BEST OF 2020
t G R O W D I G I TA L | T H E L O N E L I E S T C R E AT U R E I N T H E W O R L D
in recent history is drawing to a close and we can barely conceal our relief. We spent 2020 — a year where work often felt somewhere between difficult and impossible — building up our digital platform and publishing our second print issue. In June, we launched growbyginkgo.com and have since been publishing long-form stories about biology and its muddy intersections with culture and politics.
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he s tr a nge s t y e a r
Our magazine has grown with every new story we’ve published. For readers who recently joined us, and others who may have missed something, we have put together this e-book. It contains our five favorite digital stories of 2020. Here they are, in no particular order. We hope that you like them as much as we do and that you will keep following our evolution in the new year. As always, thanks for reading, the editors
Christina Agapakis, Grace Chuang, Leon Dische Becker, and Nadja Oertelt
contents
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The Loneliest Creature in the World br it t w r ay
24
14
Beyond Smart Rocks cl a i r e l . e va ns
Anatomy of an Underground Wildfire k a it l i n su l l i va n
The Food of Exiles su deep ag a rwa l a
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Is DNA Hardware or Software? ch r ist i na ag a pa k is
futures
JUNE
23, 2020
The Loneliest Creature in the World Meet Greta, the first mammoth-elephant hybrid. by br it t w r ay i l l u s t r at i o n
by lian cho
g
r e ta i s photo gr a phe d
hundreds of times before she can
fully open her eyes. This fact eludes her, of course. All she can make out through the walls of her tank are the fluttering
white suits of her creators.
The room is bright and her bath is warm. A clamp
feels disoriented and confused. She is longing for
slides over her sides. She squeals as it hoists her
something, but she doesn’t know what.
up, her trunk and feet gliding along the plastic walls. The temperature drops as she is pulled
They finally walk her out of the lab, down a long
through a narrow rubbery slit. Adjusting well to
bright hall, but then she hears the echo of the
the cold air, she suddenly feels alien hands patting
crowd, the squeak of the microphone. She shuts
her down. A grinning being approaches her,
her eyes and curls into a ball. The cameras flash
white fluff all around its face. Is this her mother?
and snap at her. Greta tries to tear away, but realizes
Instinctively, she reaches out with her trunk,
that she is bound by invisible leashes. She trembles
but recoils upon feeling its starchy lab coat. Greta
fiercely and trumpets wildly, a temper tantrum
broadcast all over the planet. Where are her
is a comfortable temperature, and though she’s
parents? Who are these grinning beings all dressed
still confused and afraid, at least her brothers and
in white? What are they planning to do to her?
sisters feel the same. Unaware of the human hopes on their shoulders, they trample around all
Everything goes blurry. Weeks pass with every
day in the snow, looking for blades of grass to eat.
G R O W D I G I TA L | T H E L O N E L I E S T C R E AT U R E I N T H E W O R L D
slow blink. Her captors introduce her to other
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animals that look similar to her, albeit without
Does Greta have any idea who she is? Does she
all the fur. Unfortunately, her elephant cousins
feel any connection with her distant ancestors,
gather that there’s something strange about
the woolly mammoths, who roamed the same
Greta. They snort at her and keep their distance.
steppe more than 12,000 years ago?
Her first pleasant memory will be her little
Greta’s Parents
brother’s arrival in her pen. Bill (named after
The scientific project that may make our
another climate advocate) is hairy, too, misshapen
hypothetical friend Greta a reality is currently
in a different way. Soon, the two of them are
underway at Harvard University, supervised by
joined by more and more lost souls of their kind.
renowned inventor of genetic technologies George
A few months later, this listless gang, who the
Church. His team’s goal is not to bring woolly
white coats affectionately nickname their “climate
mammoths back to life, per se, but to engineer
marchers,” are moved to a big outdoor pasture
mammoth–elephant hybrids. To that end, they
in Siberia called Pleistocene Park. Here, anxious
have taken Asian elephant cells and edited woolly
Greta enjoys her first spell of relative stability. It
mammoth DNA sequences into them using the
gene-editing tool known as CRISPR. These are
productivity of the woolly mammoth’s former
the first steps to making an elephant with thicker
ecosystem, they say, needs to be revived to stave
hair, fattier insulating skin, smaller ears that allow
off a climate catastrophe far worse than the one
less heat to escape, and the ability to bind and
we already face.
release oxygen in blood at freezing temperatures. The woolly mammoth and Asian elephant are believed to have about 1.4 million specific genetic G R O W D I G I TA L | T H E L O N E L I E S T C R E AT U R E I N T H E W O R L D
differences between them. That might sound
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like a lot, but when the entire genome is made up of several billion bases, it’s mere pocket change. Editing important differences away may yield a cold-tolerant elephant, expanding the range of where today’s elephants can live. In this sense, it’s a high-tech approach to elephant conservation. But why create a Greta when they could just do a better job at helping today’s elephants thrive in the wild? Greta, too, may wonder about the point of it all. Her creators say their dream is to resurrect, not a species, but an entire ecosystem. And the
The Lost World
Grasses dominated the land thanks to the animals’
Walking in the footsteps of her ancestors — whose
constant grazing, while most of the trees and
population crashed over 12,900 years ago, but who
shrubs were trampled under their hooves and feet.
continued to survive on certain islands until 3700
But as the climate changed and the number of
years ago — Greta’s trunk rifles through decompos-
human hunters increased, the megafauna started
ing plants, looking for a blade of grass to eat on
to disappear, as well as the productive ecosystem
a cold winter day. Her hairy foot punches through
they maintained.
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a crusty top layer of snow. Her hip bows out to
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the side with a forceful thrust, toppling over a tree
There are currently about 1500 billion tons of
stump. A mountain of shit rains down to the ground,
carbon trapped in permafrost in the mammoth
where grasses will soon grow. Whether she knows
steppe, which is twice as much as what is currently
it or not, Greta is a geo-engineer with an urgent task.
in the atmosphere. The carbon from plants and animals that died thousands of years ago is not
The mammoth steppe ecosystem dominated the
dangerous in itself, but its decomposition would
Arctic in the late Pleistocene and spanned Europe,
be. When carbon-rich organics are exposed to
northern Asia, and northern North America. It’s
the elements, bacteria chew away at the stuff,
been estimated that there were once one mam-
producing either carbon dioxide or methane, two
moth, five bison, six horses, and ten reindeer for
greenhouse gases. Released into the atmosphere,
each square kilometer in some parts of the steppe,
they accelerate global warming, which is why
with an extra smattering of muskox, elk, woolly
thawing permafrost is increasingly talked about
rhinos, saiga antelope, snow sheep, and moose.
as a ticking time bomb.
That’s where Greta comes in. Russian scientist
into the ground. Woolly mammoths oversaw a
Sergey Zimov, who runs Pleistocene Park, believes
ventilation system, according to this theory.
that the best way to keep the carbon locked up
The air circulation they caused with their heavy
in the permafrost is to restore the ecosystem that
footsteps kept things cool; the stumps and
thrived there during the Pleistocene. At that time,
plants they’d destroy reduced the amount of
the area was covered with rich grasses, which
heat-absorption from dark vegetation; and the
reflected light from the sun. As the large animals
lighter grasses they’d fertilize with their dung
grazed all day, they trampled other, darker
would reflect the sun’s rays.
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light-absorbing plants and carved holes in the
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snow with the force of their feet.
That’s why George Church and his team at Harvard want to create a herd of 80,000 Gretas,
The three-foot layer of snow that lays on the
and send them to Siberia.
ground of the mammoth steppe today for much of the year might be seen as an insulation
The Trouble with Elephants
blanket. It keeps what’s beneath warmer than
Their work is well underway, but the outcome
what’s on top. If the outside temperature is -40
is still speculative. As Bobby Dhadwar, a former
degrees Celsius, then it might only be -5 or -10
post-doc in the Church Lab who did a lot of
Celsius under the snowy layer. But when millions
the initial gene-editing work, says, “When people
of feet are punching holes in the snow, as they
hear about it, I think they get confused on the
once did during the Pleistocene, that insulating
timescale. It’s not like we are anywhere close to
blanket is perforated and cold air is pumped
giving birth to a woolly mammoth.”
One hurdle they must overcome is how they’re
With artificial insemination tools, researchers
going to source eggs from Asian elephants.
have been able to get sperm through that tiny
Female elephants ovulate every sixteen weeks,
opening, but to actually get an egg out, they must
although they can also skip years of ovulation
navigate an enormous depth on the other side
during pregnancy and lactation. In most animals,
until they locate the egg-producing follicle — too
it is possible to use an ultrasound to locate the
deep for an ultrasound to visualize by itself.
follicle where the egg is developing, and harvest
Laparoscopic surgery, in which operations are
it from their ovaries.
performed through small keyhole incisions,
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can help when the follicle is so hard to reach.
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But that’s not so easy with elephants. Turns
The process typically requires that the animal’s
out, it’s notoriously hard to navigate an elephant’s
abdomen is inflated to allow for better visuali
vaginal opening. Females have more than a
zation of the internal structures. But inflating
few feet of canal, called a vestibule, between
the abdomen of an elephant could kill it, since
their vulva, where any instrument would enter,
elephants lack a pleural cavity (the space between
and their hymen. Another problem is that the
the squishy membranes that surround the lungs
elephant hymen remains intact even after it has
and line the inner chest), which makes inflation
intercourse. Though it ruptures when a female
harmless in other animals. The elephants’ chest
gives birth, it grows back after each pregnancy.
cavity could easily become overcompressed. As a
Sperm can reach the egg only by passing through
result, researchers are hoping for a breakthrough
a tiny aperture in the membrane.
in embryogenesis — the creation of embryos — to make this work.
