A Better Mouse One Bio-Brick at a Time

Okay, this article by Michael Specter in the New Yorker is a real eye-opener. It seems the Industrial Age is over and the Bio-Engineering Age is beginning.

We will now be building new life forms with BIO-BRICKS! This could save us from ourselves - we will be able to build organisms that generate totally clean energy, we can build organisms that digest carbon dioxide.

We can build a better mousetrap and a better mouse!

So far Scientists and and Science students are going to town on this stuff. So everything being bandied about seems benevolent.

I couldn't help asking myself as I read the article - what about the military?! I mean, if history tells us anything, the great military industrial complex has to have their hands deep in this stuff.

Someone in the Pentagon must be tinkering with BIOBRICKS with the intent of creating a new generation of weapons. And what about building a better Army - one BIOBRICK at a time?!

So yes, if we can create life from basic building blocks (like LEGO), then we truly do have what some would call GOD-LIKE powers. And just what kind of GODS will we be? Nature has been working on this stuff for millions of years. I wonder what we're gonna come up with in the next decades?

Are we gonna be gratified or horrified? Anyone want to hazard any guesses?