The Future: six drivers of global change Part 93

Caruso, "Synthetic Biology."

109 and many other fields

Stephen C. Aldrich, James Newcomb, and Robert Carlson, Genome Synthesis and Design Futures: Implications for the U.S. Economy (Cambridge, MA: Bio Economic Research a.s.sociates, 2007).

110 destroy or weaken antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Ruder, Lu, and Collins, "Synthetic Biology Moving into the Clinic."

111 killing other targeted bacteria until the infection subsides

Ibid.

112 vaccine development is also generating great hope

Cookson, "Synthetic Life."

113 bird flu (H5N1) of 2007 and the so-called swine flu (H1N1) of 2009

Ibid.

114 ability to pa.s.s from one human to another through airborne transmission

"Bird Flu Pandemic in Humans Could Happen Any Time," Reuters, June 21, 2012.

115 a new mutant of the virus begins spreading

Huib de Vriend, "Vaccines: The First Commercial Application of Synthetic Biology?," Rathenau Inst.i.tuut, July 2011.

116 using the tools of synthetic biology

Ibid.

117 decrease the cost and time of manufacturing of vaccines

Vicki Glaser, "Quest for Fully Disposable Process Stream," Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News 29, no. 5, March 1, 2009.

118 Some experts have also predicted

Aldrich, Newcomb, and Carlson, Genome Synthesis and Design Futures.

119 utilizing a "widely dispersed" strategy

Cookson, "Synthetic Life."

120 "would not appear to him as indecent and unnatural"

J. B. S. Haldane, "Daedalus of Science and the Future," February 4, 1923, http://www.psy.vanderbilt.edu/courses/hon182/Daedalus_or_SCIENCE_AND_THE_FUTURE_JBS_Haldane.pdf.

121 "We intuit and we feel"

Leon Ka.s.s, Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2004), p. 150.

122 describes a feeling that itself lacks precision

Alexis Madrigal, "I'm Being Followed: How Google-and 104 Other Companies-Are Tracking Me on the Web," Atlantic, February 29, 2012.

123 a method for producing spider silk

Rutherford, "Synthetic Biology and the Rise of the 'Spider-Goats.' "

124 five times stronger than steel by weight

Other scientists have mimicked the molecular design of spider silk by synthesizing their own from a commercially available substance (polyurethane elastomer) treated with clay platelets only one nanometer (a billionth of a meter) thick and only 25 nanometers across, then carefully processing the mixture to create synthetic spider silk. This work has been funded by the Inst.i.tute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology because the military applications are considered of such high importance. Rutherford, "Synthetic biology and the rise of the 'spider-goats' "; "Nexia and US Army Spin the World's First Man-Made Spider Silk Performance Fibers," Eureka Alert, January 17, 2002, http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-01/nbi-nau011102.php.

125 because of their antisocial, cannibalistic nature