The technical complexity doesn’t stop there. If
develop. Elephants are having a hard enough
they one day manage to insert all of the desired
time reproducing in the wild as it is, so Church’s
mammoth DNA into a fertilized elephant egg
team has tentatively rejected the idea of using
cell, they will then have to put it somewhere it can
real elephants as surrogates.
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But this isn’t really about her, anyway.
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Instead, they are working towards using artificial wombs. Ectogenesis, a term coined by British biologist J.B.S. Haldane in 1924, refers to the growth of an organism in some sort of vessel outside of the body. In the 1990s, Japanese researchers came up with a technique called extrauterine fetal incubation. They connected catheters to large blood vessels in goat umbilical cords, and fed oxygenated blood to the fetuses as they grew in tanks of amniotic fluid, which were heated to a goat mother’s normal body temperature. Getting all the technical components of mammoth de-extinction right will take years, if not decades.
Growing Up in a Vacuum
have a social species living all by itself, which
Let’s say they eventually succeed in putting an
makes for a really sad existence. Some zoos are
edited elephant embryo into a surrogate Asian
no longer keeping elephants at all, particularly
elephant mother or artificial womb. If all goes
solitary ones or those in small groups, because
well, it will develop and be delivered into
of the psychological stress it causes them. If
this world, just like Greta, as a healthy elephant
we do succeed in creating a Greta, she may be
calf with woolly mammoth traits. How is that
a very anxious woolly elephant. But this isn’t
creature going to learn to act like a mammoth,
really about her, anyway.
G R O W D I G I TA L | T H E L O N E L I E S T C R E AT U R E I N T H E W O R L D
when there are no mammoths left to learn from?
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The names given to blockbuster lab-animals It’s possible that at first scientists might create
reveal something about the scientists who make
something that doesn’t look much like either a
them. Dolly the sheep, for instance, got her
mammoth or an elephant, but something in-
name because the nucleus used to clone her came
between. Will a surrogate Asian elephant mother
from a yew’s udder. The scientists who cloned
accept a pseudo-mammoth calf with an odd-
her thought it was funny that udders are kind of
looking haircut into its herd? Proboscideans, the
like breasts, so they named her after Dolly Parton.
order to which mammoths and elephants belong,
Greta’s creators — we can only hope — won’t be so
have complex social structures, with matriarchal
boyishly immature.
societies. Knowledge about how to survive in the wild is passed from mothers and aunts to babies.
This leads inevitably to a photo op: elephant-
If the pseudo-mammoth is rejected, then you
mammoth Greta, the unwitting bio-engineer,
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peering into the eyes of her namesake, the wise,
around the world. And still, it is cool to see
elderly climate activist. An awkward moment
what weird tricks we can perform when we put
for both of them, at first: Greta, the mammoth,
our mind to it. And for a moment, at least in
doesn’t care about names, and wonders who this
the picture that goes around the world, the two
new person is. Greta, the person, has her doubts
of them do seem to have a connection of some
whether bringing back the woolly mammoth
kind. Hope is a long-shot investment that doesn’t
is a wise investment given all the suffering
always pay off as intended.
author
i l lu s t r at o r
Britt Wray is a broadcaster, storyteller, and
Lian Cho is a children’s book illustrator based
author of Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science,
out of Brooklyn. Her work features a mix
Ethics and Risks of De-Extinction.
of various mediums and she enjoys creating charismatic characters in colorful compositions.
futures
J U LY
15, 2020
Beyond Smart Rocks It’s time to reimagine what a computer could be. by cl a i r e l . e va ns i l l u s t r at i o n
by k aren in g r am
i
n mom e n t s of
technological frustration, it helps to remember that a
computer is basically a rock. That is its fundamental witchcraft, or ours: for all its processing power, the device that runs your life is just
a complex arrangement of minerals animated by electricity and language. Smart rocks. The components are mined from the Earth at great cost, and they eventually return to the Earth, however poisoned. This rock-
G R O W D I G I TA L | B E YO N D S M A R T R O C K S
and-metal paradigm has mostly served us well. The miniaturization of
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metallic components onto wafers of silicon — an empirical trend we call Moore’s Law — has defined the last half-century of life on Earth, giving us wristwatch computers, pocket-sized satellites and enough raw computational power to model the climate, discover unknown molecules, and emulate human learning.
G R O W D I G I TA L | B E YO N D S M A R T R O C K S 16
But there are limits to what a rock can do.
Starting from Slime
Computer scientists have been predicting the
It’s tempting to believe that computing paradigms
end of Moore’s Law for decades. The cost of
are set in stone, so to speak. But there are
fabricating next-generation chips is growing more
already alternatives on the horizon. Quantum
prohibitive the closer we draw to the physical
computing, for one, would shift us from a
limits of miniaturization. And there are only so
realm of binary ones and zeroes to one of qubits,
many rocks left. Demand for the high-purity
making computers drastically faster than we
silica sand used to manufacture silicon chips is
can currently imagine, and the impossible — like
so high that we’re facing a global, and irreversible,
unbreakable cryptography — newly possible.
sand shortage; and the supply chain for
Still further off are computer architectures rebuilt
commonly-used minerals, like tin, tungsten,
around a novel electronic component called a
tantalum, and gold, fuels bloody conflicts all over
memristor. Speculatively proposed by the physicist
the world. If we expect 21st century computers
Leon Chua in 1971, first proven to exist in 2008,
to process the ever-growing amounts of data our
a memristor is a resistor with memory, which
culture produces — and we expect them to do
makes it capable of retaining data without power.
so sustainably — we will need to reimagine how
A computer built around memristors could
computers are built. We may even need to
turn off and on like a light switch. It wouldn’t
reimagine what a computer is to begin with.
require the conductive layer of silicon necessary for traditional resistors. This would open computing to new substrates — the possibility, even, of integrating computers into atomically
thin nano-materials. But these are architectural
fungal animal. That a slime mold could act as
changes, not material ones.
a living memristor — regulating the flow of electricity through a circuit and “remembering”
For material changes, we must look farther afield,
electrical charges — is remarkable, but it’s not
to an organism that occurs naturally only in the
unique in the natural kingdom. Scientists have
most fleeting of places. We need to glimpse into
observed these behaviors in the sweat ducts of
the loamy rot of a felled tree in the woods of the
human skin, in flowing blood, and in leaves. A
Pacific Northwest, or examine the glistening
2017 study concluded that, most likely, “all living
walls of a damp cave. That’s where we may just
and unmodified plants are ‘memristors,’” proof
find the answer to computing’s intractable rock
that Mother Nature anticipates even our cleverest
problem: down there, among the slime molds.
speculations. She may even dictate our the
G R O W D I G I TA L | B E YO N D S M A R T R O C K S
next computational frontier, after quantum and
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Slime molds are way ahead of our computational
memristive computers have arrived and gone.
speculations. Take memristors: in 2014, a group of researchers at the University of West England
Biological systems not only anticipate, but excel
discovered memristive behaviors in the many-
at certain thorny computational tasks. In
headed Physarum polycephalum, a primitive but
one experiment, researchers released a Physarum
compellingly intelligent slime mold. Slime molds
polycephalum slime mold on a topographical
aren’t fungi, nor are they animals; at different
relief map of the United States. They placed it on
points in history, they’ve been classified both
the West Coast, on the Oregon coastal town
ways, earning them the latin name Mycetozoa, or
of Newport, and placed a pile of oat flakes — the
slime mold’s favorite food — at the other end of
of limited learning, making it a leading candidate
the country, in Boston, Massachusetts. The mold
for a new kind of biological computer system —
shot out protoplasmic tubes, searching for an
one that isn’t mined, but grown. This proposition
efficient path towards the oat flakes it sensed via
has entranced researchers worldwide and
airborne chemicals. After five days, the mold
attracted investment at the government level. An
reached Boston, cutting across the country while
EU-funded research group, PhyChip, hopes to
avoiding mountainous terrain. You may recognize
build a hybrid computer chip from Physarum, by
its path if you’ve ever road-tripped from
shellacking its protoplasmic tubes in conductive
Oregon to New England: the slime mold charted
particles. Such a “functional biomorphic com-
Route 20, the longest road in the US.
puting device” would be sustainable, self-healing and self-correcting. It would also be, by some
G R O W D I G I TA L | B E YO N D S M A R T R O C K S
Physarum polycephalum is an expert at such tasks.
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definition, alive.
Its sensing, searching protoplasmic tubes can solve mazes, design efficient networks, and easily
This unorthodox hybrid of computer science,
find the shortest path between points on a map.
physics, mathematics, chemistry, electronic
In a range of experiments, it has modeled the
engineering, biology, material science and nano-
roadways of ancient Rome, traced a perfect copy
technology is called Unconventional Computing.
of Japan’s interconnected rail networks, and
Professor Andrew Adamatzky, the founder of
smashed the Traveling Salesman Problem, an
the Unconventional Computing Laboratory at
exponentially complex math problem. It has no
the University of the West of England, explains
central nervous system, but Physarum is capable
its ethos: “to uncover and exploit principles and
mechanisms of information processing in…
Professor Adamatzky proposes that we will
physical, chemical and living systems” in order to
someday be “close partners” with slime mold,
“develop efficient algorithms, design optimal
harnessing its behavior to grow electronic circuits,
architectures and manufacture working proto-
solve complex problems, and better understand
types of future and emergent computing devices.”
mechanics of natural information processing.
