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THE GREY ZONE. “Computer hackers could create malicious software that crosses the line from technology to biology, crafting viruses that could spread dangerous epidemics...We are really on the border between the living and the not living." http://www.pcworld.com/article/252103/computer_viruses_could_cross_frontier_into_biological_realm_researchers_say.html View in LinkedIn

BUILDING MULTICELLULARITY. “By the year 2040, AI will appear on computer viruses that will communicate with each other using a universal Internet language and will be programmed to fuse together and mutate into Computer Organs that will later be controlled by powerful search engines (Systems) diffused through out the Internet.” http://longbets.org/69/ View in LinkedIn

SPECIES BARRIER. “Could a virus jump from silicon to carbon-based life?” https://lnkd.in/dEPU6w6 View in LinkedIn

POLICING THE WEB. “Many of the most promising visions of how to coordinate the far-flung communication and computing cycles of this emerging platform converge on a controversial solution: the use of self-replicators that roam the Net. Free-ranging, self-replicating programs, autonomous Net agents, digital organisms – whatever they are called, there's an old fashion word for them: computer viruses.” http://www.wired.com/1995/02/viruses/ View in LinkedIn

ANDREW HESSEL. "Andrew Hessel is a futurist and catalyst in biological technologies, helping industry, academics, and authorities better understand the changes happening in life science. He is a Distinguished Researcher with Autodesk in their Bio/Nano Research Group, based out of San Francisco. He is also the co-founder of the Pink Army Cooperative, the world’s first cooperative biotechnology company, which is aiming to make open source viral therapies for cancer.” http://andrewhessel.com/ View in LinkedIn

THOUGHT HACKING. “Experts claim that synthetic biology is accelerating faster than evolution and researchers like Andrew Hessel who’s lecturing at NASA’s Singularity University on the promises—and dangers—of the emerging technology warn that tomorrow’s hackers could develop insidious viruses or bacteria designed to hijack the brain and direct the thoughts of a human mind.” https://lnkd.in/dEPU6w6 View in LinkedIn

THE FEVERISH IMAGINATION. “Synthetic biology and man-machine interfaces. Creating machine viruses that hack the brain and invade the human mind might sound like science fiction to some, but the real science is rapidly approaching. Synthetic biology—the ability to design artificial life—wedded to the emerging technology of man-machine interfacing creates a combination that is potentially deadly and one more than enough to whet the appetite of criminal hackers.” https://lnkd.in/dEPU6w6 View in LinkedIn

CYBER NIGHTMARE. “But there are more immediate possibilities for computer-biology crossovers. Synthetic biology uses computers to store genetic information, and Apvrille and Lovet explained that hackers could infect these devices or the software used for DNA sequencing, thereby modifying whatever biological product is being synthesized.” http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/could-human-and-computer-viruses-merge-leaving-both-realms-vulnerable/ View in LinkedIn

WITCHES BREW. “By using multiple vaccines in the same animals, the farmers acted as matchmakers for the intercontinental viruses. The weakened Australian and European strains infected the same cells, “mated” with each other, and shuffled their genetic material (the technical term is “recombined”).” https://lnkd.in/dG485cW View in LinkedIn

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. “As for computer viruses speciating and evolving, Apvrille and Lovet believed that with enough data the code for a single computer virus might form spontaneously. Chances are slimmer, however, that it would include the necessary details to adapt and evolve. So far this scenario has only occurred in viruses in which researchers have encoded genetic algorithms to mimic evolutionary processes.” http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/could-human-and-computer-viruses-merge-leaving-both-realms-vulnerable/ View in LinkedIn