Human Genetic Engineering

Over a decade ago, as the Human Genome Project completed its mapping of the entire human genome, hopes ran high that we would rapidly be able to use our knowledge of human genes to tackle many inherited diseases, and understand what makes us unique among animals. But things didn't turn out that way.

For all that science knows about the living world, notes David P. Barash, there are even more things we don't know, genuine evolutionary mysteries that perplex the best minds in biology. Paradoxically, many of these mysteries are very close to home, involving some of the most personal aspects of being human. Homo Mysterious examines a number of these evolutionary mysteries, exploring things we don't yet know about ourselves, laying out the best current hypotheses, and pointing toward insights that scientists are just beginning to glimpse.

Our species has amassed unprecedented knowledge of nature, which we have tried to use to seize control of life and bend the planet to our will. In A Natural History of the Future, biologist Rob Dunn argues that such efforts are futile. We may see ourselves as life’s overlords, but we are instead at its mercy. In the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the power of natural selection to create biodiversity, and even the surprising life of the London Underground, Dunn finds laws of life that no human activity can annul.

For the last three billion years or so, life on Earth was shaped by natural forces. Evolution tended to happen slowly, with species crafted across millennia. Then, a few hundred thousand years ago, along came a bolshie, big-brained, bipedal primate we now call Homo sapiens, and with that, the Earth’s natural history came to an abrupt end. We are now living through the post-natural phase, where humans have become the leading force shaping evolution. This audiobook considers the many ways that we’ve altered the DNA of living things and changed the fate of life on earth.

Book Description The Impending Population Disaster: Can We Find an Imminent Solution or Will Man Have to Play God & Grow Babies in Labs? The Future of Human Reproduction, Balancing Declining Birth Rates, Ectogenesis In a world where population decline is becoming a growing concern, this book takes readers on an eye-opening journey into the future of human reproduction. It examines critical advances such as ectogenesis (artificial wombs), genetic engineering, and reproductive rights while probing into the ethical, social, and moral questions raised by these technologies. Are we prepared to ...

In the spring of 2012, the Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the future of the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions. It has already been deployed to cure deadly diseases, fight the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, and make inheritable changes in the genes of babies.

Humans are awesome. Our brains are gigantic, seven times larger than they should be for the size of our bodies. The human brain uses 25 percent of all the energy the body requires each day. And it became enormous in a very short amount of time in evolution, allowing us to leave our cousins, the great apes, behind. So the human brain is special, right? Wrong, according to Suzana Herculano-Houzel. Humans have developed cognitive abilities that outstrip those of all other animals but not because we are evolutionary outliers.

This dynamic chronicle of the race to find the "missing links" between humans and apes transports readers into the highly competitive world of fossil hunting and into the lives of the ambitious scientists intent on pinpointing the dawn of humankind. The quest to find where and when the earliest human ancestors first appeared is one of the most exciting and challenging of all scientific pursuits.

Akshaya is the hybrid daughter of a human mother and an alloy, a genetically engineered posthuman—and she’s the future of life on the planet Meru. But not if the determined Akshaya can help it. Before choosing where her future lies, she wants to circumnavigate the most historic orb in the universe—the birthplace of humanity: Earth.

The stakes are higher, the enemies deadlier, the adventure non-stop - join the fight to save humanity in the latest instalment of the epic saga. When a super-smart ape reveals to Arthur and Elliot that they missed something important while investigating Hellinix, the four heroes must return to Level-8, the vault at the center of the corporation's rot, to uncover their ultimate goal. Elliot has lost his sword, Arthur has fallen for Elliot's best friend, Millicent is struggling to fit in with the team, and Stanley just wants to know where the mangoes are. Can they keep their minds on the ...

AD 2107: A generation ago, Earth and the cislunar colonies banned genetic and cybernetic modifications. But out in the Asteroid Belt, anything goes. Dozens of flourishing space habitats are spawning exotic new societies and strange new varieties of humans. It’s a volatile situation that threatens the peace and stability of the entire solar system.