In short, Unconventional Computer scientists
Over the last decade, his lab has produced nearly
build computers not from rocks and sand but
40 prototypes of sensing and computing devices
from the nutrient-seeking protoplasma of slime
using Physarum polycephalum. He has recently
molds, among other natural materials.
shifted his interests to more widely available fungus, finding that fungal mycelium — the
G R O W D I G I TA L | B E YO N D S M A R T R O C K S
complex, branching filaments that spread below
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If you’re looking for a computer — even if you’re looking under a rock — a computer is what you’ll find.
ground before sprouting up the fruiting bodies we know as mushrooms — can solve the same kinds of computational geometry problems as slime mold. The Unconventional Computing Lab recently received funding to develop “computing houses” out of mycelium, “functionalizing” the fungal matter to react to changes in light, temperature and pollution. Adamatzky’s view is expansive. “Everything around us will be a computer and interface results of the computation to us.”
We are left to imagine computer chips bristling
A Very Different Kind of UX
with energy and life, laced with the unusual
Switching from silicon to slime is a transformative
branching filaments of protoplasmic tubes,
idea. For me, the very question feels radically
and monolithic buildings, grown in-situ
hopeful: might building computers from slime
by computationally-active mycelial networks,
molds and mushrooms transform computing
adapting, searching, self-repairing, sensing
from a sophisticated solipsism into a far more
G R O W D I G I TA L | B E YO N D S M A R T R O C K S
“all what human can sense.” One science fiction
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sophisticated expression of our awe-inspiringly
story published in this magazine gives us a
complex, interconnected world? Certainly it
utopian (and later a dystopian) vision of such
would change our whole relational experience of
a future: “Everything we touched was alive.
computing. It might also be more sustainable,
Each morning I woke up in a bed made of
as biological computer systems would consume
mushroom, covered in sheets of fresh spider silk.
far less energy than traditional hardware and,
The limbs of our home opened with sunrise….
at the end of life, be completely biodegradable.
Instead of a cell phone, I gazed at a beautiful
“We can shut down our PC completely,” Adamatzky
organic ecosystem with fluorescent proteins
explains, “but we will never shut down a living
arranged to display the news. My teeth stayed
fungi or a slime mould without killing it.” Forget
clean naturally, a self-balancing ecosystem
planned obsolescence.
consuming the excess sugar from my diet. Everything, absolutely everything, was alive.”
The research folders on my very rock-based computer are crammed with papers on plant leaf computing; computing driven by the billiard
ball-like collisions of droplets and marbles; the
so reality itself takes on the appearance of a
problem-solving algorithms of lettuce seedlings;
computer; and our modes of thought follow suit.”
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computing systems built around the behavior
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of blue soldier crabs, rushing between shade and
Training Artificial Intelligence models on large
sunshine on a beach. The sheer multiplicity
datasets, for example, we often make the erro
of approaches is enough to make you think that
neous assumption that our future progresses
computing is not so much an industry as a way
as some predictable extrapolation of our past,
of seeing — an interpretation of the world. “If we
without taking into account the many external
are inventive enough, we can interpret any process
factors that determine how humans behave,
as a computation,” Adamatzky says. If you’re
react, and make choices. In the process, we
looking for a computer — even if you’re looking
reproduce and codify historical biases, obliter
under a rock — a computer is what you’ll find.
ating any chance we might have of learning from our mistakes. These kinds of errors, Bridle
The artist and critic James Bridle, in his book
argues, are a consequence of trying to smooth
New Dark Age, describes “computational thinking”
reality’s edges to fit into the inflexible world-
as the unique mental disease of the twentieth
model of the computer, reducing all our nuances
century, arguing that massively powerful, seduc-
and contradictions to mere data. Perhaps if
tive calculators reformed our world in their
our computational systems were built from the
image. In making data-processing machines, we
Earth up to model the ways nature processes
turned our world into data, and “as computation
information, we wouldn’t need to jam a square
and its products increasingly surround us…
peg into a round hole.
It’s radical, but not impossible. Computing para-
to an unimaginable multitude of other behaviors
digms are hardly set in stone. In the 1950s, electri-
and processes, the whole system regenerative,
cal analog computing was standard, and today
seamless, self-correcting, magnificent.
we live in a digital world. Only twenty years ago, quantum computing was science fiction, and
It’s hard to imagine that we will ever succeed
today it’s being actively developed by Intel, IBM,
in building a computer system as brilliantly
Microsoft, and Google, among tech titans world-
complex as the interrelation of fungal mycelium,
wide. A similar process might well unfold with
far-reaching tree roots, and soil microorganisms
biological systems. “Unconventional computing is
in your average healthy forest, what scientists
a science in flux,” Adamatzky says. “What is uncon-
call the “wood wide web.” Smart devices,
ventional today will be conventional tomorrow.”
connected to one another through cloud-based
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servers vulnerable to cyberattack and plain old
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Of course, the natural world is more complex
entropy, could never do this. And perhaps this
than slime molds and lettuce seedlings. These are
is the real reason fully biological computers may
only the simplest systems that can be studied and
remain always beyond our grasp. Even now, as
manipulated in a laboratory environment. The
we dream of embedding artificial intelligence
real world — the living world — is unpredictable,
into every material surface of our lives, we are at
tenacious, and soulful, a humbling entanglement
best poorly emulating processes already at play
of mutual need. What we call “nature” is a concert
beneath our feet and in our gardens. We’re making
of behaviors and processes entirely coeval with the
a bad copy of the Earth — and, in mining the
organisms running them, each connected further
Earth to create it, we are destroying the original.
G R O W D I G I TA L | B E YO N D S M A R T R O C K S 23
author
i l lu s t r at o r
Claire L. Evans is a writer and musician. She
Karen Ingram is an indie Creative Director
is the singer and coauthor of the Grammy-
who focuses on science communications.
nominated pop group YACHT, the founding
She is a co-author of “BioBuilder: Synthetic
editor of Terraform, VICE’s science-fiction
Biology in the Lab (O’reilly, 2015),” which
vertical, and author of Broad Band: The Untold
has recently been released in Japanese (2018)
Story of the Women Who Made the Internet.
and Russian (2019).
“Wildfire” by NPS Climate Change Response (marked with CC PDM 1.0)
r e p o r tag e
AUGUST
1 7, 2 0 2 0
Anatomy of an Underground Wildfire Can we help scorched soil heal itself in the wake of supersized wildfires? by k a it l i n su l l i va n i l l u s t r at i o n
b y s o p h i e s ta n d i n g
Bruthen is nestled along Australia’s Great Alpine Road, but in the small flat town you are likely to forget the nearby Victorian Alps. Bruthen is surrounded by rarer, more impressive towers. Eucalyptus regnans, plainly known as the Mountain ash, stretch 33 storeys into the sky and erupt with white spindly flowers, their petals
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tipped with ivory bulbs. Bruthen is surrounded by the tallest flowering plants in the world.
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t
he w ildfir e th at
tore through the landscape surrounding
Australia’s Great Alpine Road late last year wasn’t sentimental: it took everything. A few days after Christmas Day, Bruthen’s
residents grabbed what they could and fled, leaving two-story homes and full-size mattresses to burn. By then, the mountain ash around their town resembled huge candles. The nearby wine country was a cloud
of smoke. Their scenic highway was framed by inferno. The natural world they inhabited was being obliterated in front of their eyes; and, where they couldn’t see it, underground.
The East Gippsland bushfire burned for three
surface is also achieving novel extents. Desertifi
months, one of several blazes that amounted
cation threatens: rich soil turned to dirt, luscious
in sum to the most destructive fire season
landscapes left barren. This unique threat pres-
in Australia’s history. As a final trick, the fire
ents questions both scientific and ethical. What
created its own weather systems. When the
could we — and what should we — be doing to
smoke cleared, the damage was tallied: more
help our glorious underground interwebs heal?
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than 46 million acres destroyed, roughly the size
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of Pennsylvania, 1.25 billion wild animals killed,
The Damage Below
2,680 homes lost, and at least 33 human lives.
To appreciate what’s at stake here, we must first
Understandably, given the human interest in
delve underground. We don’t have to dig very deep.
visible things, almost no one was talking about
Most microscopic life can be found in the top 15
the loss of life in the soil. But this microscopic
centimeters of soil, meaning we have to travel only
community is no minor matter: its healing will
the length of an iPhone 11 to witness some of the
provide the foundation for the area’s recovery.
most complex living systems on earth.
This is the purview of a few concerned biologists,
We are now steeped in the rhizosphere below
who study the damage wildfires do underground:
a North American pine forest. The roots of
the heat sinking into the earth, shriveling and
these towering trees are host to a glorious society,
popping its microscopic residents. As the fires
abuzz with mutually beneficial and parasitic
around the world burn hotter, longer, and more
partnerships. Spindly mycorrhizal fungi cling to
frequently, the damage occurring below the
the roots searching for nitrogen in the soil, which
they trade with the tree in return for carbon. The
We see the system hard at work when it’s
survival of both depends on the success of this
moist. Fungi and bacteria dwell in spongy moss
chemical bartering system. To hold up its end of
and lichen, the system’s water-keepers. And
the bargain, the fungi are constantly on the
then the whole thing dries up. Rain has been
lookout for nitrogen-rich nematodes. The fungus
scarce. Parched air sucks moisture from
ensnares these slender worms like a python,
soil ecosystems, turning the moss and lichen
exuding enzymes to liquidate its prey, and then
into uninhabitable tinder. Water-dependent
shares the spoils with its pine overlord.
nematodes dry up and begin to hibernate. In
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the absence of rain, sections of the balanced
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Further below, a six-legged springtail feasts
ecosystem disappear. Others become fuel for
on the fungi, and then suddenly takes off. These
the approaching wildfires.
insect ancestors have a cool trick when they’re facing hostile mites and arthropods, using their
The stagnant blazes change the porosity of
detachable appendage as a spring, propelling
soil, opening wide gaps, sealing portals, changing
them to safety. The fungi spreads with them,
how water moves through it. The chemical
expanding its scope of influence. Fungi that are
composition and acidity of the dirt changes
unappetizing to springtails tend to die off.
immediately. The inferno lingers, dining on
Back above ground, decomposer saprotrophic
underbrush, saplings, and hefty trunks. The
fungi break down leaf litter on the forest floor,
heat incinerates the leaves, pine needles and
converting it to usable carbon and nitrogen, and
dehydrated moss that covers the forest floor,
remitting it to its allies underground.
halting the transfer of carbon and nitrogen. It
burrows into the soil where it consumes entire
the soil is drastically thinned. The survivors
root systems, setting off a domino effect in the
are left with a habitat that is fundamentally
microscopic food chain.
different. These conditions pack a one-two
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punch for soil health: first the fires eliminate
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This sterilizes those precious top 15 centimeters
soil diversity, then drought conditions make
of soil. Even if some inhabitants survive the
it difficult for new microbes to repopulate
heat, the diversity of microbes moving through
the area.
