Radiolab

I love your show. I just listened to '(So called) Life', #404. I thought you might enjoy seeing my artwork at: www.darksecretlove.com/chandra, and www.vspcity.com/insomnia

Now I know what I've been trying to do with my work all along and didn't know it-

portraits of newly created life forms.

Thanks, Chandra

I LOVE Radiolab! Very interesting - always. I believe the ability to alter life forms is fascinating, however, the ripples that may or might result as a consequence of these alterations may be so far-reaching, our minds really can't comprehend or compile all of the details.

Go carefully. Alteration for the fun of it or the creativity of it is not a good enough reason without years of tremendous research. And even then..... I kind of like the life forms we have!

Mary Dandrea

I could not agree more with the end of the show. I would even go further and make it illegal to change any living being's genes with another living being's genes. Being a Vegan and Being (Animal, fish and etc) Rights Supporter, I draw the line at the size, processes of surivival The Beings use and alter genes to only save beings from mass deaths. Thus, some microbiological beings I feel must be genetically altered to save the non-microbiological beings and even us humans.

It is really scarey that there is not even comments with the same concern, let alone a debate of it. It is like people did not get the point of the end of the show or maybe even shut the show off when they started pointing out the very serious dangers that we all face, with no regulation of the risks taken.

I missed Neil De Grasse Tyson when he spoke in San Francisco at City Arts & Lectures. KQED-FM tells me his talk will be broadcast on 3/14 by you, but I don't see it. What are the particulars on it?

Ah, my mistake. They gave me your 3/14/08 url, but your broadcast isn't until Saturday May 10th at 8 pm. Well, if I miss their 5/4 broadcast, maybe I'll still use it. I can always, apparently, use you for a backup on the SF lectures.

In response to "Jason 'Great White' (Shark)":

[quote]I would even go further and make it illegal to change any living being's genes with another living being's genes. [/quote]

Speaking as a scientist involved in this field, you should learn more before passing judgement. If what you propose came to pass, then everyone who requires insulin would either have to die, or we would have to extract massive quantities of it from animals. Insulin is currently made by inserting a human gene into bacteria, and then using those bacteria to culture insulin. ...and that's just one example of a great many.

Just caught the last part of show#404 on CPR.

Very interesting, especially the conflict between go ahead bio engineering crowd and the more conservative field ecologists, biologists, who may say, hey, we are still learning how species interelate. Should we just go ahead an introduce new life forms into the web of life, just because we can. Weighty questions, and what if climate change creates niches we didn't forsee, for these new creatures to expand into.

Made me think of Maragret Atwoods 2005 fictional

work "Oryx and Crake" a cautionary tale of a world where we did because we could, some with good motives and it didn't turn out so well.

Radiolab aired 4/4/08 on NPR, Cleveland area.

Show was so candid, I thought it was sci-fi at first.

Interviews with bio engineers validated the concepts. Good point about taking time to research outcomes of invention.

How long did it take for life forms (we have now) to evolve? And, isn't bacterial and viral evolution quicker because of quantum reproducibility. Perhaps ethical concerns or at the very least a cautionary tale....

I agree with Robert that we need to be careful when designing new beings. Imagine what could happen if a rogue government with this technology decided that all children born from now on in their society must have certain physical traits such as blond hair and blue eyes. Or maybe they'd prefer to program the mental abilities of the populace. You should consider a follow-up show with comments from ethicists on this new technology as it applies to humans, not microbes.

I think one of the most important questions we should be asking is "Is Codon Devices offering stock shares?" Ha. Kidding. Also not kidding.

A rather biased show that frankly showcased bioengineering in a rather negative light. Of course we need to be concerned and, as much as possible, be cautious. But mankind has been tinkering -- and making mistakes but also large strides -- not only in biology but in all sort of other disciplines for centuries without knowing the heck what we are doing nor where we are going. Most of the time we have not regretted the consequences.

Look back 150+ years ago when steam power first came out. Or 100+ years ago when automobiles came out. Each invention has had drawbacks that were never foreseen. Each invention brought a lot of worry to the population. But each invention brought something positive to us.

The age of bioengineering is indeed a frightening one. Ditto with nanotechnology; atomic power; computers or the now-tried-and-true machine age. We as humans will never be able to foresee all the hazards. But I'll agree with Church and the rest that biotechnology also offers great promise to make our lives easier and more fruitful. 50 years from now humans will look back on the current age and think that our worries were well founded but also rather quaint.

As I will continue to argue, looking at man's contributon so far to the world and nature, we are an experiment in failure.Our meddling has only paved the way for economic interests to find more ways to do what we are born in this world to do, make MONEY and be PRODUCTVE, like the cattle and pigs humans have wrongly reduced to commodities. We even created the "Hoyer Lift" to help pick us up when we are "downed" humans, like tractors lift downed cows who are victims of the very same reductionist , government sponsored depravity of ethics.

If people want purity and to live a sacred life, this initiative stinks of what was once praticed in Germany by Dr. Mengela.

If what is manifest today is the result of "intelligent" design. we are in deep, deep, E-coli.

The show and the comments here make great points about the power and risks of biotechnology. One of the unique risks of biotech over say, the development of the automobile, is that engineered organsisms can self replicate and mutate in the wild (show me the car that can go native and muck up an ecosystem and I will give cars more gravity). We truly don't know the impacts of our actions. But at the same time, we are having far more profound impacts through actions like inadvertently introducing species to new habitats. In many cases environments are now overwhelmingly dominated by species that didn't evolve there. Is this any less unatural than engineered organisms escaping?

We also should appreciate that in many cases some of these bioengineered organisms hold great promise. They may be simply too tantalizing not to pursue.

What truly scares me is the democratization of technology. As bioengineering becomes more available to the masses it may well become an option for a rogue nation to use rudimentarily trained microbiologists to weaponize microorganisms with disasterous consequences. It sounds like sci-fi, but its closer than you think...

Oh, and great show. So great that I'm having my biology students do an extra credit assignment on it in which they create a visual companion to the show using images of their choice in slideshow format. I really enjoy the pop sensibilities of the show (with the various sound effects and clever editting to keep it from being too dry) for the ADD generation.