“Right, then! I do the best I can for you, the bloody best, to set up your sniveling, snotty-nosed kid the way you want, and all I get in return for pouring fifteen years of research into the bloody boring composition of the bloody damn DNA molecule is a pair of pathetic twits, who, when confronted with bloody stats start a pathetic wiffle-waffle. Right now, Mr. and Mrs. Stolwry, you have a perfect, beautiful specimen of a stocky, blond-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, quilted, male shrimp-head welder, with pods. Now, what more do you bloody want? Frankly, it makes me sick! Why don’t you go have your child naturally?” – Eric Idle on Saturday Night Live (1976) – I can’t embed the video but it’s here (LINK) and hilarious.
Now you know why chicken wings are getting bigger. If only it would make its own sauce. I bet it does, in the Twilight Zone©!
We are at the beginning of a new age of humanity, and maybe even an entirely new type of humanity. The first humans have been born where sections of their DNA (the genetic information that defines most everything of what they are) have been replaced with new information. It’s exactly like someone recutting Toy Story® using dialogue from Fight Club™. Oh, someone did that? I do live in the best possible timeline:
It’s only two minutes: give it a watch, please. My therapist says I need to share things. But the first rule is that we shouldn’t talk about it. Thankfully, I’m typing instead of talking.
But in this case, the genetic information that defines a living human being was cut out and replaced with new information. And the human is an actual living human.
How did they do it?
Tiny scissors. Really small ones. And itty-bitty pieces of Scotch® tape. Okay, they actually used a technique called “CRISPR”, which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. But for all you care it could stand for Clever Reindeer Intentionally Shooting Panda Rifles. It doesn’t matter. Let’s pretend it’s really tiny scissors and itty-bitty pieces of Scotch™ tape.
CRISPR allows editing of the DNA strand by using segments of DNA to match up with and replace the parts of the DNA that we don’t like. And even though DNA is comprised of lots of molecules, in reality DNA is just information like pages in a book, or dialogue in a movie except if you try to replace passages in your book with DNA all you get is a mess and sticky fingers from turning the DNA soaked pages. But back to the DNA: some of the information on the DNA appears to be actual junk – it may not mean anything – but the rest of the information defines your height, weight, hair color, maximum intelligence, ability to play guitar, affinity for bacon, and, well, ability to write real good word thoughts (PLOT POINT!).
Editing the DNA with CRISPR allows the editing of new pages into a book, and even the individual letters in the book. But better not end up leaving out the wrong word:
This Bible was printed in 1631 and is known as the “Wicked Bible.” If anyone actually followed the instructions, there was probably oodles of amateur DNA transfer. Hopefully not on the pages.
CRISPR can be used to edit mushroom DNA. Or cow DNA. Or . . . human DNA. And now two human girls have been born and inserted into their DNA is the resistance to AIDS.
The first time I ran into the concept of genetic engineering was when I was a kid, watching Star Trek®. When I was a kid, it was a law that every other show on television was a repeat of Star Trek™. The idea of one episode, Space Seed, was that a group of genetically enhanced (mentally and physically) supermen led a war. When they lost the war, they were shot into space in suspended animation. Because prison was too complicated, I guess. The leader? Khan Noonian Singh, played in scenery-chewing fashion by Ricardo Montalban.
Even Kirk is skittish about genetic engineering.
Any measurable human trait or combination of human traits from DNA can now be changed. And almost every human trait is genetic in nature. I know this from experience. As much as you might think that I was conceived of during an immaculate conception witnessed only by the angels and attended by a gaggle of singing heifers in bloomers, well, that was not exactly the case, no matter what I tell my kids. It was sweaty teenagers. But I digress. I’m adopted, but in the weird way where I’m actually related to the family that adopted me. I couldn’t even get “unwanted abandoned child” right. Such a failure.
Anyway, for every moment of my life until I was 35, I had zero contact with my biological father. Zero. None. Nada. Zilch. Empty set. And zero contact with any of his relatives. Complete isolation from that side of my personal biodiversity. But I had been told his name. Then, one night under some assistance from a bit of Coors Light® I did an Internet search and . . . called a number. He wasn’t there, but a week later we talked. And it was unusual.
