SHAPE-CHANGERS OF TOMORROW: 3/4: The Next 500 Years: Engineering Life to Reach New Worlds by Christopher E. Mason

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 20 August 2023

⏱️ 11 minutes

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SHAPE-CHANGERS OF TOMORROW: 3/4: The Next 500 Years: Engineering Life to Reach New Worlds by Christopher E. Mason

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086SCVGS5/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Inevitably, life on Earth will come to an end, whether by climate disaster, or by cataclysmic war, or when the sun runs out of fuel in a few billion years. To avoid extinction, will we have to find a new home planet, perhaps even a new solar system, to inhabit? In this provocative and fascinating book, Christopher Mason argues that we have a moral duty to do just that. Because we are the only species aware that life on Earth has an expiration date, we have a responsibility to act as the shepherd of lifeforms--not only for our species but for all species on which we depend and for those still to come (by accidental or designed evolution). Mason argues that the same capacity for ingenuity that has enabled us to build rockets and land on other planets can be applied to redesigning biology so that we can sustainably inhabit those planets. And he lays out a 500-year plan for undertaking the massively ambitious project of reengineering human genetics for life in other worlds

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Shopify.
0:03.0	That's what I hear when I make another sale on Shopify.
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0:12.0	Shopify is revolutionising millions of businesses worldwide.
0:17.0	So sign up for a £1 per month trial period at Shopify.co.uk
0:23.0	Ask podcast 23 all lowercase and take your business to the next level today.
0:30.0	This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batchler.
0:35.0	The book is the next 500 years engineering life to reach new worlds.
0:39.0	Dr Christopher Mason, geneticist, computational biologist,
0:43.0	principal investigator and co-investigator with NASA
0:46.0	and professor at Wild Cornel Medicine.
0:48.0	All of that to get to the word engineering.
0:51.0	We've talked about editing DNA but now we're talking about a sale that's alive
0:57.0	and what is to be done with that sale.
1:00.0	Christopher, I understand and I quickly got lost.
1:03.0	We're already in this process of taking sales and putting them to work in some fashion.
1:10.0	What is important is we're doing this for space.
1:14.0	What is it that we need to do with our sales to make them appropriate?
1:18.0	We've talked about adjusting them for radiation.
1:22.0	What else can we adjust them for?
1:25.0	We can do a lot of other tweaks and modifications to our sales.
1:29.0	The biggest risks are just to survive.
	...

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