Evolution 2.0 --Is the Human Species Creating a "New Tree of Life"? (VIDEO)

 

          

Life on Earth demonstrates that a single example of complicated chemistry known as biology proves the possibility of life, but not its probability of happening. Our Generation 1.0 is currently seeing synthetic biology begetting Generation 2.0 --a new tree of life --what Harvard's Dimitar Sasselov says "is a historic watershed that proves that ordinary matter has an inherent capability to self-organize, to create diversity from a single biochemistry, and ultimately to amplify that diversity by spawning multiple biochemistries."

It is a watershed observes Sasselov in The Life of Super-Earths, because it could be a recipe for amplification of diversity on the scale of the Milky Way and on timescales that last billions of years and because it suggests the existence of a new generation of life --what life-science expert Juan Enriquez (in the video below) calls Homo evolutis.  Generation 2.0 may already exist in the Milky Way and other galaxies, according to Sasselov.

As of 1995, we began to read the full gene sequence of bacteria, insects, plants, animals, and humans. It is written in a four-letter code (A, T, C, G) . . . If you change this code, just as if you change the code in a floppy disk or on a CD, you change the message, the product, and the outcome. We are beginning to acquire direct and deliberate control over the evolution of all life forms on the planet including ourselves, according to Enriquez.

Enriquez has co-authored, with Steve Gullans, Homo Evolutis: A Short Tour of Our New Species. The book takes you into a world where humans increasingly shape their environment, their own selves, and other species. By the end of the video below, you will see a broad, and sometimes scary, map of life- science-driven change, a Homo evolutis, who directly and deliberately controls its own evolution and that of many other species. 

VIDEO: Juan Enriquez "Mindboggling Science"

The Daily Galaxy via Dimitar Sasselov, The Life of Super-Earths and TED.com

 

Comments

[insomnia]

thanks a lot for the article!

[Knize10]

No, humans will pass as the dodo bird did. So the ``New Tree`` will look more like a dry fossilised twig.

[Tosca Z]

Just because we can do something doesn't mean that we should. If human beings want to control their own evolution, let them learn to be more responsible for each other, more compassionate. Let them control their greed. The rest is just tricks. Human beings controlling the evolution of other species? Heaven forbid. Just how dangerous to life on earth do we really want to be?