by Al Gore
Paul Halsall, “Code of Hammurabi, c. 1780 BCE,” Internet Ancient History Sourcebook, March 1998, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hamcode.asp.
92 “a new wave of organisms, an artificially provoked neo-life”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 250.
93 who had already made history by sequencing his own genome
Emily Singer, “Craig Venter’s Genome,” Technology Review, September 4, 2007, http://www.technologyreview.com/news/408606/craig-venters-genome/.
94 first live bacteria made completely from synthetic DNA
Joe Palca, “Scientists Reach Milestone on Way to Artificial Life,” NPR, May 20, 2010.
95 Venter had merely copied the blueprint of a known bacterium
Clive Cookson, “Synthetic Life,” Financial Times, July 27, 2012.
96 used the empty shell of another as the container for his new life-form
Clive Cookson, “Scientists Create a Living Organism,” Financial Times, May 20, 2010.
97 others marked it as an important turning point
Stuart Fox, “J. Craig Venter Institute Creates First Synthetic Life Form,” Christian Science Monitor, May 21, 2010.
98 free-living microbe known as Mycoplasma genitalium
John Markoff, “In First, Software Emulates Lifespan of Entire Organism,” New York Times, July 21, 2012.
99 minimum amount of DNA information necessary for self-replication
Cookson, “Synthetic Life.”
100 “if there had been one,” Venter said
Ibid.
101 “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves”
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, 1.2.140–41.
102 E. O. Wilson, has been bitterly attacked
Jennifer Schuessler, “Lessons from Ants to Grasp Humanity,” New York Times, April 8, 2012; Richard Dawkins, “The Descent of Edward Wilson,” Prospect, May 24, 2012.
103 Wilson, who was but is no longer a Christian
Donna Winchester, “E.O. Wilson on Ants and God and Us,” Tampa Bay Times, November 14, 2008.
104 “decade by decade, century by century”
“The ‘Evidence for Belief’: An Interview with Francis Collins,” Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, April 17, 2008, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/805/the-evidence-for-belief-an-interview-with-francis-collins.
105 “then we can decide what metabolism we want it to have”
Cookson, “Synthetic Life.”
106 breakthroughs in health care
Warren C. Ruder, Ting Lu, and James J. Collins, “Synthetic Biology Moving into the Clinic,” Science, September 2, 2011.
107 energy production
Cookson, “Synthetic Life.”
108 environmental remediation
Caruso, “Synthetic Biology.”
109 and many other fields
Stephen C. Aldrich, James Newcomb, and Robert Carlson, Genome Synthesis and Design Futures: Implications for the U.S. Economy (Cambridge, MA: Bio Economic Research Associates, 2007).
110 destroy or weaken antibiotic-resistant bacteria
Ruder, Lu, and Collins, “Synthetic Biology Moving into the Clinic.”
111 killing other targeted bacteria until the infection subsides
Ibid.
112 vaccine development is also generating great hope
Cookson, “Synthetic Life.”
113 bird flu (H5N1) of 2007 and the so-called swine flu (H1N1) of 2009
Ibid.
114 ability to pass from one human to another through airborne transmission
“Bird Flu Pandemic in Humans Could Happen Any Time,” Reuters, June 21, 2012.
115 a new mutant of the virus begins spreading
Huib de Vriend, “Vaccines: The First Commercial Application of Synthetic Biology?,” Rathenau Instituut, July 2011.
116 using the tools of synthetic biology
Ibid.
117 decrease the cost and time of manufacturing of vaccines
Vicki Glaser, “Quest for Fully Disposable Process Stream,” Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News 29, no. 5, March 1, 2009.
118 Some experts have also predicted
Aldrich, Newcomb, and Carlson, Genome Synthesis and Design Futures.
119 utilizing a “widely dispersed” strategy
Cookson, “Synthetic Life.”
