A few dozen changes to the genome of a modern elephant - to give it subcutaneous fat, woolly hair and sebaceous glands - might suffice to create a variation that is functionally similar to the mammoth. Returning this keystone species to the tundras could stave off some effects of warming.

George M. Church

Categorized in : Elephant Create Fat Hair

This is a whole new era where we're moving beyond little edits on single genes to being able to write whatever we want throughout the genome. The goal is to be able to change it as radically as our understanding permits.

George M. Church

goal writing moving

I have faith that science is a good thing. Seriously, I'd say that I am very much in awe of nature. In fact, I think to some extent, "awe" was a word that was almost invented for scientists.

George M. Church

have-faith facts thinking

A poet sees a flower and can go on and on about how beautiful the colors are. But what the poet doesn't see is the xylem and the phloem and the pollen and the thousands of generations of breeding and the billions of years before that. All of that is only available to the scientists.

George M. Church

color flower beautiful

The main goal is to increase diversity. The one thing that is bad for society is low diversity. This is true for culture or evolution, for species and also for whole societies. If you become a monoculture, you are at great risk of perishing.

George M. Church

diversity risk goal

Neanderthals might think differently than we do. We know that they had a larger cranial size. They could even be more intelligent than us. When the time comes to deal with an epidemic or getting off the planet or whatever, it's conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial.

George M. Church

epidemics intelligent thinking

The recreation of Neanderthals would be mainly a question of societal risk avoidance.

George M. Church

neanderthals risk would-be

Faith is a very powerful force in the history of humanity. So I greatly respect different kinds of faith. Just as I think diversity is a really good thing genetically, it's also a good thing societally.

George M. Church

diversity powerful thinking

Reversal of ageing is high on my list of things to do, and not just because I'm getting old.

George M. Church

old high just-because things

We have a love affair with the idea of the 'natural,' even though we, as a species, are about as unnatural as you can imagine.

George M. Church

you imagine natural love

Reversal is something that has been demonstrated in a number of different animals in a number of different ways. I think that's going to translate into larger animals and humans. We won't know until we try. But we are trying 65 different genes in different combinations to see if we can reproduce the aging reversal that we've seen in small animals.

George M. Church

small think know aging

The rewards for biotechnology are tremendous - to solve disease, eliminate poverty, age gracefully. It sounds so much cooler than Facebook.

George M. Church

facebook poverty disease age

The one thing that is bad for society is low diversity. If you become a monoculture, you are at great risk of perishing. Therefore, the recreation of Neanderthals would be mainly a question of societal risk avoidance.

George M. Church

great you diversity society

What dinosaur traits are missing from an ostrich? The ostrich has a toothless beak, but there are mutations that cause teeth and claws to come back to their mouth and limbs. You need to replace the feathers with scales, but there are no feathers on their legs and feet, so you just need to make its whole body like its legs are.

George M. Church

back you body feet

Making new petroleum should be as simple and straightforward as brewing beer.

George M. Church

new straightforward simple beer

If society becomes comfortable with cloning and sees value in true human diversity, then the whole Neanderthal creature itself could be cloned by a surrogate mother chimp - or by an extremely adventurous female human.

George M. Church

value diversity society mother

You can't just hoard your ideas inside the ivory tower. You have to get them out into the world.

George M. Church

your you world ideas

We went from a world where almost nobody knew anything about computers to a world where almost all of us are computer geeks for a huge fraction of our day. And I'd like to see that happen with the digital world of biological molecules, too.

George M. Church

nobody computers day world

My laboratory and my obsession is about safety and building/engineering safety. It's not just a matter of saying we want the world to be safer; we have to create technology.

George M. Church

saying safety technology world

Letting the tundra melt is the equivalent to burning all of the forests in all of the world and their roots two and a half times over.

George M. Church

half roots two world

It's all too easy to dismiss the future. People confuse what's impossible today with what's impossible tomorrow.

George M. Church

future tomorrow today people