Suddenly, we can know the world completely. Next, we reprogram it
Posted 10.31.2011 at 10:00 am
22 Comments
Grab That Data: Jesse Lenz
So this is the paradigm shift whose fruits I witnessed in presentation after presentation at TED: a shift from a world of data sampling and extrapolation to one in which all data in a given realm can be collected and analyzed. That is Big Data.
AND BIG DATA is about to get much, much bigger, as we enter an era in which digital data merges with biology. This synthesis of codes takes the abstract world of digits and brings it back into the physical world. We of course know quite a bit about how life is expressed—in the four letters of DNA, in more than 20 amino acids, in thousands of proteins. We can copy life through cloning. Now we are beginning to be able to rewrite life, not just gene by gene, but entire genomes at a time. This is the difference between inserting a single word or paragraph into a Tolstoy novel (which is what biotechnology does) and writing the entire book from scratch (which is what synthetic biology does). It is far easier to fundamentally change the meaning and outcome of a novel, seed, animal or human organ if you write the entire thing.
No matter how you create or program a computer, you will not come downstairs the next morning to find a thousand new computers. Life code is different.We’ve come a long way, very quickly, to reach this point. A decade ago, simply reading the entire life code of a single organism was a breakthrough achievement in processing enormous dollops of data. In 1999, gene sequencers could read only a few hundred base pairs of DNA at a time, so Craig Venter’s human genome project relied on shotgun sequencing: Copy portions of a genome over and over again. Break them into random pieces. Feed these into a gene sequencer. Read the output and then use a computer to compare every sequence with every other sequence, looking for overlaps. When you find an overlap, begin to build up the whole of the genome, much as one builds a brick wall, overlaying brick by brick. A nifty trick, but one that most people until then had thought to be impossible because of the staggering computations involved. Yet Venter and his team built one of the most powerful private computers in the world (in the process becoming one of the largest users of electricity in Maryland) and solved the problem. Theirs is now the standard approach to reading genomes.
But sequencing the genome was a trivial computational exercise compared with the modeling of protein-protein interactions that is being attempted today. To begin with, you have to compare 20 amino acids, instead of four DNA base pairs. And because proteins can take so many more shapes than a strand of DNA, mapping the shape of their every combination is vastly more complex. Today’s computers are barely able to deal with a few of these variables. In spite of the achievements that Moore’s Law has wrought, life-sciences data is exceeding the scope and power of all current computer capabilities and storage.
In other words, in this new era—the transition from digital code to digital-plus-life code—the capacity to generate data exceeds our capacity to store and process it. In fact, life code is accumulating at a rate 50 percent faster than Moore’s Law; it at least doubles every 12 months. Without extraordinary advances in data storage, transmission and analysis, within the next five years we may simply be unable to keep up.
Then again, there’s good reason to expect that we’ll achieve the necessary technology breakthroughs. Because there is one other, absolutely fundamental change going on in the world of Big Data. When you marry life code and digital code, the emerging applications differ from the merely digital in one revolutionary way: This software builds its own hardware. No matter how you create or program a computer, you will not come downstairs the next morning to find a thousand new computers. Life code is different. In 2008, three scientists—Venter, Hamilton Smith and John Glass—and their colleagues took a basic gene sequence from a computer, programmed robots to pick the four chemicals that make up DNA from jars, and assembled the world’s largest organic molecule. They then developed techniques to insert this new molecule into a cell. Bottom line, they programmed a cell to become a different species. Some called it the world’s first synthetic life-form. It is really the first fully programmable life-form. And it reproduces.
Programmable cell platforms are like computer chips. They could eventually be designed to help create or do anything, if you figure out the right code for what you wish to make. I’m a cofounder and investor in a Venter spinout company, Synthetic Genomics, that’s attempting to program algae to generate gasoline (with Exxon), extract gas from coal (with BP), rapid-
prototype vaccines (with Novartis), and breed faster-growing plants (with Plenus). Life programming may also solve the problem of how to store gargantuan data sets. All digital data can be coded into life-forms, and all life-forms can be coded as digital data. In theory, this means you could eventually store, and copy, all the words and images from every issue of the New York Times in the gene code of a few bacteria.
I was blown away by the Big Data parade at TED 2011. But a new era of digital life code promises to dwarf today’s most glorious data achievements.
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I love the idea of creating synthetic life because it removes the silly idea of beings having souls.
For humanities ever quest to acquire more knowledge, the macro and micro acquisition of information greatly exceeds our capacity to store as a pack rat society our thirst for more knowledge. We have to decide in storing information what is most important as we also invent more ways of storing this information and processing it.
It like being at a sandy beach and deciding each grain of sand is important and unique and so each single grain of sand needs to be stored and all that is information known about it needs to be stored and understood, coupled with there being too much sand to store all that information, so then we much pick and choose what is important as well as invent new ways of storing this information.
Well in science we can count numbers for the sake of counting numbers or we humanity can choose to see each other in life. Some people may choose to count numbers. Others will decide to focus on relationships. I know not want to spend my life counting and understanding pieces of sand. I choose to focus on the people closest to me now and focus on these relationships.
this is amazing yet terrifying. gather the right genetic anomalies and merge the dna into one being that is faster stronger smarter...we could self evolve the human race
So if I'm reading this correctly, technology has the ability to become omnipotent? With our help of course.
