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FutureProofing

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Series examining the big ideas that are set to transform the way society functions

Series examining the implications - social and cultural, economic and political - of the big ideas that are set to transform the way society functions

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FutureProofing: Life

Life

12/08/2015

BBC Radio 4 - FutureProofing, Life

Will biotechnology transform how we understand and control life itself?

Timandra Harkness and Leo Johnson examine why emerging biotechnology will transform how we understand and control life itself.

FutureProofing is a new series in which presenters Timandra Harkness and Leo Johnson examine the implications - social and cultural, economic and political - of the big ideas that are set to transform the way our society functions. 

Episode 1: Life.

FutureProofing explores why emerging bio-technology will transform how we understand and control life itself. 

Timandra and Leo discuss the consequences for humankind with leading genetic scientists and designers - people who are now able to create and manipulate the very building blocks of life. 

The programme examines the results of inventing and editing life forms; how easy it is to become a bio-hacker; why the FBI has decided to adopt a strangely relaxed attitude towards such potentially catastrophic experimentation; and how a new understanding of biology as a software engineering system that we can design has profound consequences for the way we think about Life in future. 

Producer: Jonathan Brunert.

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