New York Times, June 6, 2012.
37 “They feel disempowered”
Steere, “Designer Babies.”
38 “would undermine humanity and create a techno-eugenic rat race”
Ibid.
39 will soon exceed the sequencing capacity of the entire United States
Japan External Trade Organization, “BGI, China’s Leading Genome Research Institute, Has Established a Japanese Arm in Kobe,” February 7, 2012; Fiona Tam, “Scientists Seek to Unravel the Mystery of IQ,” translated by Steve Hsu, South China Morning Post, December 4, 2010.
40 occupations that make the best use of their capabilities
“The Dragon’s DNA,” Economist, June 17, 2010; Emily Chang, “In China, DNA Tests on Kids ID Genetic Gifts, Careers,” CNN, August 5, 2009, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/03/china.dna.children.ability/.
41 over $100 billion on life sciences research over just the last three years
Lone Frank, “High-Quality DNA,” Newsweek, April 24, 2011.
42 “science discovery and innovation within the next decade”
Ibid.
43 industry will be one of the pillars
“China Establishes National Gene Bank in Shenzhe,” Xinhua News Agency, June 18, 2011.
44 eventually sequence the genomes of almost every child in China
David Cyranoski, “Chinese Bioscience: The Sequence Factory,” Nature, March 3, 2010.
45 first patent on a gene
Harriet A. Washington, Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself—and the Consequences for Your Healthy and Our Medical Future (New York: Doubleday, 2011), p. 181.
46 more than 40,000 gene patents have been issued, covering 2,000 human genes
Sharon Begley, “In Surprise Ruling, Court Declares Two Gene Patents Invalid,” Daily Beast, March 29, 2010.
47 used for commercial purposes without their permission
Washington, Deadly Monopolies, chs. 1 and 7.
48 gene therapy drug, known as Glybera
Ben Hirschler, “Europe Approves High-Price Gene Therapy,” Reuters, November 2, 2012.
49 treatment of a rare genetic disorder
Andrew Pollack, “European Agency Backs Approval of a Gene Therapy,” New York Times, July 20, 2012.
50 approved a drug known as Crizotinib
Alice T. Shaw, “The Crizotinib Story: From Target to FDA Approval and Beyond,” InforMEDical, 2012, http://www.informedicalcme.com/lucatoday/crizotinib-story-from-target-to-fda-approval.
51 “We now believe that Monsanto”
“Monsanto Strong-Arms Seed Industry,” Associated Press, January 4, 2011.
52 “Could you patent the sun?”
“ ‘Deadly Monopolies’? Patenting the Human Body,” Fresh Air, NPR, October 24, 2011, http://www.npr.org/2011/10/24/141429392/deadly-monopolies-patenting-the-human-body. The groundbreaking work of Albert Sabin—whose vaccine became the most widely used—cannot be overlooked as well.
53 research into the genome was still in its early stages
Norman Borlaug, biography, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1970/borlaug-bio.html.
54 “God help us if that were to happen”
Vandana Shiva, “The Indian Seed Act and Patent Act: Sowing the Seeds of Dictatorship,” ZNet, February 14, 2005, http://www.grain.org/article/entries/2166-india-seed-act-patent-act-sowing-the-seeds-of-dictatorship.
55 “always stood for free exchange of germplasm”
Ibid.
56 courts continue to uphold the patentability of genes
Reuters, “Court Reaffirms Right of Myriad Genetics to Patent Genes,” New York Times, August 16, 2012.
57 we gain the ability to understand and manipulate the reality
Michael S. Gazzaniga, Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 199.
58 four letters: A, T, C, and G
“The four bases—ATCG,” Scitable, Nature Education, 2012, http://www.nature.com/scitable/content/the-four-bases-atcg-6491969.
59 “device the size of your thumb could store”
Robert Lee Hotz, “Harvard Researchers Turn Book into DNA Code,” Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2012.
60 discovered by James Watson, Francis Crick, and Rosalind Franklin
Lynne Osman Elkin, “Rosalind Franklin and the Double Helix,” Physics Today 56, no. 3 (March 2003): 42–48.
61 exactly fifty years later, the human genome was sequenced
US Department of Energy, Office of Science, “History of the Human Genome Project,” June 4, 2012, http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/hgp.shtml.
62 they are beginning to sequence RNA
Genetics Home Reference, “RNA,” http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/glossary=rna.
63 system to convey the information that is translated into proteins
“RNAi,” Nova scienceNOW, PBS, July 26, 2005, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/rnai.html.
64 cells that make up all forms of life
Genetics Home Reference, “Protein,” http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/glossary=protein.
