New DNA construct can set off a “mutagenic chain reaction”

The idea and implementation of gene drives have been around for a while since the development of zinc finger nucleases ~20 years ago. The issue has been they were hard to do. Now with CRISPR's it has been remarkably easier. Interestingly in drosophila, there is precedence for engineering other forms of selfish genetic elements such as P elements (transposons). We will see where the technology goes, but we sure do live in interesting times when it comes to the engineering of biology.

According to the Moore&#x27;s Law of Mad Science, every 18 months the required IQ to destroy the world drops by one point.<p>This research represents more than a decade of advancement in this direction.

This is a practical implementation of gene drive, which to me is as amazing as a practical implementation of warp drive.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gene_drive</a><p>We should be careful, but this is an extremely exciting development. We really are living in the 21st century.<p>What this enables is a way to let evolutionarily unfavorable gene to win by cheating evolution. Sometimes being evolutionarily good clashes with benefits to humanity, but we had no recourse. Now we do.

Well, I guess we&#x27;ll start seeing the importance of backups. Get a set made at birth, along with whatever fetal&#x2F;cord-blood stem cell reserves the individual could use later...

Geez. I feel like I need to start writing some science fiction novels now before someone in People Magazine is writing them as fact.

Wow, incredible. How can we mere humans wield such awesome power without destroying ourselves? It is even possible to manage? A person will do anything for money. Perhaps this terrible trait could be deselected using this technology and we could finally focus on living together.

If George Church is saying its a bad idea, then people should listen.

are we wise enough as a species to understand how to wield a self-propagating genetic regex?

At least for local usage, the &#x27;trash&#x27; command-line utility is worth considering [1]. I use it on my Mac&#x2F;Linux box. As described by NPM, trash is a:<p>&quot;Cross-platform command-line app for moving files and directories to the trash - A safer alternative to rm&quot;<p>[1] <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/trash" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npmjs.com&#x2F;package&#x2F;trash</a>

Paging Peter Watts to the red courtesy phone, Peter Watts to the red courtesy phone, please.