If you’ve read this blog, you know that I have a rather strange set of interests. One day, jokes about fizzy toots, the next day political analysis, then genetic engineering. But when I called my biological father it was odd – there was almost no subject that either of us brought up that the other hadn’t researched. Oh, and he’s a writer (THIS WAS THE PLOT POINT PAYOFF). Please don’t get me wrong, in no way do I want to imply that I feel anything but the strongest loyalty to the family that raised me, but I could see the similarities so much that I made up a really clever original phrase: “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” I’m glad that when they rebuild the last remaining Internet server after the Nacho Cheese War of 2331™, that I’m certain to be credited with my wonderful, original phrase.
But your grandma who didn’t like that little tramp you were dating was right: genetics matter.
CRISPR puts the tools to optimize human traits in the hands of . . . humans. Sure, we’ve been doing the amateur kind of genetic engineering for, well, ever. And it’s resulted in some pretty interesting people, like, say, you. Our genetic engineers were our mothers and fathers. Men have broad shoulders because women like broad shoulders. Women have . . . well, we’ll skip that for now. Don’t want to say the wrong thing and have everyone think I’m a boob.
Beware of 12 year olds with the ability to create genetic modifications.
Who gets to play with CRISPR first? The rich. Specifically rich Chinese people. Yes, regulations exist in China, but the regulations exist to protect the State, not the people, silly. The only reason the Party would restrict rich kids from having SuperBabies 3000® is if the Party feels the technology is too powerful and keeps it for itself.
Make no mistake, this is an incredibly powerful technology, like alcohol on prom night. I think that the Chinese elite will start snipping and tucking DNA so that their children are smarter. Taller. Stronger. More confident. Better nose hair, you know, the kind you can braid. If you’re a billionaire, why not? The Party will be fine with that, since it gives them the ability to see what the technology does. I mean, understanding the complicated interactions between DNA molecules is tougher than dancing a polka striptease with a gopher. And we all know what that’s like.
Khan we fix your DNA? Yes we Khan!
Can you imagine being the master of this technology? You can eliminate undesirable human traits, such as enjoying Taylor Swift® music entirely from your gene pool. You can, if you are the Party, create the perfect Chuck Norris-like soldier. A 9 foot tall (37 meters) basketball player. The most loyal citizens.
If you are willing to sacrifice and experiment to quickly understand what the interactions are between multiple genetic changes and patient enough to await the results, you’ll quickly lead the world in a technology whose limits we can barely perceive. And in a state controlled by a central Party, well, soon enough we could see a split so wide in human ability that humanity might look more like a colony of insects with different classes of humans genetically modified to follow their role as drone, soldier, queen, scientist, and blogger than the normal wild and feral band of humans we’re used to. They’d be farther apart than Morlock© and Eloi™.
H.G. Wells couldn’t have imagined that 800,000 years of human evolution could be done in an afternoon in an uncomfortably warm doctor’s office. But he also couldn’t imagine that Leonardo DiCaprio would ever win an Oscar®.
In China in a few years embryonic DNA modifications might become as common as vaccination in the United States. Once the DNA gets into the gene pool of the country, it will stay there. Perhaps in two or three generations China will have citizens that are entirely immune to some sort of biological agent that just, whoops, “accidentally” gets released to depopulate the planet and leave it free for China.
Shhh, but I think the Chinese have already measured Africa to see if all of their stuff would fit.
But in a twist resulting from an interaction between a snip that removed unsightly ear hair and a tuck that allowed all men to grow mustaches as full and perfect as the one Burt Reynolds had in Sharky’s Machine©, the remaining citizens develop an insatiable desire for eating humans. What an ending! Then Rod Serling can come out, smoking, with a good moral to the story. Yay!
Okay – I love comments, and would love to have more, so don’t make me change your DNA so you’re chattier. And don’t forget – you can just subscribe to this in the box above, and I’ll show up at least three times a week in your inbox. Which won’t break it, unless you have a weak, girlie-man inbox. And I won’t send or sell your address, ever.