The massive trees and tall grasses, which house
Given time, most burned soil ecosystems heal
dung beetles and apex predators and everything
themselves. Indeed, they can gain strength from
in between, have a difficult time taking root in
the fires, kicking the microscopic soil builders
sterilized soil. If plants cannot quickly reestablish,
into overdrive. Unfortunately, the coming decades
the fauna-less earth turns to desert. Dead
are expected to bring unprecedented spans of
soil erodes and blows away and can no longer
drought. This will fuel wildfires that rage with an
capture and store water, the basis of all life. The
intensity that today’s microbial communities
ecosystem it once supported disappears, and
haven’t evolved to endure.
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with it, the few bacteria and fungi the soil needs
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to flourish. Soil becomes its lifeless cousin, dirt.
New threats like this, paired with the possibility of new biotechnology, invite the specter of
Beyond Recovery?
human intervention, even though the science
Soil inhabitants are naturally good at recovering
of altering the soil microbiome is still in its
from occasional wildfires, which have been
infancy. For nearly half a century, biologists have
a part of their life cycle for eons. “The organisms
attempted to inoculate Earth’s surface with
necessary for a healthy soil ecosystem are falling
designer microbes that feast on pollution. More
out of the sky constantly and they will recolonize
recently, the notion of terraforming Mars —
the soil environment quickly, as long as the
converting the planet’s lifeless red canyons into
conditions are right,” says William Mohn, a
oxygen-pumping swaths of greenery — has
professor in the Department of Microbiology &
outgrown the realm of science fiction to become
Immunology at the University of British Columbia.
a NASA-funded research topic. Meanwhile, on
planet earth synthetic biologists are working
these unburned islands could function as soil
on new ways to speed up the healing of scorched
microbe banks. Chunks of soil, full of carbon
land and the restoration of plant life.
sources (mostly plants), could be used to inoculate the disturbed area with a microbial community
Matthew Bowker, a dryland ecologist at Northern
that likely looks a lot like the previous one.
Arizona University, thinks that jumpstarting
Providing an easily-inhabitable habitat will ensure
recovery with beneficial plants, and thus creating
that new microbes have the best shot at survival.
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a habitat for a diverse microbial community,
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is the best launch point when exploring new
Lab-incubated soil cultures have also been
ways to speed up soil-healing in the future. His
part of the discussion, even though, based on
team has successfully transplanted biocrust
the current technology and research, such an
in contaminated areas, such as military sites.
approach is sure to fail. Ninety-nine percent of known microbes are unculturable. Previous
“I’m interested in the benefits of sourcing soil organisms and plant materials from the same
trials have shown that the few that can be lab-grown almost never survive in the wild.
location as the fire, versus just letting the plants deal with whatever soil organisms are
However, professor William Mohn says that
present in the area to be restored,” Bowker says.
this very issue — a lack of microbial diversity in burned soil — could be the factor that allows
When a fire tears through a forest, it leaves
laboratory colonies to colonize a real ecosystem.
pockets of intact ecosystems. Bowker believes
“As a microbial ecologist I’m skeptical, but I
wouldn’t condemn the idea until somebody tries
With the current body of research, he says,
it,” he says.
we can’t.
Soil becomes its lifeless cousin, dirt.
Most research surrounding modified or human- arranged soil microbiomes has never evolved beyond theoretical models. Solé is among a small number of researchers who want to develop real microbial communities on a small scale to see if
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they can reproduce what the models predict.
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Risky Business
Victor de Lorenzo, a synthetic biologist with
Ricard Solé, a research professor at the Universitat
the Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia in Madrid,
Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, wants to genetically
says he has about 10 types of life in mind that
engineer microscopic soil life, entrusting
could thrive in burned soil, because they sequester
restoration efforts to organisms that are altered
nitrogen and carbon very well — a huge part
to have specific traits that soil ecosystems
of a healthy soil ecosystem. His lab specializes
need to thrive. But the research is controversial.
in extremophiles, organisms that thrive in Earth’s
When his team applies for funding, Solé says
most hostile environments. Nevertheless, he
there is always someone who asks: “How do we
expects that transporting these communities
know that this isn’t going to create something
from the laboratory to real ecosystems would
that we don’t want?”
be difficult.
“In my opinion, the ultimate mechanism for
Australian thorny devil, have evolved to siphon
propagating traits is through horizontal transfer,”
small amounts of water through capillaries —
he says. “Bacteria have very good natural channels
straw-like tubes roughly the same thickness as
for propagating their own DNA. You don’t need
a strand of human hair — in their skin. Other
to propagate the entire bacteria, just the DNA.”
organisms could be modified to take on this
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trait, and capture and hold water in a landscape
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Such modified DNA could be added to the
of dry or burned soil. Moisture creates a niche
cluster of genetic matter of existing, thriving
for bacteria, which sets off a domino effect that
soil bacteria. This marriage could bypass
could quickly restore soil life.
the challenge of getting laboratory organisms to survive in competitive ecosystems. It’s also
“Although there will likely be some bacteria that
possible that this modified DNA could harness
are still present, with the vegetation gone, these
attributes from other biological systems, such
life forms are very limited,” says de Lorenzo.
as plants or animals that are uniquely suited to
“We have an opportunity to bring in some of
thrive in harsh conditions, which would make
the concepts that were considered earlier for the
the microbiome more resistant to new challenges
colonization of Mars, and discuss using them
including extreme drought.
here on Earth.”
Three species of desert-dwelling lizards, for
De Lorenzo recognizes the legitimate safety
example, never drink water. Instead, the
concerns that are part of the modified organism
reptiles, including the spikey, terracotta-colored
discussion, but he believes that researchers
must begin to run trial scenarios that will help
author
determine the potential consequences of synthetic ecology. He wants to move research forward,
Kaitlin Sullivan is a health, science and
from theoretical models to tangible replicas.
investigative reporter based in the Midwest.
“My concern is that we don’t have an unlimited
i l lu s t r at o r
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time to deal with environmental problems.
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We cannot keep discussing whether or not it’s
Sophie Standing is an illustrator specializing in
right to use synthetic biology,” says de Lorenzo.
human sciences, with a passion to improve
“Society will have to decide whether or not we should intervene.”
communication and understanding of health and wellbeing through illustration.
p e r s o n a l e s s ay
SEPTEMBER
24, 2020
The Food of Exiles Technologies of memory and loss in a displaced world. by su deep ag a rwa l a i l l u s t r at i o n
by tom ek ah g eorg e
Omnes Generationes
brother-in-law’s two-hundred-person wedding, sanctifying the meal for every distant relative
Where does food come from?
and friend that I, by virtue of living on a different continent, haven’t met before and may never have
It is March, 2016. I’m at Logan Airport and
the opportunity to meet again.
should soon be en route to London, if only I can make it through this TSA checkpoint
This story does not seem to move the agent who
with a five-pound bag of flour in my backpack.
eyes the large bag of white powder emerging
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from the scanner. All I can do is smile and try
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I’m not doing this for the thrill of smuggling or
to charm my way out of purgatory. In the end,
because I desire to be interrogated. No: I have
I walk away with a salvaged package of King
just found out the hard way that American flour
Arthur bread flour thoroughly wrapped in TSA
is different from British flour, culminating in
tape. A minor miracle.
The Great Croquembouche Catastrophe of 2015. And failure, this time around, simply isn’t an
My in-laws receive the story with sharp humor,
option. I am meant to bake the challah for my
ribbing me lovingly for being so particular about
flour, but I don’t have time to explain. There’s
my husband and his older brother break into fits
work to be done. A large pile of precious white
of giggles reciting the grace after meals.
dust has made it from my luggage onto the counter. I massage eggs, honey, olive oil (the best
In my life with my husband, Paul, challah is
I could buy while still making rent), salt, water,
much more than bread: baking it punctuates my
and my special yeast into the growing loaf. Then
memories of our time together.
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there’s the matter of architecture: I’ve practiced
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the braids at length, but it’s clear that what I
Near the very beginning, I am twenty-eight and
had in mind won’t fit this London oven. A quick
have just burned myself pulling loaves out of the
re-work averts disaster, and I sit cross-legged
oven one crisp spring Friday morning. I am dis-
anxiously peering into the chamber where the
tracted because our relationship seems doomed. I
plaited dough springs to life and transforms into
have been seeing Paul for four months and he has
bread. When it comes out, it cools, is carefully
just accepted a job here in Cambridge, while I have
wrapped, and is gingerly transported to the art
been contemplating post-docs on the West Coast.
deco miracle that is the Royal Institute of British
I have lost an entire night’s sleep to the worries.
