Body Hacks

http://phys.org/news/2015-09-hacking-bodythe-scientific-counter-culture-diybio.html

It seems like a concept straight out of a SyFy original movie or superhero comic: performing "DIY" genetic experiments to change your own genome. Yet companies that aim to do this kind of work are popping up according to this article on phys.org, a science news website. The article does not specify exactly the types of experiments being performed, but it says the work was inspired by the idea of our genomes as a form of programming language that can be hacked and modified the same as C++ or python. But is this idea realistic? Certainly it is appealing, and makes a kind of intuitive sense. The problem, as I see it, is that our genome might be the most complicated computer code ever written, With over 3 billion base pairs it is much more than a few lines of code, and we don't even understand most of it. Of the 25,000 genes we know exist, only a small portion have been assigned a clear function. And most of those genes operate within larger regulatory pathways in collaboration with hosts of other genes. And what about all that code that isn't part of genes? These intergenic spaces were originally thought to be background noise but it is becoming more and more clear that they are vital to almost every aspect of life. Our genomic code wasn't written by a human for other humans to understand. It is a product of mutation and chance. Any alteration as drastic as something like a superpower, or even something minor like an increase in strength or heightened vision, is not going to be an easy hack, if it is even possible.