The Dimbleby lecture on BBc tonight was awesome. Dr J Craig Venter spoke of the apathy towards science and popular movement towards regression from fundamentalists in todays society.
He spoke of disruptive technology, ie, A disruptive technology or disruptive innovation is a technological innovation, product, or service that eventually overturns the existing dominant technology or statud quo product in the market.
We have relied on fossil fuels for so long, wouldnt it be fantastic for there to be an instance of disruptive technology and innovation to bring about new energy sources. Not alternative energy like windmills and water power, but Dr Craig Venter speaks of biological means. With the decoding of the genome, it is possible to create new species, design new species, and although that probably strikes fear into some hearts, in actuality that means we can create organsisms that produce energy. An actual renewable source of energy, just by altering the DNA structure of bacteria that can be mass produced, as far as I could understand.
Its fantastic, but it is actually underway, and it is actually a really great thing that might just protect the future of mankind and our planet as we know it!
If you get a chance to see the Dimbleby Lecture by Dr Craig Venter then its really clearly explained there and its really exciting, I do not think anyone could fail to be excited by what he is saying , what he is doing and what this means for the future!
2 comments:
I caught the end of Dr Venter's lecture lecture and it blew my mind. The pace of progress in fields such as genomics, RNA interference, etc. seems to be accelerating ever more rapidly. Are you familiar with Ray Kurzweil's book "The Singularity Is Near"? Makes you begin to wonder whether his predictions about the impacts on the human race of the ever accelerating rate of technological change might be correct.
Is that the book where it is predicted that computers will become biological?
I can see how we could be producing synthetic life forms that work much like machinery works now however, biologically producing resources and performing tasks.
The rate of technological change was also mentioned by Dr J Craig Venter, he spoke of certain laws that predict things such as the doubling of processing power of chips every 2 years, this is what has enabled them to go from doing things that took a decade to do before, within a few days and as this rate is ongoing, it speaks volumes of what will be achievable, as he says, within a relatively short time.
If Ray Kurzweils book is the book that speaks of biological computer parts, it is starting to look like a distinct possibility at any rate.
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