Architects. That night, my father-in-law tells of my misadventures at Logan Airport to a crowded
Next: I am standing in my kitchen trying to
room of wedding guests; he sings the hamotzi
remember how to braid a six-strand loaf under
while ceremoniously drawing a knife over the
the watchful gaze of my husband’s advisor who
auburn crust; I dance the horah faster than
is staying with us for the night. He is kind and
I ever have before and sweat through my suit;
patient, but I am nervous and keep wrecking the
strands. Or here, I am laughing with my mother-
Book of Numbers of the Hebrew Bible. Moses
in-law, Ruth, at the counter as tiny rivulets of
has just finished his intercession on behalf of his
egg and water break through the dam of flour;
people. For decades, almost a generation, they
these loaves will be the first she’s ever made.
have subsisted on crystalline manna the size of coriander seeds, which collects like dew over-
And then, I am soaking precious spices for the
night. It is ground and cooked into pats that taste
bread celebrating an as-yet-unborn baby who will
like oil cakes; there’s a double portion on Friday
never enter our house (a misunderstood gesture,
mornings to tie them over the Sabbath. They
an unread text); the adoption fails and the loaves
are sick of this food: “We remember the fish that
are thrown away, untouched, as we prepare for
we ate in Egypt free of charge, the cucumbers,
an especially long journey home.
the watermelons, the leeks, the onions, and
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the garlic. But now, our bodies are dried out, for
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Finally, my friend Milan drops off a prototype of
there is nothing at all; we have nothing but
challah he has designed for my wedding, only
manna to look at.” In the Judaism that Paul has
two weeks away: it is as delicious as it is beautiful;
brought into my life, food has always been a
I can never recreate it. I’d burn with jealousy if
symbol of perseverance in exile.
my mouth weren’t so full. I suppose it’s conceivable that these cakes from This swirl of time has one last stop, further back
ground manna three thousand years ago are
than I had bargained: we are standing at Tab’erah
the same thing as the pillowy Viennoiserie I bake
on the Sinai Peninsula, in a scene narrated in the
on Thursday evenings in preparation for next
day’s sabbath. But the dish has evolved profoundly
Every Friday evening is a reminder that each
over time. In my mind’s eye, I see coarsely
challah is as significant as its predecessors, and
ground wheat puffed into orbs; aged sourdough
even the moment that originated this tradition;
gently shaped into voluptuous boules. In
the Torah is not in Heaven, after all. All previous
Northern Europe, eggs are introduced; fragrant
challoth, even the ones to come, are convened
honey is easier to come by here than sugar;
at this one point, this one Shabbat we are now
oil, instead of butter, will make sure that the bread
celebrating: no matter which hands have
remains pareve for Shabbat. From there, I see
shaped it or how it is made, the plaited bread
the refinement of the flour, the labyrinthine
on the board is the same loaf that was eaten
plaiting. I see the different vogues of shaping and
by the generations of our family that preceded:
forming the loaves, the different seasonings
by Moses’ plaintive followers at Tab’erah, the
that adorn the bread.
Varsani in Spain, the Confini in Bulgaria, the
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Jacobi in Germany, the Kosminski in Poland, and
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by our children, should they come, in America.
Perhaps it’s all nostalgia. Legend has it that in 1658, when Job Charnock of the British East India Company arrived at
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Sutanuti in Bengal, he was greeted with the tradi-
simmered with bay leaf, served with rice, peas, and
tional dish of cooked pulses and rice, khichuri.
curry powder. Heavy cream and sultanas finish
In Bengal, this dish is still a staple of cloudy Spring
off the dish, with a dribble of lemon. This meal is
days, when its bright yellows and reds flatter the
something to wake up to, with milky tea, buttered
grey skies and sheet rain. Onions, cumin, turmeric,
toast and jam on the side. This is only one of the
and tomatoes fried in mustard oil form the base
dishes that has marked Britain throughout its
for cooked vegetables — in my recipe, potatoes,
colonial expansion. Tea, imported from across the
cauliflower, peas and beans — that are simmered
globe, is a cornerstone that dictates the rhythms
with dal and parboiled rice, topped with ghee,
of life, served at practically every gathering. Doner
garam masala, and green chili peppers. During the
kebabs, peri peri chicken, curries — not to mention
monsoon, it’s served in the afternoons with ilish
the ultimate cross-cultural contrivance, chicken
fish taken from the Ganges, dusted with a coating
tikka masala — all abound as cultural staples.
of turmeric and salt, and lightly fried. Onion
Their imprint on British life bubbles up after
fritters sit on the side of the plate with a teaspoon
late nights of drinking as sloppy piles of cash are
of achar; peels of raw onion, and raw green chilis
traded for precious packets of food in folded
are tacked onto the plate as an afterthought; green
newspaper or styrofoam containers.
mango chutney to finish. Our wobbly-legged bureaucrat on the shores of This food didn’t stay in India, of course. Khichuri
swampy Bengal may be seen as an early omen
would be anglicized as kedgeree and served for
of this exchange. Was there disgust or curiosity
breakfast all over the Empire: smoked haddock,
that possessed the East India officer when the
clumpy dish of rice and lentils greeted him fresh
That swamp village will continue to grow and be
off the boat? What was it like for the life-long
subsumed into the larger city of Calcutta, soon
Londoner, raised on mutton and beef, to live on
to become the seat of the British Raj, overseeing
foreign grains and vegetables never seen by the
all of India. Today, a few blocks away from the
nation whose interest he represented and under
Victoria Memorial, in the graveyard of St. John’s
which this foreign land will come to be ruled?
Church on the banks of the Hooghly River, there
To step off and taste is to become part of the
is a diminutive Indo-Islamic monument carved
country that will determine his future. There are
from Charnockite. It shelters a patch of land that
decisions to be made; we have lived and died,
never quite managed to remain for ever England.
and still live, in their wake.
G R O W D I G I TA L | T H E F O O D O F E X I L E S
We are told that a Rajput Princess is prevented
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from performing sati (self-immolation) at her
A moment’s pity for the petty bourgeois admin
husband’s funeral pyre; she changes her name to
istrators that plotted the takeover of the known
Maria and marries this man from London. Later,
world. EM Forster captured their longing for
there are rumors among his Puritan colleagues
home in A Passage to India. During tea, they fret
that he has converted to Hinduism. Sutanuti,
over the inadequacies of the imported dishes.
where Charnock landed, ate khichuri, married, and buried his wife twenty-five years later is
[…A]nd the menu was: julienne soup full of
where he will go on to establish the administra-
bullety bottled peas, pseudo-cottage bread, fish
tive center of the British East India Company.
full of branching bones, pretending to be plaice,
more bottled peas with the cutlets, trifle,
air. It wasn’t even that she was on the verge of
sardines on toast: the menu of Anglo-India.
having her Anglo-Indian education tested in
A dish might be added or subtracted as one
America, her practice of medicine scrutinized
rose or fell in the official scale, the peas might
along with her understanding of culture,
rattle less or more, the sardines and the
of language, of clothing. No: it was the food.
vermouth be imported by a different firm, but the tradition remained; the food of exiles,
Raised to become a doctor, Rita Agarwala had
cooked by servants who did not understand it.
spent her days in India poring over textbooks and experiments in the lab, rather than sitting
Nostalgia touches the seventeenth-century
beside my grandmother in the kitchen absorbing
explorer just as it did my parents, half a world
the arcane techniques required to feed a family.
away from the land where they were raised.
Now, a world away — on her journey from
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Kharagpur to Kolkata, to Dhaka, Paris, New York,
41
then Chicago — the sole thread that connected her home was a slender collection of hand-written For my mother, born of strict atheist stock, it
notes from my grandmother outlining the dishes
wasn’t the Hindu prohibitions that weighed
of her childhood.
heavily on her during the TWA flight from Paris to New York in 1974. Nor was it the famous
I imagine my mother six miles above the North
bittersweetness of exile. It wasn’t a fear of flying
Atlantic, mid-air between Europe and the
either, even though this was her first time in the
Americas, blissfully unaware of the importance
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of these notes until she is served an unremark-
vegetables tasted off. There were no daily trips
able tray at lunch time. She tells this story to this
to the bazaar to identify provisions that had been
day, of making her first journey outside of India,
freshly picked from the fields the night before.
of unwrapping the platter, of her utter shock and
Instead, food was shipped from far away. Month-
horror at seeing this plate of salad greens, with
old produce was arranged in chilled grocery store
a plastic cup of dressing on the side, and realizing
displays to be picked up on the weekends and
that it was meant to be eaten: what am I, a goat?
molder in the fridge all week.
My grandmother’s notes may have seemed like
To my mother and father, my grandmother’s notes
a refuge, but, stored in a blue binder under the
were nostalgia: simultaneously hope and torture.
counter in a tidy house in the Western Suburbs
My sister and I have inherited this sense of comfort
of Chicago, they came to form the basis of a life
and loss. Almost every meal we ate growing up was
of frustrated meals and homesickness. The recipes
compared to the ideal from India. And the losses
had to be adapted to the realities of the new
would continue. As adults, my sister and I have
land they found themselves in. The closest store
gone to great lengths to recreate these meals, only
that sold the necessary spices was an hour drive
to find that they are a culinary language we don’t
from the house. Fish, which forms the basis of
quite understand. My grandmother’s notes are
the Bengali diet (and, some might say, the Bengali
hints at a heritage we will never know, having been
psyche) was too expensive. They had to get
cut off from the India of our parents and relatives.
it frozen; a flavorless, bland simulacrum of the
It is not everything, but the food is a key to the
fresh fish back home. Even familiar fruits and
world my parents left behind: I cannot let it go.
As part of this striving, I have been laboring
tasted the warm chop from her hands, her notes
recently to recreate bhejitebil chop — fried vegetable
kept under the counter on yellowing paper, the
cutlets. My grandmother’s notes on this are odd
flight from Paris to New York.
and hint at the food’s Anglo-Indian origin, transliterating the English “vegetable” rather than using
Where does food come from?
the Bengali word, anaz. The recipe suggests seasoning cooked potatoes, beets, and carrots mixed
There is nothing ancient about the tea leaves my
with raisins and peanuts, and scooping them
father fusses over every morning: they come
into oblong balls to be breaded and deep-fried.
from plants that were introduced to the soil of
It is almost identical to a Scotch egg, adapting the
the Darjeeling hills and the Assam valley by
deep-fried minced pork dish to vegetarian India.
