Well, hopefully if they can get this to work with cellulose, we wouldn't then have to worry about the cost of producing sugar as a foodsource, which may nonetheless be less expensive than digging for oil, and it would get us closer to true "carbon neutrality (no net CO2 emission)."
And you're right about the brilliance of the photosynthetic solution (bacteria who fix carbon inthe form of gaseous CO2 using energy from the sun)...as you know that was invented once before in our ancient primordial soup. Our ancestor bacterium, clever little bug, produced a poisonous oxygen species that changed the course of evolution and selected for those bacteria who could cope with this newly abundant molecule in the atmosphere via aerobic respiration...and wouldn't it be funny if we actually made that next bacterium...? Maybe some life will emerge that can cope with a high octane atmosphere...but it's not us!
Not really. The end of genetic diversity spells the end of environmental adaptability. That's not a good thing. If we were all exactly identical, what you might call "the fittest," only random mutation could help us adapt to a changing environment and we would thus be the most vulverable to extinction. Inbreeding can cause serious problems in a population (Haven't you seen that TNG episode with the clones that try to steal Riker and Polaski's DNA to increase their diversity?) Also, to say that there is one "fittest" genetic blend on the planet is absurd because we all live in such varied environments.
I think the news is more: "oh no! our genetic diversity is waning!" as opposed to some dubious claim of having found the ideal genetic human simply because it's the most common. I just don't think that's the right way to think about it.
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Well, hopefully if they can get this to work with cellulose, we wouldn't then have to worry about the cost of producing sugar as a foodsource, which may nonetheless be less expensive than digging for oil, and it would get us closer to true "carbon neutrality (no net CO2 emission)."
And you're right about the brilliance of the photosynthetic solution (bacteria who fix carbon inthe form of gaseous CO2 using energy from the sun)...as you know that was invented once before in our ancient primordial soup. Our ancestor bacterium, clever little bug, produced a poisonous oxygen species that changed the course of evolution and selected for those bacteria who could cope with this newly abundant molecule in the atmosphere via aerobic respiration...and wouldn't it be funny if we actually made that next bacterium...? Maybe some life will emerge that can cope with a high octane atmosphere...but it's not us!
Not really. The end of genetic diversity spells the end of environmental adaptability. That's not a good thing. If we were all exactly identical, what you might call "the fittest," only random mutation could help us adapt to a changing environment and we would thus be the most vulverable to extinction. Inbreeding can cause serious problems in a population (Haven't you seen that TNG episode with the clones that try to steal Riker and Polaski's DNA to increase their diversity?) Also, to say that there is one "fittest" genetic blend on the planet is absurd because we all live in such varied environments. I think the news is more: "oh no! our genetic diversity is waning!" as opposed to some dubious claim of having found the ideal genetic human simply because it's the most common. I just don't think that's the right way to think about it.