120 “would not appear to him as indecent and unnatural”
J. B. S. Haldane, “Daedalus of Science and the Future,” February 4, 1923, http://www.psy.vanderbilt.edu/courses/hon182/Daedalus_or_SCIENCE_AND_THE_FUTURE_JBS_Haldane.pdf.
121 “We intuit and we feel”
Leon Kass, Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2004), p. 150.
122 describes a feeling that itself lacks precision
Alexis Madrigal, “I’m Being Followed: How Google—and 104 Other Companies—Are Tracking Me on the Web,” Atlantic, February 29, 2012.
123 a method for producing spider silk
Rutherford, “Synthetic Biology and the Rise of the ‘Spider-Goats.’ ”
124 five times stronger than steel by weight
Other scientists have mimicked the molecular design of spider silk by synthesizing their own from a commercially available substance (polyurethane elastomer) treated with clay platelets only one nanometer (a billionth of a meter) thick and only 25 nanometers across, then carefully processing the mixture to create synthetic spider silk. This work has been funded by the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because the military applications are considered of such high importance. Rutherford, “Synthetic biology and the rise of the ‘spider-goats’ ”; “Nexia and US Army Spin the World’s First Man-Made Spider Silk Performance Fibers,” Eureka Alert, January 17, 2002, http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-01/nbi-nau011102.php.
125 because of their antisocial, cannibalistic nature
Rutherford, “Synthetic Biology and the Rise of the ‘Spider-Goats.’ ”
126 became a threat to native trees and plants
Richard J. Blaustein, “Kudzu’s Invasion into Southern United States Life and Culture,” 2001, www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/ja/ja_blaustein001.pdf.
127 chain reaction in the ocean and create an unimaginable ecological Armageddon
Al Gore, “Planning a New Biotechnology Policy,” Harvard Journal of Law and Technology 5 (1991): 19–30.
128 who were confident that such an event was absurdly implausible
Ibid.
129 diversion of trillions of dollars into weaponry
Wil S. Hylton, “How Ready Are We for Bioterrorism?,” New York Times Magazine, October 26, 2011.
130 threatened the survival of human civilization?
George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007.
131 are now often described as probably overblown
Wil S. Hylton, “Craig Venter’s Bugs Might Save the World,” New York Times Magazine, June 3, 2012.
132 “I don’t think anyone knows”
Ibid.
133 is the possibility of a new generation of biological weapons
Alexander Kelle, “Synthetic Biology and Biosecurity,” EMBO Reports 10 (2009): S23–S27.
134 Soviet Union in a secret biological weapons program
Ibid.
135 “to attack genetically specific sub-populations”
Ibid.
136 publishing the full genetic sequence that accompanied their papers
Ibid.
137 involved in monitoring genetic research that could lead to new bioweapons
National Institutes of Health, Office of Science Policy, “About NSABB,” 2012, http://oba.od.nih.gov/biosecurity/about_nsabb.html.
138 research teams working on projects considered militarily sensitive
Sample, “Nature Publi
shes Details of Bird Flu Strain That Could Spread Among People.”
139 federally funded research into the cloning of human beings
Center for Genetics and Society, “Failure to Pass Federal Cloning Legislation, 1997–2003,” http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=305.
140 legal implications of human cloning
Mary Meehan, “Looking More Like America?,” Our Sunday Visitor, November 3, 1996, http://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/LOOKLIKE.TXT.
141 government-financed research program into ethics
Edward J. Larson, “Half a Tithe for Ethics,” National Forum 73, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 15–18.
142 “possible copying mechanism for the genetic material”
J. D. Watson and F.H.C. Crick, “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids,” Nature, April 25, 1953.
143 science of cloning, genetic engineering, and genetic screening
See, for example: Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight and the Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Technology, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, “Commercialization of Academic Biomedical Research,” June 8–9, 1981; Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, “Genetic Screening and the Handling of High-Risk Groups in the Workplace,” October 14–15, 1981.
144 and fifteen years later they succeeded with Dolly
U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Human Genome Project, “Cloning Fact Sheet,” May 11, 2009, http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning.shtml#animalsQ.