British merchants and landowners less than 200
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years ago. My mother’s vegetable chop? I can’t
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When I tell my mother about my most recent
pinpoint its beginnings, but can start with each
attempt, there is a pause in the conversation. It
of its component parts: the modern carrot is
dawns on me — and not for the first time — that
thought to have been bred in Afghanistan in the
I’m a late receiver in an international game of
10th century CE; beetroot is much older, Middle-
recipe telephone. These fritters are a strong
Eastern or Egyptian in origin, probably spread
enough attempt, but are ultimately a misunder-
across Europe and Asia by ancient trade. Potatoes
standing of the food; a rushed shortcut that
come to Europe from the Andes mountains in
reminds my mother of everything that has been
the late sixteenth century. They made their way
lost over the years: of my grandmother, of having
to India via Portuguese traders in the South and
were introduced to Bengal through the British.
Perhaps it dawns on Egypt that these calamities
Around the same time, Job Charnock of the East
are divine miracles as their technology begins to
India Company first tastes khichuri.
fail. A plague of gnats comes next, the magicians falter. Soon, they are inundated by the plagues of the locusts, of the cattle, of boils, of pestilence, of hail, of darkness. Despite the suffering of the
We must remember: the plagues that were visited
Egyptians, despite the one clear solution in front
upon Egypt were also miracles.
of him — to release Moses and his people — it takes his personal loss, his first-born, for Pharaoh
The disasters Moses and Aaron inflict on the state
to recognize the divine source of this devastation.
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are a clear mark of divine retribution. But in the
44
logic of Pharaoh’s Egypt, the ability to reproduce
Were there omens? Before the plagues, before
and match a rival technology implicitly ensures
the suffering inflicted on his people and the State,
the ability to remedy or reverse it. First, the waters
were there signs that all this tragedy could have
are turned to blood; Egypt becomes a land of
been averted?
starvation and scarcity. But Pharaoh and the magicians are on familiar ground: they are able to do the same; there is no change in course. Next, there is the plague of frogs called from the waters by
The tools we’ve developed for averting our
Aaron’s staff. Again, the magicians match miracle
impending apocalypse seem quaint, but have
with technology; no reason for concern.
proven themselves elegant and powerful. The ones
G R O W D I G I TA L | T H E F O O D O F E X I L E S 45
I know best as a biologist have been fighting
The greatest achievements of the nineteenth
hunger and disease since the dawn of civilization.
century killed the God responsible for these
Archaeological evidence of beer-brewing comes
miracles. The same Louis Pasteur, who developed
from the Near East 12,000 years ago. We’ve known,
the germ theory of disease and understood the
shaped, and exploited these microbes from before
principles of developing immunity through vac-
agrarian society and cities had been conceived
cines, also demonstrated that it is not magic, but
of or formed: grain, left unattended, will
yeast — Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a single-celled
bubble and produce potable alcohol, safer for
fungus — that turns sugar into gasses and alcohol.
consumption than polluted water or food.
The story of understanding, cultivating, and
This technology, the ability to produce safe food
industrializing this fungus is one that has led to
and drink, is so powerful, so central to our
the development of biology as a field over the past
conception of civilization that it is etched in the
century — not only for the production of alcohol
earliest forms of literature: in the epic of
and bread, but, perhaps more importantly, for
Gilgamesh dating from second millennium BCE,
understanding the fundamental processes that
the wildman Enkidu is tamed by the prostitute
are at the heart of all life.
Shamhat, and becomes civilized only after he eats bread and becomes drunk on beer. It is
Today, our technology is one of our last hopes for
in religion: the earliest recipe we have of
addressing the challenges posed by a changing
brewing beer comes from a hymn to Ninkasi, the
climate and dwindling resources. Yet, as I prepare
Sumerian goddess of bread and beer, scrawled
dinner, I wonder what food will taste like when
on a clay tablet roughly four thousand years ago.
the plants and animals we have known, loved,
and consumed are no longer here. Our food
In isolation, we still seek to convene with each
may resemble the food my parents and the
other. On evenings and weekends, I meet with
generations before them have loved, and imbued
friends and family all over the world on my laptop.
with meaning, or it may be a new creation
In fact, this is the way that I regularly access my
without precedent. Regardless, this stuff will be
father who is currently stranded in West Bengal,
how I mark my place in the world and in history.
having failed to leave India before travel restrictions were imposed. It’s how I tell him and my
But where has this food come from?
mother about the miracle that has taken place
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during the plague: that a bolus of cells has been
46
In the small hours of lockdown, I try to remem-
extracted from a woman half-way across the
ber that this plague, too, is a miracle. But now,
country. That now there is a growing marble
we can match this reality with technology. The
inside the womb of yet another woman Paul and
tools we have used to engineer microorganisms
I have never met before, but have somehow
for fighting scarcity have, almost overnight,
managed to communicate with more often than
made The Virus knowable. Our new technology
we do with most friends and family. My parents,
is already beginning to bear fruit: at work, we
God willing, may see the next generation.
have transitioned from our regular research to developing tests instead. We search for the virus the quickest, cheapest way possible and fight this plague by searching for it among our friends and neighbors.
The omens! You may grow up to see and taste our lovely navel oranges, but in all likelihood, in your lifetime, they will disappear. I have wished for nothing more than to feed you mouthfuls of the chocolate I grew up on, but that, too, is fading away in the world we inherit. Of course there will be chocolate; it will not be the same. Perhaps, if I am able to trick you, I can remind you of the precious Kashmiri saffron your grandmother would have loved to use to bless the sweets for your first birthday; even as I write this, that is increasingly unlikely. I hope for my sake, you will hold onto this false memory. It is G R O W D I G I TA L | T H E F O O D O F E X I L E S
the tragedy of my fatherhood that you will not know
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the world that I’ve lived in and loved. I will try to explain our exile. I hope you understand.
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author
i l lu s t r at o r
Sudeep Agarwala is a yeast geneticist and
Tomekah George is an illustrator and occasional
Program Director at Ginkgo Bioworks, focused
animator, whose work can be described as
on platforms for protein production. He also
somewhere between a collage and painting.
writes occasionally.
She is based in the UK.
A manufactured organism. Credit: Douglas J. Blackiston – Levin Lab, Allen Discovery Center
dialogue
JUNE
2 9, 2 0 2 0
Is DNA Hardware or Software? A conversation with Michael Levin about Xenobots, the world’s first living robots. by ch r ist i na ag a pa k is
i
n m id - ja nua ry,
a group of computer scientists and biologists from
the University of Vermont, Tufts, and Harvard announced that they had created an entirely new life form — xenobots, the world’s first
living robots. They had harvested skin and cardiac cells from frog embryos,
designed and sculpted them to perform particular tasks with the help of an evolutionary algorithm, and then set them free to play. The result — it’s
alive! — was a programmable organism. Named after the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis, from which they were harvested, these teams of cells were wholly liberated from constraints of frog DNA. Their behavior was determined by their shape, their design. They can already perform simple tasks under the microscope. And due to their minuscule size and great adaptability, they could soon be put to work in the human body to deliver new medical treatments, or out in the world to do environmental clean-ups.
Naturally, this raises all kinds of questions and challenges for both humanity at large and synthetic biology. Earlier this year, Grow’s Christina Agapakis discussed some of them with Michael Levin, one of the scientific minds behind xenobots. This mind-​bending conversation delves into how Levin and his team discovered and conceptualized a new life form, the possible applications they envision, and what this all says about the different ways computer scientists and synthetic biologists think about DNA.
CHRISTINA AGAPAKIS:
I’m interested in the
think that what the genome does is nail down
language you use to explain these xenobots —
the hardware that these cells have: the proteins,
how you conceptualize what some people
the signaling components, and the computa-
are calling a new life form. What inspired this
tional components. When these things are
project? What kicked off this research direction?
actually run in multi-scale, biological systems, there’s an interesting kind of software that
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MICHAEL LEVIN:
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Our group studies cellular decision-
drives the structure and function. We’ve been
making. We’re interested in what is called basal
working for years now on the reprogrammability
cognition: the ability of all kinds of biology — from
of that software — the idea that you can give
molecular networks to cells and tissues, from
cells and tissues novel stimuli or experiences and
whole organisms to swarms — to make decisions,
thus change how they make decisions in terms
learn from their environments, store memories.
of morphogenesis, in terms of behavior, without
We were thinking about new forms of minimal
actually changing their hardware.
model systems that are synthetic or bio-engineered, where we could build basic proto-cognitive
CHRISTINA:
systems from scratch and really have the ability
from how the synthetic biology world typically
to understand where their capacities come from.
uses words like hardware and software. When
That’s fascinating because it’s different
folks at Ginkgo, or other molecular or synthetic We are also interested in the plasticity of cells
biologists, talk about software, they often
and tissues. What can they do that is different
mean the DNA code. What do you mean when
from their genomic defaults? In our group, we
you say software?
MICHAEL:
I have a completely different perspective.
at this from more of a computational perspective.
