Vida Enigmática

Scientists are time-travellers, who can glimpse ~100 years into the future. When I think of the “the future”, here is what I ‘see’:

• I don’t see ‘manmade’ things flying everywhere; I see ‘birds’ and ‘insects’… behaving like drones. Or rather, I see drones –robots– acting like birds, fish and insects. A form of synthetic nature. Robots. Nanobots.
• I see a completely flat biodegradable pizza box that is able to reheat your pizza… at the push of a button… biodegradable battery included. Biodegradable materials.
• I see flexible circuit boards. Biodegradable/compostable circuit boards, adhesives and elastomers. Ones that feed nutrients into the soil rather than leaching out toxic chemicals. Compostable materials.
• I see homogenous materials exhibiting different physical and chemical properties at each end… or wherever else you wanted. Surfaces that change colour, texture, friction coefficient, refractive index, magnetic susceptibility or any one of —or combination of— any one of thousands of desired properties… inside or outside of them… like a television screen… except displaying an array –a matrix– of different properties. Metamaterials.
• I see changes in materials’ physical, mechanical or chemical properties… triggered in response to… other changes… such as temperature, composition, acidity. Dynamic materials.
• I see tyre compounds that become ‘grippier’ or ‘grow’ additional/deeper tyre tread patterns in the wet… according to the conditions. Responsive materials.
• I see trees… by the side of road… that automatically display the speed limit… and any other desired road signals… with reflective bark… again… according to the conditions. Adaptive materials.
• I see semi-organic ‘tentacles’ mounted on aircraft carriers… that can ‘catch’ helicopters and other flying craft… in mid flight. Organic materials.
• I see termites… genetically reprogrammed… to make skyscrapers out of biodegradable ‘cement’. Self-organising materials,
• I see buildings that simply… build themselves. Self-generating and self-regenerating materials.
• I see computers that never need new hardware. Computers that truly ‘adapt’ and ‘learn’. Light-based computers. Organic computers. Really advanced, biological computers.
• I see genetically engineered bacteria that can extract any elements we wish, from landfill.

All these devices are not only possible –100% scientifically feasible– but even probable. Believe me. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Of what technology can deliver.

These ‘inventions’ do not break any laws of science. Far from it. They’re already in existence. And this is the potential I see whenever I look at animals and plants and think about them in terms of their material properties.

Everywhere I look, I see nano-materials that humans simply cannot yet compete with. We are not even in the race, the same league, let alone the same competition as nature.

I see people mixing cement today, smelting and forging steel —still— in the year 2016. And it’s a crude process at its very best; always from the “top down” scale direction, never from the “bottom up”.

Eventually though, as we play the game of “catch up” —by studying and ultimately copying nature— there’s really only ONE thing that stands in the way of scientists, engineers and designers creating, reverse-engineering these things (and more) in the future.

And that’s the threat of extinction. Because all of the above hypothetical inventions share one thing in common: they’re based on materials that are already found in living systems.

Nature is good for our emotional, psychological and physiological wellbeing. Nature is ‘natural’. Nature is ‘pretty’. Nature is ‘beautiful’. And all species have an equal ‘right’ to survival as any other. Isn’t that enough reason to want to protect it?

We humans cannot recreate a forest, a mountain view, a lake, a river or a natural shoreline. And where do many of us like to go for recreation, if we want to truly rejuvenate? Where do we go on holidays? We go to nature. Or even to some virtual ‘approximation’ of it.

Shouldn’t that be enough to save it? Apparently not. So if you want the cold, hard ‘justification’, the main scientific reason, to fight for all forms of biodiversity –the fundamental reason that all accountants, long-term financial planners and investors are really looking for– then here it is:

Simply put: if we scientists don’t have enough living systems –biodiversity– available to effectively be able to research, to study, then not only will the amazing device described above never get built by us, but we’ll likely find it harder and harder to survive the further we get into the future¹. Indeed, we may find that at one point, it doesn’t get any easier at all — rather, that it gets harder. Much harder.

Yes we NEED different species. Not just for our own immediate survival (in terms of oxygen/air, clean/filtered water, fresh food). We need different species in order to be able to study them well into the future. We need as many different species as possible. We need species with even the most subtle differences, –in fact, especially the ones with the most subtle differences– to be able to eliminate the bane of every single well-trained scientist: variables. Or rather, more than one variable.

Suppose there were only two animal species in existence: an elephant and a stingray. Suppose. Just the two (never mind what they eat for now). Then it would be very hard to work out which genes cause which morphology in each animal. How do we know which gene causes the trunk and which forms the tusk? How do we know which gene forms the stingray’s tail or its spine? And so on. For every new variable in each animal, it becomes ever harder to distinguish between the genes, which genes cause which traits.

With insufficient samples, science is nothing. What about with no samples at all? How much is science worth then, with no samples?

Furthermore, the exact same protein may lead to different morpholgy when it is located in a different part of the genetic sequence, as in a different species. It’s not entirely predictable.

That’s why genetic engineers are never as clever as they think they are. That’s why there’s this whole “anti GMO” movement (well that’s one reason). Because if we knew EXACTLY what we doing, why, we’d be able to create practically anything we wanted. Already. Now. Today. Besides, some genes are redundant.

Do we know which ones? Do we know why? Do we know where? Do we know how? Do we know, for each and every single one of the estimated 1 trillion fast-disappearing species on planet Earth? I don’t think so. Genetics is not my area. Even so, I don’t think there are enough scientists alive today to know and study all of that genetic information; there is too much information out there. I don’t know. I know about materials science, not biology. I do know that biological materials are several orders of magnitude more complex than purely synthetic, manmade materials. [Read more…]