A few weeks after I met my wife, I experienced an emotion I’d never felt before: I wanted to make her pregnant. The feeling hit me hard as we lounged on the bed in her NYC studio. It was visceral and powerful and I instinctively knew that it couldn’t be…

Many of the presentations I’ve given over the years were to investment groups seeking to understand what’s ahead in life science. This last summer, I had the opportunity to speak to wealth management groups in Geneva. While the pharma and biotech industries have long been of interest to institutional investors…

The field of synthetic biology is basically about learning how to program life. It’s a controversial technology in part because our knowledge is incomplete. We didn’t create life. It’s the other way around — and there’s no manual. …

SBA2.0 International Synthetic Biology and Biosecurity Conference in Africa, Kampala, Uganda, July 12–14, 2023 A lightly edited transcript of my largely unscripted talk at this meeting. See https://synbioafrica.com/conference2023/ for more information and program First, I want to give my thanks. To GEOFFREY OTIM for organizing this meeting and inviting me; …

There is a lot of talk these days about the risks of AI. And at least one AI expert believes it’s “not inconceivable” that it could wipe us all out. There’s even something called ChaosGPT that has already been tasked with destroying humanity! I haven’t had the bandwidth to read…

DNA has been the foundation of my life. I want to celebrate the molecule on its big day, April 25, with some recollections. I remember (perhaps wrongly in some cases, memory being what it is) some of these highlights: Articles in the news about the first experiments with recombinant DNA…

This essay is speculative fiction — a possible future grounded on science and technology that exists today but looking just a few years down the road. This is a positive vision inspired in part by the efforts of biohacker Jo Zayner and The ODIN. …

Immortality isn’t just for supervillains anymore I recently attended a Long Now talk featuring author Ryan North. North appears to be having the time of his life. With his science background, he’s created characters for the likes of Marvel and DC Comics and written bestselling books including How to Invent…

I’ve been captivated this week by all the chatGPT explorations people are sharing. It’s an incredible breakthrough, something rare and special. But many people still haven’t heard of chatGPT. So I asked it to talk about itself and what we can expect over the next five years. You are welcome…