Search results for ""Author Ted Anton""

A new science is reengineering the fabric of life. Synthetic biology offers bold new ways of manufacturing medicines, clothing, foods, fragrances, and fuels, often using microbe fermentation, much like brewing beer. The technology can help confront climate change, break down industrial pollutants, and fight novel viruses. Today, researchers are manipulating life forms and automating evolution to create vegetarian “meat,” renewable construction materials, and cancer treatments. In the process, they are changing our concept of what life science can achieve. Is this a new industrial and information revolution—or dangerous tinkering that could unleash unintended consequences?Programmable Planet is a grand tour through the world of synthetic biology, telling the stories of the colorful visionaries whose ideas are shaping discoveries. Ted Anton explores the field from its beginning in fighting malaria in Africa to the COVID vaccines and beyond. Covering medical and agricultural triumphs and blunders, he examines successes in energy production, plant gene editing, and chemical manufacturing, as well as the most controversial attempts at human gene enhancement. This book reports from the front lines of research, showing policy makers’ struggle to stay abreast of the technologies they aim to regulate. Even-handed, lively, and informative, Programmable Planet gives a glimpse of the promise and problems of a new biology-based industry.

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We live in a time of unprecedented scientific knowledge about the origins of life on Earth. But if we want to grasp the big picture, we have to start small very small. That's because the real heroes of the story of life on Earth are microbes, the tiny living organisms we cannot see with the naked eye. Microbes were Earth's first lifeforms, early anaerobic inhabitants that created the air we breathe. Today they live, invisible and seemingly invincible, in every corner of the planet, from Yellowstone's scalding hot springs to Antarctic mountaintops to inside our very bodies more than a hundred trillion of them. Don't be alarmed though: many microbes are allies in achieving our to say nothing of our planet's health. In Planet of Microbes, Ted Anton takes readers through the most recent discoveries about microbes, revealing their unexpected potential to reshape the future of the planet. For years, we knew little about these invisible invaders, considering them as little more than our enemies in our fight against infectious disease. But the more we learn about microbes, the more it's become clear that our very lives depend on them. They may also hold the answers to some of science's most pressing problems, including how to combat a warming planet, clean up the environment, and help the body fight off a wide variety of diseases. Anton has spent years interviewing and working with the determined scientists who hope to harness the work of microbes, and he breaks down the science while also sharing incredible behind-the-scenes stories of the research taking place everywhere from microbreweries to Mars. The world's tiniest organisms were here more than three billion years before us. We live in their world, and Planet of Microbes at last gives these unsung heroes the recognition they deserve.

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