Synthetic Biology & Exponential Technologies - Prof. George Church

George Church is professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, director of the Personal Genome Project, and co-author (with Ed Regis) of Regenesis. Recorded: February 14th, 2018

[rhyothemisprinceps]

I'm so glad to hear George Church is working on carbon sequestration. A few years ago I came to the conclusion that engineering the oceanic plankton was the most practical approach to addressing climate change at this point in history. In addition to making phytoplankton that are resistant to microbial degradation in open water or sediment (they need to remain digestible by zooplankton) there is also the possibility of increasing primary productivity by using vertically migrating zooplankton (copepods, krill) to transport nutrients up through the water column; zooplankton could also be used to increase carbon deposition at lower depths - perhaps by timing the molt cycle (chitin is mostly carbon).

Controlling the albedo of the ocean's surface via engineered phytoplankton is another approach that might be explored. Of course, appropriate control systems would have to be developed. Coccolithophore blooms have been known to visibly whiten the ocean's surface; unfortunately they are especially sensitive to ocean acidification due to having calcium carbonate exoskeletons.

[TheGrandDurian]

Dear Artificial Intelligence Channel, please indicate the date of video tapings. It is frustrating to not know when a video originated. Sometimes you upload videos that are much older than the upload dates. Thank you.

[sabofx]

That was a *fucking interesting talk* !
I appreciate George's spin of taking on climate change more as an opportunity rather than the world's largest blame storm session. But tinkering with the DNA of one of the most abundant basic lifeforms sounds like the plot of a disaster story/movie. On the other hand, I have not seen (m)any alternative suggestions that rival the effectiveness of actively reversing the amount of CO2. The two main concerns that come to mind are:
1) if/how could this mutation affect nature's food chain?
2) Can we stop the mutant bacteria from consuming all of the CO2? Some of which most crops depend on to grow. Would it even be possible to equip the bacteria with a kill switch that could not evolve out of future generations?
But all in all: Good talk! Please post more like these if available.
In depth interviews might not appeal to everyone. Perhaps it's an idea to put these kinds of talks on a separate channel.

[GoldieTamamo]

My least and most favorite scientific topics, global warming, and bioengineering, strung back to back.

I don't know how to feel.

[trosati]

Engineered bacteria has so much potential. Investors should be throwing money at George Church!

[oker]

George Church is my new hero. I've heard of him, but not read or seen anything from him till now. George, here, talks about denialism and rationalizing away. These are more examples of the fear, and evasive language I've been finding. I post the links below,

[ShaneKimbley]

Excellent discussion, very insightful.

[valhala]

I agree with this guy, I do not try to argue with deniers on whose at fault. Some deniers blame it on the sun, ok fine we still have the problem of heating.

[AD-llhy]

1:50
What does he mean by Neo-Darwinism?
how is it different than old Darwinism?

[InfiniteCyclus]

Making cyanobacteria phage resistant seems to me to be a little bit reckless.

We need to design a artificial thermostat for the planet of which we have total control.

Or create an artificial buffer for CO2. So that the concentration stays between certain values.

[roddycurrywood]

When you speak of carbon in the arctic tundra ‘going up’, what mechanism causes this to happen?

[treemanzoneskullyajan]

Is it worth investing £200 in crispr if it not too late I would invest a few hundred pounds on a quarterly basis or are the shares sky high?

[bennguyen]

Regarding the 20m mark, are there any potential downsides of modifying the cyanobacteria to become bacteriophage resistant? Also, climate change being catastrophic to humans, reminds me of when Russ Roberts talks about the deficit... it's not a problem, until it is, and there's no way of knowing when (see his talk with Tyler Cowen 22m)

Regarding the 40m mark, how a computer needs to use 100kw of energy to beat a grand-master in chess running a 20w brain +80w for the body, does the same apply for quantum computers?

BTW, George Church's interview on the a16z podcast is also worth a listen!

[isnt]

What happens if cyanobacteria start multiplying uncontrollably?

[theobserver]

Phage resistant bacteria. What could go wrong?

[Drcraigpl]

When you look at the Earth via satellite images the Earth continues to get greener with vegetation over the past 40 years. The Earth is very resistant to Co2 levels. The higher the levels the faster vegetation grows, soaking up the Co2.

[electrodacus]

43:44 Biotechnology is going fast because of advances in computational power.

[mookins]

'DIAMONDS FROM THE SKY CARBON CAPTURE' on youtube

[naimulhaq]

Your concerns are valuable and interesting. But professor, your concerns are falling on deaf ears, as long as we have leaders and greedy businessmen like Trump.
I don't like to talk politics, but what we need is united experts/scientists' cooperation and action.

[thinkfloyd]

If he's talking about global warming and not the subject we clicked on, put it in the fucking title.