I don’t think DNA is the software. Not that
The important thing about software is that if
only one metaphor is valid, but the one that we
your hardware is good enough — and I’m going
have found useful is this idea that the real-time
to argue that probably all life at this point is good
physiology of the organism is the software. My
enough — then the software is rewritable. That
background is in computer science, so I come
means you can greatly alter what it does without meddling with the hardware. People are very comfortable with this in the computer world. When you switch from Photoshop to Microsoft Word, you don’t get out your soldering iron and start rewiring your computer, right? In fact, that is exactly how computation was done in the 1940s, and I think that’s where biology is today. It’s all about the hardware. Everybody’s really interested in genomic editing 100 designs for a walking organism composed of passive skin tissue (cyan) and contractile heart muscle (red). Computers model the dynamics of the biological building blocks and use them like LEGO bricks to build different organism anatomies. The rainbow streak traces its behavior in simulation. (Credit: Sam Kriegman)
and rewiring gene regulatory networks. These
application of ion channel drugs, inducing a
are all important things, but they are still very
permanent change in the animal’s body plan.
close to the machine level. In our group, we think of the DNA as producing cellular hardware that
CHRISTINA:
It’s actually electric.
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is actually implementing physiological software,
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which is rewritable. That means you can greatly
MICHAEL:
alter the behavior of the system without actually
our lab works on developmental bio-electricity —
having to go in and exchange any of the parts.
electrical communication and computation in
I think that’s the amazing thing about biology.
non-neural tissue. We’ve discovered that the
The plasticity is quite incredible.
planarian’s tissues store this steady state electri-
It’s physically electric. A large chunk of
cal pattern, which dictates how many heads they I’ll give you a simple example of what I mean by
are supposed to have. Their genetics give you a
software. We have these flatworms, planarians,
piece of hardware, which self-organizes an elec-
and they have a head and a tail. What we’ve
trical pattern that causes cells to build one head,
shown is that there’s an electric circuit that
one tail. That’s the default. Now that we under-
stores the information of how many heads the
stand how this works, and it took a good 15 years
planarian is supposed to have and where the
to get to this point, we can go in and rewrite that
heads are supposed to be. The important thing
electrical state. The cool thing about that circuit
about this circuit is that it has this interesting
is that, like any good memory circuit, once you’ve
memory aspect. We can transiently rewrite the
rewritten it, it’s stable, it saves the information,
stable state of this electric circuit with a brief
unless you change it back.
You can rewrite it so that, if you cut the worm in
structures in the tissue that serve as instructive
half, it creates worms with two heads, no tail.
information for how it grows.
Those two-headed worms continue to make twoheaded worms, if you cut them in half again. All
CHRISTINA:
of these worms have completely normal genomic
to xenobots?
And how did this research lead
sequences. We haven’t touched the DNA at all. The information on how many heads you’re supposed
MICHAEL:
to have is not directly nailed down by the genetics.
system where we could see this from scratch. In
We wanted a synthetic, bottom-up
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particular, we wanted to understand not just the
55
People are comfortable with this in electronics:
hardware of cells, but the algorithms that enable
you turn it on and it does something. If it’s an
them to cooperate in groups. Josh Bongard at
interesting piece of electronics, you can reprogram
UVM is a leader in artificial intelligence and
it to do something else. It turns out that biological
robotics. He and I have had many conversations
electric circuits are exactly like this. They
about how biology can inform the design of
have incredible plasticity. They are very good at
adaptive and swarm robotics and AI, and how the
enabling some of these electrical states to be
tools and deep concepts from machine learning
rewritten. Once we know how to do it, you can
and evolutionary computation can help under-
actually reprogram those pattern memories.
stand different levels in biology. He was a very
These are structures in the tissue that tell the cells
natural partner for this work, and we decided to
what to do at a large scale. That’s the kind of
establish a tight integration between computa-
thing I mean by software. There are physiological
tional modeling and biological implementation.
We took some cells from a frog embryo, and we
once again cooperate with each other. They build
let them re-envision their multicellularity.
a synthetic living machine with behaviors that are
Individual cells are very competent. They do all
completely different from what the default would
sorts of things on their own. How do you convince
be. They look nothing like a tadpole, nothing
them to work together toward much bigger goals?
like a frog embryo. We have lots of videos of them
Cells in the body work on massive outcomes,
doing interesting things. They wander around,
things like building a limb, or building an eye, or
they do mazes, they cooperate in groups, they com-
face remodeling. They are called upon to do it and
municate damage signals to each other. They work
they stop when it’s done. So, when a salamander
together to build things out of other loose cells.
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loses a limb and the limb is rebuilt, you can see that
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this collective knows what a correct salamander
I think what we’re scratching at here is just the
looks like, because it stops all that activity as
beginning of understanding what cells are willing
soon as the limb is complete. We wanted to know:
to do under novel environments, and how plastic
how do cell collectives store and process these
they really are. That was the origin of this project:
kinds of large-scale anatomical pattern memories?
to try to understand what cells can do beyond their default group behaviors. That’s what we have here.
We liberated the frog cells from the boundary conditions of the embryo. And we said to these
CHRISTINA:
cells: here you are, in a novel circumstance, in a
ethicist Jeantine Lunshof on the next phase of
novel environment: what do you want to do? What
this project. What are the ethics of manipulating
we observed is that the cells are very happy to
life in this way?
You’re collaborating with philosopher/
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MICHAEL:
57
In terms of the ethics of the platform
from the ’60s — you know, these things that are
itself, I don’t find it particularly far past the range
on the car assembly line. That’s a very narrow
of things that have already been done. We [as a
and, in 2020, not very helpful view of what a robot
society] manipulate living cells all the time. We
actually is. We are still trying to come up with
have a food industry where we manipulate whole
good definitions for all these things. What do we
organisms, adult mammals, who we can be quite
really mean when we say machine? If you think
certain have some degree of agency. In that sense,
some things are not machines, what does that
I don’t think these things push the envelope on any
mean? And what do you think they have that
ethical issues. I do think that they highlight the inad-
makes them different from machines? This raises
equacies of the definitions that we throw around
very interesting philosophical questions.
on a daily basis. There are all sorts of terms we think we understand, people use them all the time:
CHRISTINA:
animal, living being, synthetic, creation, machine,
are doing — philosophical, conceptual, perhaps
robot. Lots of work in robotics and synthetic biology
even artistic work. I’d like to talk a little more
has been showing us recently that we actually
about the practical uses and implications. What
don’t understand what those things are at all.
types of applications do you imagine? If we’re
That’s part of the work your xenobots
in the 1940s or 1950s of biology: how do these look I gave a talk once and I referred to a caterpillar as
50 years from now?
“a soft-bodied robot” and some people complained about that. They said, oh my God, how can you call
MICHAEL:
it a robot? That’s because they’re thinking of robots
near-term applications. You could imagine these
I would start with what I would call
things roaming the lymph nodes and collecting
This is the kind of model system that can tell us
cancer cells, sculpting the insides of arthritic knee
a lot about where true plasticity comes from.
joints. You could imagine them collecting toxins
What are the strategies that you might want to
in waterways. Once we learn to program their
build into your robots or your algorithms that
behavior, which is the next thing that we’re doing,
would allow them to respond to novelty the way
you could imagine a million useful applications,
that living cells in collectives do?
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both inside the body and out in the environment.
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Individual cells are very competent. They do all sorts of things on their own. How do you convince them to work together toward much bigger goals? — Michael Levin
The medium-term applications, I think, are more in the fields of Regenerative Medicine and AI, specifically looking at how to program collectives. If you are going to rebuild somebody’s arm, or a limb, or an eye, or something complex like that, I think that we are going to have to understand how cells are motivated to work together. Trying to micromanage the creation of an arm from stem-cell derivatives, I think, is not going to happen in any of our lifetimes. We need to understand how you program swarms to have the kinds of goal states that we want them to have, so they can build organs in the body, or
for transplantation, or for complex, synthetic
babysit the process. You figure out how to convince
living machines. If we figure out how this works,
the cells what they should be doing and then you
and where these anatomical goal states come
let the system figure out how to do it on its own.
from, we will be able to make drastic improvements in regenerative medicine. It’s not just
CHRISTINA:
that we might have these bots running around
of biology, but I think our narratives are so domi-
our bodies. It’s the fact that we will be able to
nated by the idea of molecular control — by DNA
program our own cell collectives at the anatomical
as this central driver of everything. There are
level, not at the genetic level.
synthetic biologists who basically say that DNA
Maybe it’s an accident in the history
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is the only thing that matters. You’re highlighting
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The idea is to understand how cell collectives
a very different perspective. You’re saying the
encode what it is that they’re building, and how
stimuli plus the cell and its existing hardware
you could go about rewriting this — to offload the
can create a totally different outcome. That has
computational complexity onto the cells them-
fascinating implications for how we think about
selves and not try to micromanage it. Our recent
genetic determinism in synthetic biology, and,
paper on frog leg regeneration is a good example
more generally, in human behavior, in human
of that. Frogs normally do not regenerate their legs,
outcomes, and so many other different things.
unlike salamanders, and we figured out how to make them do it. The intervention is 24 hours, and
MICHAEL:
then the actual growth takes 13 months. So it’s a
think about this, which is the progress in com-
very early signal. We don’t hang around and try to
puter science. I am not saying that living things
I think we have a good framework to
are computers, at least not like the computers
is eminently reprogrammable. I think we need
you and I use today. What I mean is: computers
to respect the fact that evolution has given
are fundamentally a very wide class of devices
us this amazing multi-scale goal-driven system
that are in an important sense reprogrammable.
where the goals are rewritable.
My point about DNA is that when people think about genetic determinism, they’re not giving the DNA enough respect. DNA doesn’t give you hardware that always does the same thing and is determined. DNA is amazing. DNA has been
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shaped by evolution to produce hardware that
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AI methods automatically design diverse candidate lifeforms in simulation (top row) to perform some desired function. Transferable designs are then created using a cell-based construction toolkit to realize living systems (bottom row) with the predicted behaviors. (Credit: top, Sam Kriegman; bottom, Douglas J. Blackiston)
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I’ll give you another very simple example.
