((PKG)) MIND BLOWING SCIENCE
((Banner: Tech Frontiers))
((Reporter/Camera: Elizabeth Lee))
((Map: Los Angeles, California))
((Caption: Smarter Microbes))
((Courtesy: Zymergen))
We use automation and machine learning to engineer microbes, little single cell creatures to turn them into the chemical factories of the future
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((JOSHUA HOFFMAN, CO-FOUNDER & CEO, ZYMERGEN))
making novel molecules for industrial and health applications.
((Courtesy: Zymergen))
Microbes exist in the real world. We’ll modify them slightly to make more of the thing they make naturally or maybe to make something new altogether.
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((JOSHUA HOFFMAN, CO-FOUNDER & CEO, ZYMERGEN))
So it might be an adhesive that works inside the human body in a way that a glue that you might make conventionally can’t.
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We can work to increase the effectiveness of crop protection agents so herbicides, fungicides, those sorts of things. We can reduce the toxicity of agents that seem to work but actually cause other kinds of problems.
((JOSHUA HOFFMAN, CO-FOUNDER & CEO, ZYMERGEN))
What we’re doing is we’re searching the genome for the things that might work. What machine learning does is it looks for patterns that a human wouldn’t find.
((Courtesy: Zymergen))
For sure it wouldn’t have been possible five much less ten years ago.
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((Smarter Storage))
((HYUNJUN PARK, CO-FOUNDER, CATALOG TECHNOLOGIES))
The idea of storing information in DNA has been around for several decades. It’s just that we hit upon an idea that makes it economically attractive to do it.
We, as a society, are generating so much data with 5G wireless networks, Internet of Things, high definition video and just social media. So, by the year 2025, we’re going to generate a lot more data and a lot more useful data than we’ll have the capacity to store. And so, we are in need of a new medium that can be much more efficient than the current solutions.
What we want to do with a new medium like DNA is it decrease the footprint, environmental footprint, physical footprint of data storage tremendously, so nature has had to store all of the genetic information in these really tiny cells in the form of DNA so that really pushed for the selection of information density.
((Courtesy: Catalog))
So that’s the amount of bits you can store in the same volume.
DNA is actually just a biopolymer, meaning it’s just a chemical material that we’re using.
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It happens to be the material that stores genetic information when it’s inside of your body, but it doesn’t have to come from a cell. It can be chemically synthesized just as plastics will be made.
When we’re manipulating, it’s a liquid. It’s a liquid solution that you move around to assemble different pieces of DNA and then for storage, we will dry that down so that it’s a powder in any tube that you are storing it in. You can have it last for thousands of years.
((Smarter Kids?))
((VIVIENNE MING, FOUNDER, SOCOS LABS))
What I’m interested in is cognitive neuro-prosthetics. Can I literally jam something in your brain and make you smarter.
How much you can think about, pay attention to, kind of, mentally operate on at any given moment, we’ve actually found that we can increase that by about 15%.
What you’d find is the kids with the greater working memory span might earn as much as a whole grade higher in school. 15 to 30% greater income throughout their lifetimes.
((Courtesy: BioMed Central))
There are groups and labs out there that have been able to show, for example in that funny hat kind, the non-invasive technologies, they can increase people’s honesty. They can modulate your preferences for experiences, taking a bland movie and suddenly making it something that you loved and you want to go back and see it again.
((Courtesy: neuroscape.ucsf.edu))
In a world of increasing technology, this is one possibility to keep us ever relevant, is to find the best of who we are and combine it with the best of what we can build.
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