Even Editing Away Parasites Comes With Profound Ethical Quandaries.
NOT LONG AGO, Bill Gates noted on his blog that the deadliest creatures on the planet are not sharks or snakes or even humans but the lowly mosquitoes carrying a devil’s menagerie of diseases— malaria, dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, Zika, West Nile—that kill hundreds of thousands of people each year.
But we may soon be able to end the mosquito’s reign of terror, thanks to a new technology known as gene drive, whose implications are at once thrilling and terrifying.
Suppose you were to engineer a genetic variation into an animal’s DNA. That anomaly would be passed along to half the creature’s offspring. Only a quarter of the subsequent generation would have the variation— and then an eighth and a sixteenth and so on. Gene drive—another spinoffof crispr—upends that calculus. Theoretically it would guarantee that a lab-modified trait can be inherited by all a creature’s offspring and all their offspring, until the whole population carries it.
This story is from the September/October 2017 edition of Mother Jones.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the September/October 2017 edition of Mother Jones.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
FOOD FOR THOUGHT - CRIME OF THE CROP
Will GMOs harm my kids? Your pediatrician's response might not be grounded in science.
ECONUNDRUMS - CHATBOT QUACKS
AI was supposed to fix online health misinformation. Instead, it's making it worse.
WELL PLAYED
One man’s mission to make gaming a little less white
FIGHTING CHANCE
RUBEN GALLEGO'S BATTLE AGAINST KARI LAKE COULD DECIDE THE FATE OF THE SENATE-AND DEMOCRACY ITSELF. NO PRESSURE.
BLUUD MONEY
Tommy Alba could be a pain in the ass.
Become Ungovernable
The spectacular implosion of the Libertarian Party
Spoiler Alert
Third-party candidates never win national elections, but they can still have serious consequences.
THE DEMOCRACY BOMB
A day ahead of the third anniversary of January 6, President Joe Biden traveled to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania-where George Washington encamped during the Revolutionary War-before delivering what he described as a \"deadly serious\" speech framing the stakes of the 2024 election.
OH CRAP - SLUDGE REPORT
Can Maine lead the way to a future without forever chemicals?
JERSEY BOYS - AGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
Young voters are powering Rep. Andy Kim's challenge to Trenton's powers that be.