Pets have never been more popular. Over half of American households share their home with either a cat or a dog, and many contain both. This is a huge change from only a century ago, when the majority of domestic cats and dogs were working animals, keeping rodents at bay, guarding property, herding sheep. Nowadays, most are valued solely for the companionship they provide. As mankind becomes progressively more urban and detached from nature, we seem to be clinging to the animals that served us well in the past.

How did human minds become so different from those of other animals? What accounts for our capacity to understand the way the physical world works, to think ourselves into the minds of others, to gossip, read, tell stories about the past, and imagine the future? These questions are not new: they have been debated by philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, evolutionists, and neurobiologists over the course of centuries. One explanation widely accepted today is that humans have special cognitive instincts.

The year is 2205. The great pandemic and climate crisis generated social divisions, creating a new human post-biological species when a mining incident was manipulated to create the conditions of a new evolutionary social brink. This book is the first in a series about one potential path humanity may take in the evolution of new human species. There are exciting times ahead in this book. There are also bumps in the road and challenging events to navigate through. Listening to this audiobook will take you on a journey of different experiences that no one else has ever had.

The United States is embarking on a medical revolution. Supporters of personalized, or precision, medicine—the tailoring of health care to our genomes—have promised to usher in a new era of miracle cures. Advocates of this gene-guided health-care practice foresee a future where skyrocketing costs can be curbed by customization and unjust disparities are vanquished by biomedical breakthroughs. Progress, however, has come slowly, and with a price too high for the average citizen.

1888: A young prostitute opens a gift from a painter and discovers van Gogh’s bloody ear. 2042: The inventor of gene-tweaking buys a desiccated ear which he believes holds the key to bottling human genius. Vinny lives on an isolated island and paints. Scientists watch him, waiting to see if his artistic genius or his latent schizophrenia will manifest first. He’s been cloned to be an artist; he’s surrounded only by things that stimulate his art. Until he discovers rock and roll… The island is full of secrets. Vinny is hiding a guitar cut out of paper. His surrogate parents are ...

AI stands in the way of her dreams… so Ailith travels back before AI to the 2000s. Ailith and her twin sister, Thea, live a good life, although one controlled by the wealthy Paladin Guild. Except Ailith’s dreams hover out of reach; being an author in an AI dominated world is a pipe dream. Determined to see her own work in print, she contemplates a daring plan to travel back to the early days of AI in the 2000s. Despite failed attempts and various setbacks, Ailith discovers a glimmer of hope—a theoretical wormhole. What’s the worst that could happen? With her sister and a frozen ...

En el año 2080, la Tierra era solo una sombra de lo que fue. Las Guerras de la IA de la década de 2030 devastaron el planeta. La Inteligencia Artificial General, que en su día prometía ayudar a la humanidad, solo intensificó su obsesión por la destrucción. Las consecuencias de las Guerras de la IA tuvieron un enorme impacto ambiental, y la humanidad quedó en ruinas, luchando por sobrevivir. Viendo la oportunidad de afirmar su dominio, las corporaciones privadas utilizaron su tecnología avanzada para tomar el control. Joe Walker y sus amigos se propusieron exponer la verdad y ...

We've all asked ourselves the question. It's impossible to look up at the stars and NOT think about it: Are we alone in the universe? Books, movies, and television shows proliferate that attempt to answer this question and explore it. In Out There, Space.com senior writer Dr. Michael Wall treats that question as merely the beginning, touching off a wild ride of exploration into the final frontier. He considers, for instance, the myriad of questions that would arise once we do discover life beyond Earth (an eventuality which, top NASA officials told Wall, is only drawing closer).

With so much variation that can be handed down genetically, for better or worse, the way we understand our biology holds huge importance for how we understand our world and one another, including the biggest questions of our day, such as social inequality. Eye-opening and profound, Adaptable is a revolutionary reappraisal of an overlooked science.