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Reporting on “The Rise of Life on Earth,” Richard Monastersky met scientists “attempting to create life in their laboratories. By manipulating RNA—part of the genetic code of all organisms—they are striving to fashion molecules that can reproduce themselves and evolve into new strands of RNA.” If they succeed, says Monastersky, “We will have created a new life-form unlike anything else inhabiting Earth today.” What is the potential outcome of creating a new type of living entity in a laboratory? How far will we take the technology?
Read his thought-provoking essay “Replaying Creation,” then
join our forum to offer your own opinions on these “unsettling questions.”
The title collage is made from an image by O. Louis Mazzatenta.
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