145 they have cloned many other livestock and other animals
Ibid.
146 ethical concerns that had prevented them from attempting such procedures
Dan W. Brock, “Cloning Human Beings: An Assessment of the Ethical Issues Pro and Con,” in Cloning Human Beings, vol. 2, Commissioned Papers (Rockville, MD: National Bioethics Advisory Commission, 1997), http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/nbac/pubs/cloning2/cc5.pdf.
147 human cloning has been made illegal in almost every country in Europe
Ibid.; “19 European Nations OK Ban on Human Cloning,” National Catholic Register, April 18, 1999.
148 “protection of the security of human genetic material”
Brock, “Cloning Human Beings.”
149 clear form of harm to the individual who is cloned or to society
Brian Alexander, “(You)2,” Wired, February 2001; “Dolly’s Legacy,” Nature, February 22, 2007; Steve Connor, “Human Cloning Is Now ‘Inevitable,’ ” Independent, August 30, 2000; John Tierney, “Are Scientists Playing God? It Depends on Your Religion,” New York Times, November 20, 2007.
150 a line of identical embryonic stem cells that reproduced themselves
David Cyranoski, “Cloned Human Embryo Makes Working Stem Cells,” Nature, October 5, 2011.
151 Several countries
Tierney, “Are Scientists Playing God?”
152 has broken this modern taboo against human cloning
Steve Connor, “ ‘I Can Clone a Human Being’—Fertility Doctor,” New Zealand Herald, April 22, 2009; Tierney, “Are Scientists Playing God?”
153 There has yet been no confirmed birth of a human clone
National Human Genome Research Institute, Cloning Fact Sheet.
154 other forms of technological progress
Brock, “Cloning Human Beings.”
155 that it is inevitable in any case
Roman Altshuler, “Human Cloning Revisited: Ethical Debate in the Technological Worldview,” Biomedical Law & Ethics 3, no. 2 (2009): 177–95.
156 most experiments because of the medical benefits that can be gained
Brock, “Cloning Human Beings.”
157 individuals and run the risk of “commoditizing” human beings
Ibid.; Altshuler, “Human Cloning Revisited.”
158 views of the rights and protections due to every person
Leon Kass and James Q. Wilson, Ethics of Human Cloning (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1998).
159 more generalized humanist assertion of individual dignity
Brock, “Cloning Human Beings”; Altshuler, “Human Cloning Revisited.”
160 In yet another illustration
“Meat on Drugs,” Consumer Reports, June 2012.
161 a truly shocking 80 percent of all U.S. antibiotics
Gardiner Harris, “U.S. Tightens Rules on Antibiotics Use for Livestock,” New York Times, April 11, 2012.
162 new rule that will require a prescription from veterinarians
“Meat on Drugs,” Consumer Reports.
163 Since the discovery of penicillin in 1929 by Alexander Fleming
“A Brief History of Antibiotics,” BBC News, October 8, 1999, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/background_briefings/antibiotics/163997.stm.
164 Although Fleming said his discovery was “accidental”
Douglas Allchin, SHiPS Resource Center, “Penicillin and Chance,” http://www1.umn.edu/ships/updates/fleming.htm.
165 who first discovered that CO2 traps heat
Spencer Weart, “The Discovery of Global Warming: The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect,” February 2011, http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm.
166 was not used in a significant way until the early 1940s
“A Brief History of Antibiotics,” BBC News.
167 many other potent antibiotics were discovered in the 1950s and 1960s
Ibid.
168 discoveries have slowed to a trickle
Ibid.
169 life-saving antibiotics is rapidly eroding their effectiveness
“The Spread of Superbugs,” Economist, March 31, 2011.
170 ways that circumvent the effectiveness of the antibiotic
Brandon Keim, “Antibiotics Breed Superbugs Faster Than Expected,” Wired, February 11, 2010.
