Chapter 1: The New Biology
1 - The New Biology (Intro)
It started with a tendency, something like desire. Random elements drifting together formed bonds, and then a jumble of connections. Nearly four billion years ago that union came alive. First there was the cell, the basic form. For a very long time that was all—just countless cells floating and reproducing in the ooze of ancient seas, using energy from the sun to draw materials from air and water.
Eventually came cells that released oxygen to the sky, seeding change in the world around them. Then a microbe with a novel skill took shelter in a larger cell. The guest provided energetic molecules its host could use for fuel, which made ambitious larger life forms possible. Cells soon joined together into vast mats of underwater plants, the beginnings of modern grass, trees, and flowers. They also formed animals that propelled themselves around and had a clever new feature called brains. That innovation powered the intelligent hunt for food. And more food meant more energy, to fuel larger and more complex brains.
Now, long after animals crawled out of the sea and began their walk on land, modern humans have added (varying degrees of) consciousness to the mix. We’ve existed in our present form for something like one hundred thousand years. Even so, it’s just ten thousand since we worked out how to get more food energy by grouping plants into farms. Farming made possible the cultural and intellectual hubs known as cities, which in turn gave rise to industry. And with each step—the rise of farming, the growth of cities, the industrial revolution—a radically different culture emerged. Now we’re entering another great transition.
The new biology is humanity’s future. But few know that because it’s not the future we’ve been led to expect. For instance, the new biology is not biotech: it’s not genetic engineering, at least not as it’s typically practiced today, and it isn’t cloning either. Most biotech treats nature as if it worked like a machine. The new biology makes machines that work like living things.
More than that, it brings organic principles to all of human design. This wasn’t possible before. We didn’t know enough about how the old biology works. But in recent years, as fundamental breakthroughs have transformed life science, experts from other fields have watched and learned. Now insights once the province of ecologists, zoologists, and cell biologists are laying a new foundation for everything from materials science and medicine to farming, from robotics and artificial intelligence to community planning, from industrial design to the global economy.
The twenty-first century will mark a sea change in human affairs, one unlike any that has gone before. Soon to come are computers with emotions, ships that learn from fish, and “soft jets” that flex and twist like swooping birds. Fabricated arteries will pulse and contract just as they do in life. Industries will reabsorb waste, like fallen leaves fading into the earth, while a new kind of money looks to energy cascades in nature. These are not blue-sky dreams. Work on them is well advanced.
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