65 being analyzed in the Human Proteome Project
Human Proteome Organisation, “Human Proteome Project (HPP),” 2010, http://www.hupo.org/research/hpp/.
66 patterns that affect their function and role
ThermoScientific, “Overview of Post-Translational Modifications (PTMs),” http://www.piercenet.com.
67 ways that extend their range of functions and control their behavior
Ibid.
68 The Human Epigenome Project has made major advances
G. G. Sanghani et al., “Human Epigenome Project: The Future of Cancer Therapy,” Inventi Impact: Pharm Biotech & Microbio 2012, http://www.inventi.in/Article/pbm/94/12.aspx.
69 epigenetic breakthroughs are already helping cancer patients
“Epigenetics Emerges Powerfully as a Clinical Tool,” Medical Xpress, September 12, 2012, http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-epigenetics-emerges-powerfully-clinical-tool.html.
70 transform and commandeer them
Denise Caruso, “Synthetic Biology: An Overview and Recommendations for Anticipating and Addressing Emerging Risks,” Science Progress, November 12, 2008, http://scienceprogress.org/2008/11/synthetic-biology/.
71 custom chemicals that have value in the marketplace
Caruso, “Synthetic Biology.”
72 less effective insulin produced from pigs and other animals
Lawrence K. Altman, “A New Insulin Given Approval for Use in U.S.,” New York Times, October 30, 1982.
73 significant improvements in artificial skin
Charles Q. Choi, “Spider Silk May Provide the Key to Artificial Skin,” MSNBC, August 9, 2011; Katharine Sanderson, “Artificial Skins Detect the Gentlest Touch,” Nature, September 12, 2010.
74 synthetic human blood
Fiona Macrae, “Synthetic Blood Created by British Scientists Could Be Used in Transfusions in Just Two Years,” Daily Mail, October 28, 2011.
75 diverse as fuel for vehicles
Michael Totty, “A Faster Path to Biofuels,” Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2011.
76 protein for human consumption
Jeffrey Bartholet, “When Will Scientists Grow Meat in a Petri Dish?,” Scientific American, May 17, 2011; H. L. Tuomisto, “Food Security and Protein Supply—Cultured Meat a Solution?,” 2010, http://oxford.academia.edu/HannaTuomisto/Papers/
740015/Food_Security_and_Protein_Supply_-Cultured_meat_a_solution.
77 “a juggernaut already beyond the reach of governance”
Caruso, “Synthetic Biology.”
78 “not only for one, but also for all humanity”
Jun Wang, Science, “Personal Genomes: For One and for All,” Science, February 11, 2011.
79 junk DNA actually contains millions of “on-off switches”
Gina Kolata, “Bits of Mystery DNA, Far from ‘Junk,’ Play Crucial Role,” New York Times, September 6, 2012.
80 “very complicated three-dimensional structure”
Brandon Keim, “New DNA Encyclopedia Attempts to Map Function of Entire Human Genome,” Wired, September 5, 2012.
81 first human genome ten years ago was approximately $3 billion
John Markoff, “Cost of Gene Sequencing Falls, Raising Hopes for Medical Advances,” New York Times, March 8, 2012.
82 to be available at a cost of only $1,000 per person
Ibid.
83 At that price, according to experts
Ibid.
84 “all important topics for future discussions”
Ibid.
85 gene-sequencing machine for less than $900
Oxford Nanopore Technologies, “Oxford Nanopore Introduces DNA ‘Strand Sequencing’ on the High-Throughput GridION Platform and Presents MinION, a Sequencer the Size of a USB Memory Stick,” February 17, 2012, http://www.nanoporetech.com/news/press-releases/view/39/.
86 has long been measured by Moore’s Law
K. A. Wetterstrand, “DNA Sequencing Costs: Data from the NHGRI Large-Scale Genome Sequencing Program,” www.genome.gov/sequencingcosts.
87 cost for sequencing began to drop at a significantly faster pace
Ibid.
88 increases in the length of DNA strands that can be quickly analyzed
Jeffrey Fisher and Mostafa Ronaghi, “The Current Status and Future Outlook for Genomic Technologies,” National Academy of Engineering, Winter 2010; Neil Bowdler, “1000 Genomes project maps 95% of all gene variations,” BBC, October 27, 2011.
89 breakneck speed for the foreseeable future
Ibid.
90 producing synthetic genomes
John Carroll, “Life Technologies Budgets $100M for Synthetic Biology Deals,” Fierce Biotech, June 3, 2010, http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/life-technologies-budgets-100m-synthetic-biology-deals/2010-06-03.
91 introduction by Hammurabi of the first written set of laws