171 only when they are clearly needed
Alexander Fleming, “Penicillin,” Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1945, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1945/fleming-lecture.pdf; E. J. Mundell, “Antibiotic Combinations Could Fight Resistant Germs,” ABC News, March 23, 2007, http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=4506442&page=1#.UDVmwo40jdk.
172 they stumble upon new traits that make the antibiotics impotent
Keim, “Antibiotics Breed Superbugs Faster Than Expected.”
173 Some antibiotics have already become ineffective against certain diseases
Katie Moisse, “Antibiotic Resistance: The 5 Riskiest Superbugs,” ABC News, March 27, 2012, http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/antibiotic-resistance-riskiest-superbugs/story?id=15980356#.UC7l0UR9nMo.
174 rate that is frightening to many health experts
Moisse, “Antibiotic Resistance: The 5 Riskiest Superbugs.”
175 multidrug-resistant tuberculosis
Ibid.
176 the FDA formed a new task force
Stephanie Yao, “New FDA Task Force Will Support Innovation in Antibacterial Drug Development,” Food and Drug Administration press release, September 24, 2012.
177 in spite of these basic medical facts, many governments
Worldwatch Institute, “Global Meat Production and Consumption Continue to Rise,” 2011, http://www.worldwatch.org/global-meat-production-and-consumption-continue-rise-1; Philip K. Thornton, “Livestock Production: Recent Trends, Future Prospects,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, September 27, 2010.
178 including, shockingly, the United States government
“Meat on Drugs,” Consumer Reports.
179 but the impact on profits is very clear and sizable
Matthew Perrone, “Does Giving Antibiotics to Animals Hurt Humans?,” Associated Press, April 20, 2012.
180 superbugs that are immune to the impact of antibiotics
Ibid.
181 the antibiotics are given in subtherapeutic doses
“Our Big Pig Problem,” Scientific Ameri
can, February 8, 2012.
182 not principally used for the health of the livestock anyway Harris, “U.S. Tightens Rules on Antibiotics Use for Livestock.”
183 dispute the science while handing out campaign contributions
Ibid.; 2012 PAC Summary Data, Open Secrets, http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00028787&cycle=2012, accessed August 22, 2012; National Cattlemen’s Beef Association lobbying expenses, Open Secrets, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Cattlemen’s_Beef_Association#cite_note-1, August 22, 2012.
184 Last year, scientists confirmed that
Richard Knox, “How Using Antibiotics in Animal Feed Creates Superbugs,” NPR, February 21, 2012, http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/02/21/147190101/how-using-antibiotics-in-animal-feed-creates-superbugs.
185 have thus far been successful in preventing a ban
Harris, “U.S. Tightens Rules on Antibiotics Use for Livestock.”
186 until recently, a regulation limiting this insane practice
Ibid.
187 European Union has already banned antibiotics in livestock feed
Knox, “How Using Antibiotics in Animal Feed Creates Superbugs.”
188 but in a number of other countries
Ibid.; “Meat on Drugs,” Consumer Reports; Worldwatch Institute, “Global Meat Production and Consumption Continue to Rise”; Thornton, “Livestock Production.”
189 only one of many bacteria that are now becoming resistant
Knox, “How Using Antibiotics in Animal Feed Creates Superbugs.”
190 mad cow disease
“Bill Seeks Permanent Ban on Downer Slaughter at Meat Plants,” Food Safety News, January 13, 2012.
191 infected by the pathogen (a misfolded protein, or prion) that causes the disease
World Health Organization, “Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy,” November 2002, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs113/en/.
192 Animals with later stages of the disease
I. Ramasamy, M. Law, S. Collins, and F. Brook, “Organ Distribution of Prion Proteins in Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease,” Lancet Infectious Diseases 3, no. 4 (April 2003): 214–22.
193 fifty times more likely to have the disease
“Bill Seeks Permanent Ban on Downer Slaughter at Meat Plants,” Food Safety News.
194 should be diverted from the food supply
Ibid.
195 manifested those symptoms just before they were slaughtered