This shows that the genetics don’t just give you a
Tadpoles need to become frogs. And tadpole
system that somehow moves everything in the
faces need to be deformed to become frog faces:
same way every single time. They give you a system
the eyes have to move, the jaws have to move,
that encodes the rough outline of a correct frog
all this stuff has to move around. It used to be
face, and then it has this error minimization
thought that what the genetics encodes during
scheme where what the hardware does is say,
metamorphosis is a set of movements that
wherever we’re at now, I’m going to keep taking steps
would make that happen. If every tadpole looks
forward to reduce that error to as low a level as
the same, and every frog looks the same, then
possible. That’s just an example of this goal-directed
that works, right? You move the eyes, you move
plasticity. And I think it’s important to realize that
the mouth, everything moves a prescribed
that’s the beauty of the hardware that evolution has
distance in a certain direction, and you’re good.
left us with. That’s the trick. The hardware is much
To test this, we made what we called Picasso
more capable than we’ve been giving it credit for.
tadpoles. Everything is in the wrong place: the mouth is up here, the eyes are sideways, the
CHRISTINA:
jaws are displaced, everything is just completely
genetic factors, it does seem like you’re pointing
moved around. What we found is that those
at what’s fundamentally missing from how we
tadpoles still become pretty normal frogs.
think about synthetic biology and genetics more
Everything moves around in really unnatural
broadly. There’s the critique of genetic studies
paths, and they keep moving until a normal frog
of human behavior that basically says: you can
face is established.
never really control for all the variables — social,
Hearing you talk about these non-
environmental, whatever — so your studies of the
want to make, say, bio-engineered bladders, a
genes for almost anything are going to be fatally
sphere, you might get away with literally micro-
flawed. Then conversely, if you are only seeing a
managing this thing directly with some stem cells
small picture of what it means for a human to
and growing them on a scaffold. But if you really
be anything — healthy, smart, athletic, beautiful —
want to make large-scale control of complex
engineering someone’s DNA with those outcomes
anatomy, I would say there’s not a compelling
in mind is probably not going to get you what
history of capabilities today that would suggest
you want, and we should focus on the ways we
that we have good anatomical control at the
can change a person’s environment that will make
genetic level. We are not very good at it right now.
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them healthier, smarter, happier etc. If biology
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is so plastic, why do you think the genetic idea
A lot of people make a promissory argument.
and the dream of designer babies persists?
They say, turn the crank, keep going, we’re going to sequence a whole bunch more stuff. We’re
MICHAEL:
I want to be clear: I’m not denigrating
going to do a lot more transcriptomics. We’re going
genetics in the slightest. I think understanding the
to do a lot of genomics. We’re going to keep at it
hardware is critical. You’re not going to get very
and someday we’ll just be able to do it. You want
far without understanding your hardware. And
seven fingers? You got it. You want gills? Fine. I don’t
I think that genetics is essential for that. In some
find that promise very compelling.
cases, working at the level of hardware is fine. If you want to fix a flashlight, you can do everything
You could spend all your time drilling down into
you need to do at the hardware level. Or if people
the molecules that it’s made of, but at some point,
you have to ask yourself, what are they in a cybernetic sense? What’s the function of this thing? What are the control loops? What are the internal capabilities? Is it reprogrammable? Is its structure modular? All of these things are completely invisible at the level of the hardware. I think it would be incredibly unwise to throw away all the lessons of engineering, of cybernetics, of computer science. Can you imagine where our
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information technology would be today, if every
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DNA has been shaped by evolution to produce hardware that is eminently reprogrammable. — Michael Levin
change you wanted to make you had to make at the hardware level, or even in machine code? I mean, it’d be insane. We wouldn’t have anything. MICHAEL: CHRISTINA:
I do molecular stuff. I live in that world.
Some of this stuff is absolutely ancient.
I mean, back in the ’40s, you have this biologist
I’m interested in your critique or challenge of that.
who took a paramecium, or a similar kind of single-
Maybe there is a limitation to how we’re imagin-
cell animal, which is covered with these little
ing things. You might be able to sort of open up
hairs that all point the same way. He took a little
much more interesting questions and possibilities
glass needle, cut a little square into the surface
if you’re looking at how things grow. How did you
of the thing, turned it 180 degrees, and put it back.
arrive at some of these more holistic perspectives?
An amazing technical feat. Now the hairs are
pointing the wrong way in that little square. And
So when it makes a daughter cell, it just copies
what he found is that when the paramecium
whatever it has. The non-genetic piece of informa-
divides and has offspring, all of the offspring now
tion is critical. This is the original demonstration
have little squares of hair that are pointing the
of true epigenetics. This information is simply
wrong way. Why is that? It’s because the structure
not in the genome.
of the cortex is templated onto the previous one. In our view, turning on and off specific genes
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(Left) Five red-cyan designs are placed amid a lattice of simulated debris, in yellow (right) the traces carved by a swarm of these organisms as they move through a field of particulate matter. (Credit: left, Sam Kriegman; right, Douglas J. Blackiston)
64
to make specific cell types is such a tiny corner of all this. It’s critical, but we’ve got to think more broadly, in pattern control, in large scale
goal-directedness, and think about the computa-
will be able to draw whatever living creature you
tions that all these different levels are doing
want, in whatever functional anatomy you want.
to get where they’re going. There’s no way we’re
It might be for something with an application here
going to do what we need to do in biology
on Earth. It might be an organ for transplantation.
without an appreciation of those other levels.
It might be a creature that you’re going to use in colonizing some far off world. Whatever it’s going
CHRISTINA:
One thing we’re interested in doing in
to be, you are going to be able to sit down and
Grow is outlining future scenarios, the possibilities
specify at the level of anatomy, the structure and
for biology. What’s the end goal for xenobots?
function of a living creature at the high level,
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and then this will sort of compile down and let
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MICHAEL:
I’ll jump way forward because it’s more
you build the thing in real life.
fun that way. Regeneration and limb regeneration is critical, but we can fantasize further than
Right now, we can only do this in a very simple set
that. In the sort of asymptote of all of this, I see
of few circumstances, but ultimately if we really
two things that I think should be possible. On
knew how this worked, we would be able to have
the one hand, I think this is progressing towards
complete control. People talk about constraints
a total control of growth and form. At some point,
on morphogenesis and on development. I think
when we really know what we’re doing — when
those are constraints on our thinking, not on
we actually know how morphology is handled —
the actual cells themselves. I think you should be
you will be able to sit down in front of a kind of
able to build pretty much anything within the
a Computer Aided Design (CAD) system, and you
laws of physics. Almost anything.
CHRISTINA:
You talk about not wanting to
micromanage the cells, but you’re sort of shaping
goal is to convince the system to do what you want it to do not to try to build it up brick by brick.
the growth, you’re facilitating and influencing it. What do you mean when you say control?
It’s a top down view of control. Your goal is to specify the end goal, and let the system figure out
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MICHAEL:
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To use another super-anthropomorphic
how to get there. That works very well with
phrase, I think our goal is to convince the cells to
systems that have the necessary IQ. So that might
do what we want them to do. Your goal is to exploit
work with your kids, and it might work with
the computational capacity of the system, and to
various other animals. It doesn’t work real well
understand how it is that you communicate your
with a cuckoo clock. It just doesn’t, because its
goals to the growing tissue. We’re already starting
hardware system isn’t amenable to that kind of
experiments on basically behavior-shaping the
control. As always in science, you have to figure
tissue with rewards and punishments. Humans
out when these kinds of approaches are appropri-
have figured out over 10,000 years ago that we
ate and when are they not. There’s a large class of
don’t have any idea how the animal works inside.
systems where that’s useless, and a massive class
But what we do know is that if you give it rewards
of biological systems where I think that’s going to
and punishments you can achieve outcomes that
be the way to go. I think that’s part of our future.
you like. This ability of living things to change their behavior, to make their world better, is
One thing I think this is showing us is that
ancient, and that’s how rewards and punishments
focusing on the brain as the source of inspiration
work. This probably works all the way down. Your
for machine learning is derived from a very
specialized architecture. I’ve been suggesting that
CHRISTINA:
Bacterial intelligence.
a true general purpose intelligence is much more likely to arise not from mimicking the structure
MICHAEL:
of the core of the human cortex, or anything like
individual cells building an organ and being able
that, but from actually taking seriously the
to figure out how to get to the correct final
computational principles that life has been apply-
outcome from different starting positions,
ing since the very beginning.
despite the fact that you went in there and mixed
Exactly. And not just bacterial —
everything around. I think a lot of our true CHRISTINA:
Paramecia?
general AI in the future is going to come from
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this sort of work on basal cognition. I guess
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MICHAEL:
Even before that. Bacteria biofilms.
my theme is consistent. I think we need to step
All that stuff has been solving problems in ways
back from any kind of uniqueness of the human
that we have yet to figure out. They’re able to
condition, and try to generalize it more and
generalize, they’re able to learn from experience
more broadly. We need to take evolution seriously.
with a small number of examples. They make self-models. It’s amazing what they can do. That
This conversation is Part 1 of Grow’s coverage of
should be the inspiration. I think the future
xenobots. Continue reading Part 2, “The Lab
of machine learning and AI technologies will not
Philosopher,” where we interview Harvard ethicist
be based on brains, but on this much more
and philosopher Jeantine Lunshof on the long-term
ancient, general ability of life to solve problems
ethical and the philosophical implications of
in novel domains.
the discovery.
CO NTACT TH E R E SE ARCH ERS: M I C H A E L LE V I N Director, Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University Associate Faculty, Wyss Institute at Harvard University drmichaellevin.org | @drmichaellevin
author
Christina Agapakis is a biologist, writer, and artist. She is Creative Director at Ginkgo Bioworks.
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