Gene Oddity

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So I recently read the latest issue of Discover. My two favorite articles were those on time travel and genetics.

Now, the time travel article was quite fun. Talked about a hypothetical 'gate' in time. Walk through one way, you go 24 hours into the future. Walk through in the opposite direction, you go 24 hours into the past. Now suppose you're just observing the gate, when you see a man exit from the future. Instead of wondering off, he just loiters around for exactly 24 hours, when he re-enters the gate and travels 24 hours into the past. His entire lifespan can be summed up in a single day, but from his perspective he is technically immortal. He would never accumulate new memories, and his entire universe would just repeat forever... but where did he come from? By that logic, all sorts of things could come and go through the gate, and we wouldn't have the slightest clue what they were or why they existed. Our perception of the universe is very limited; we can only see three spatial dimensions, and a mere canine has far greater hearing than mankind has ever known. The relation of physics to time travel also conflicts with our sense of free will. If we see a future version of ourselves doing something, then we are going to do it - it is predestination. And free will cannot defy physics - if you jump off a cliff, you will be subject to gravity no matter how strong your will to fly may be.

The other article was about George Church, and how he constructed a highly expedient genetic sequencing and manipulating device. In one 24 hour period, he was able to create 4 billion E. coli samples that produced lycopene. This device could have profound effects on human phisiology in the relatively near future. The article ends, suggesting that this type of advancement may have been employed by space-fairing alien races. (I took a little artistic license on that part.)


It occurs to me that although time travel and interstellar travel are likely thousands of years beyond our abilities, genetic manipulation is becoming a reality in less than a century after the discovery of DNA. Through genetic manipulation, we can make ourselves live longer, increase intelligence, maybe someday use this to transfer our minds into machines. Could genetic manipulation enable us to see higher dimensions, or to envision paradoxical events? I'm not saying that this is completely safe, or even wise - we could wind up peeing our brains into the toilet. But the potential gains are incredible? (Also, throw 'cure for all disease' in there.)

I could see flying cars, maybe early personal space-ships. But travelling through time, or faster than light, require idiotic amounts of power, for starters. And part of the purpose of the time article was to show just how little we know about the mechanics of time travel. Interstellar travel could be possible by the year 3000, but not necessarily FTL.

Interesting discussion.

Well, for the power bit, they are making some head way with that. I heard some weeks ago that a theory for nuclear batteries is in the works. Produces 1000000 times the power, and lasts for several lifetimes . . . what's not to like (assuming the radiation issue is taken care of). If you think about it, we're just trying to catch up on about 1000 years of technology because of the middle ages, so we've managed to go from basic flight and gliding to landing a man on our moon in less than a century. Our computers are growing rapidly seeing as how theyre well over 1000 times more powerful than when first introduced almost 40 years ago. There might be some things we live to see, but a lot more that we won't. Personally, I dont think we should mess with time . . . everything happens for a reason and should be left. Now if we did use it, we would have to make sure not to interfere and use it for exploration of missing history only (I can name a few sections of history id like to know for sure about). With respect to genetics and biology, having studied some Biotech in college, there's a lot of crazy stuff being researched and implemented. The problem with life extension is resources . . . the older a people get, the less likely they are to produce children and if some catastrophe happens . . . well, bye bye humanity. Not to mention that if a group of people start living well beyond 85-100 years, they become a strain on resources (more people to feed for a longer time). So a lot of these ideas look good on paper . . . but theyre not really practical. They might, however, become practical should we expand beyond our world.