Time to edit your DNA?

The term CRISPR is on the lips of all the worlds geeks these days, and for a good reason, it seems. This new gene editing method has exposed to all of us just how fast we are approaching a point, where we can completely design ourselves.

Plastic surgery will look like a very primitive tool, in an age where you can grow anything by snipping out a bit of DNA and replacing it with something different. But one thing is vanity (it usually starts with vanity), another one is eradicating diseases and molding our place in the world in other ways.

Below are three insights from the Duckling Network that will give you a primer on CRISPR, and taste of how the future of our DNA will radically alter us all. See more on Duckling. See more on Duckling

Gregory Stock: To upgrade is human

View it in 2 minutes: This insight is based on a TED Talk from 2003 which Stock delivered just days before Dolly the sheep was stuffed. Gregory Stock is looking forward to new, more meaningful (and controversial) technologies, like customizable babies, whose adoption might drive human evolution. View insight

Andy Sparks: A primer on gene editing and what it can do to us

View it in 1 minute: A few months ago, someone in my Facebook news feed shared an article with a title along the lines of, “You won’t believe what scientists are doing with CRISPR.” My first thought was, “What is CRISPR?”. View insight

Bjarke Calvin: We are becoming hackable. But maybe meditation is the firewall

View it in 1 minute: What does meditation have to do with the future of our DNA? Reading two very different books on the condition of the human being made me realize. View insight