Where is your God now?
yep. we are now witnessing a first. a species that no longer needs so called "evolution" to adapt and survive to it surroundings. we are at a stage where we choose how we "evolve". our intelligence is the final step of evolution. now we choose what we make to make at will. no longer having to wait for mother nature to takes its course. survival of the finest is irrelevant now(as if it ever was). brains can easily dominate brawn's with the push of a button.
_________________
The people of the world only divide into two kinds, One sort with brains who hold no religion, The other with religion and no brain.
- Abu-al-Ala al-Marri
@NoConsequenc3 God weeps for you and all his children who have rejected true reason and now worship yourselves through pride. It is tragic.
@SolomonSinclair
Which God? You realize there are like, 100's right? Or are YOU being prideful in suggesting that your beliefs are greater?
I read the bible and I have to say, looking past all the incomprehensible non-sense, your people, teachings, and "God", are all very pride centered. Take your myths somewhere else, my comment was a figure of speech anyways.
I pity you and all your fellow theists who have rejected true reason and now worship fairies through pride and ignorance. It is tragic.
@NoConsequenc3 There is only one God, he created you, he loves you, and one day you'll understand that your life has greater meaning than random chance. Religion has very little to do with this. God bless you friend, have a safe evening.
AWWWWW YEAH!! let the flame war begin..
our data capacities are no where close to full.
two or three years ago (i think it was sony, but it couldve been panasonic, i dont remember exactly who) made a blueray disc that could store over 1tb of data.
now we just have to wait for the damn market to catch up. the average consumer is being milked like a cow. especially by apple. pay double the price for double the memory? PUhhLEEEZ
if you truely need the storage it's available to you, the market is only slugging because companies (like apple) like to only make small incremental upgrades to their products while charging more, even though production costs are going down.
i mean look at ipads, they can only store 64gb in those giant things WITHOUT ANY EXPANSION available? an SD card can hold 64gb these days, they could easily fit 10 of those in the giant ipads.
my point is the statement "Without extraordinary advances in data storage, transmission and analysis, within the next five years we may simply be unable to keep up." is downright wrong.
We all die and until they remove this I am not sold on human knowledge as the ultimate value.
This summer my mother died. I was lucky enough to leave my job and spend a couple of weeks with my mother prior to her death. These moments and all the moments my mother gave me, I value forever! My father, my brother and sister, everyone possible that knew my mother kept visiting. We constantly shared love and stayed positive and laughed, remembered, told stories, gave my mother all the positive love we could find and adore her. Caring about someone and being cared for is the absolute most important thing in life.
@NoConsequenc3 & funniestCartoonCo
well all religions are alike in many ways so you can say they aren't the same but when compared the are almost identical. Each religion is ones own interpretation of another then becomes its own. And I greatly believe that living thing do have souls and that there are many scientists out there that are studding it and have actually come to find that when you die you release an energy/gas from your body that is held by micro like fibers through out your body. It doesn't matter if we make life or not the soul that inhabited it is not created by us. If you say that you don't believe I respect that but hope that when science unmistakably proves that we have souls and move on that you may think again.
@Grunt
LIKE^BUTTON
@SolomonSinclair
LIKE^BUTTON
@GeeWillikers
LIKE^BUTTON
Survival of the fittest has always been around and always will. It is just returning to its original environment, economics.
@SolomonSinclair
You're right, this has nothing to do with fairy tales from thousands of years ago, so take your dogma and leave.
@Eric18
If you can link me to the sites you are getting your information from regarding scientists looking and finding "evidence" of souls I'd love to read that.
Regarding religions however, the first known religion was the Mesopotamian Gods, then the Egyptian, then a whole slew of others. Judaism is just one of the MANY myths that mankind thought up to explain their origins. There is no soul, there is no God, there is no afterlife. Open your mind to logic.
jesus fucking christ u ppl are annoying.
please raise ur hand if u can PROVE there is a god.
please raise ur hand if u can PROVE there is not a god.
none of u can prove anything one way or the other. til then its what u believe.
*my belief, god is the origin of all things. origin of energy and matter. origin of the laws that govern our universe. i believe we have souls much the same as every religion on earth does. im a scientist and a spiritual person. science is the search for HOW things happen. religion is the search for WHY things happen. one will never disprove the other because they coexist to shape society as a whole. my religion is a personal choice. i am neither ignorant nor stupid. i went to a christian university that taught evolution and creationist views equally and let the students decide what to believe for themselves.
seriously this argument is old outdated and annoying.
@beefymclovin
You're a scientist and yet you discard the scientific method to believe in fairies. Cool story, bro
So life IS designable! Does it come out fully formed, or does it descent with modification? Who is doing this designing random chance?
lol, some pretty silly comments in here...
If you ask me, as long as the data is organized so that we can retrieve it in a timely manner, there is no such thing as too much data. I honestly think there isnt enough data on things average people should know about.
For example, why isn't all the information that one would learn in college available online? I honestly prefer to self-teach, with the addition of very few select individuals input which are seldom actual teachers themselves. After I learn everything I need/want to know, why cant I challenge all exams officially in person at a goverment run facility and get certified? what's the difference? anyway, thats getting a bit off topic but... yea, as long as information is accessable and not distorted, there can never be too much, and there is no subject that isnt important.
I should add, that I honestly get bored even with all the data out there, internet, libraries, access to campus databases, I honestly have read absolutely everything on subjects im interested in, and I still get bored. I actually recieve every update on those matters live on my twitter, its practivally on the bleeding edge, and still I honestly want WAY more, and I work full time too, its not like I have too much time on my hands... just saying... More info faster please lol... honestly 10x as much data per day would maybe keep me sated.