Biology has become like information, it's just like computers, except instead of bits and bytes, we use DNA letters. We can create DNA and we can rearrange DNA in any way that we want. If being able to sort of rewrite the basic elements of life isn't a revolution on this planet, I just don't know what that word means.
Malcolm talks with his old friend, the brilliant science writer Michael Specter, about the future of life on Earth. Michael's response to the Covid-19 pandemic was to create a new audiobook on how the mRNA vaccines have sparked a biotechnology revolution: Higher Animals: Vaccines, Synthetic Biology, and the Future of Life. He and Malcolm talk about how this scientific revolution is bigger than many that came before it, about the promise of heritable vaccines for endangered species, and about how a smallpox infection could genuinely have wiped out New York in 1947. Also, we share a portion of Higher Animals' first, thrilling chapter. To purchase your own, complete copy of Michael Specter's Higher Animals, visit Pushkin.fm.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.