The Next 500 Years #4

Chromatin is a hybrid structure of DNA and protein that manages the complex problem of packaging 3 billion bases of DNA into a small bundle in the cell that is only a few micrometers in size. This is no small feat. The length of DNA from one cell would measure two meters in length if you stretched it out in front of you. This long

Engineering Cells

By the mid-2030s or 2040s, ideally, we will be able to get human boots on Mars, enabling us to directly see how humans respond to Martian living and how well our “molecular risk mitigation” plans work. Once there, we will be able to test more

Deontogenic Ethics

Deontogenic ethics includes four simple pieces: (1) consciousness must exist to be used; (2) long-term survival depends on plans to extend beyond the solar system in which our species originated; (3) long-term survival depends on the metaspecies, but is not only for the metaspecies; and (4) the needs of the metaspecies and conservation of their responsibilities may supersede individuals' needs or wants.

The Next 500 Years #3

To save life, we will need to engineer it. Notably, humans are already accidentally engineering life and directing evolution; now it is time to do it with volition, direction, and purpose.

Christopher E. Mason

The Next 500 Years #2

This [awareness of extinction of all life] gives us an awesome responsibility, power, and opportunity to become the universe's shepherds and guardians of all life-forms – quite literally a duty to the universe – to preserve life. This means we need to prevent the death of not only our species, but of all species on which we depend and any others we may find that are or were threatened –

The Next 500 Years #1

  . . . The fundamental thesis of this book is that the same innate, biological capacities of ingenuity and creation that have enabled humans to build rockets to reach other planets will also be needed for designing and engineering the organisms that will sustainably inhabit those planets.