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Hello, I am Joshua P. Warren and this is Joshua P Warren Daly. Have you heard the term synthetic biology? If not, it is absolutely amazing. And I know words like amazing and astounding and mind boggling. Those words are overused a lot, but not in this case. Um there is a really good article about synthetic biology that is available now at Futurism.com. Let me explain to you what we're talking about here. So for thousands of years, humans have been trying to manipulate biological organisms, essentially using what we call artificial selection. Basically what I'm talking about is breeding. So it's the very same um concept that we used to turn a wolf into hundreds of different breeds of dogs strewn all over the world. And some of them are just a few inches big and some of them are like seven feet tall. I mean, it's just amazing, and it shows you just how effective that artificial selection has been over the years, but it is a long, slow, tedious, cumbersome process. And so finally about forty or so years ago, when when scientists really started getting good at genetics and they discovered the human gene or or or or or just genomes in general, basically what they did was they they discovered the DNA, right, the genetic code, which is like going directly into the system and finding the software that makes things work without having to go through this kind of cut and paste process of gradually letting things reproduce and mature to and and and then you know pass it their genes along, etc. etc. And so scientists, when when they learned about the existence of uh of DNA, then they started just taking that and sort of chopping it up and and working with it. And that's where we get this kind of like genetic engineering thing from, which made it much, much easier to very quickly create changes in organisms, which is why you have, for example, like a cat that glows in the dark, like a jellyfish. You know, that that didn't exist. But scientists said, hey, let's take this part of this uh DNA from from a jellyfish, and let's take this DNA from a cat and let's copy this and paste it in here and cut that, and next thing you know, you have a glowing cat. So um we don't even know the weirdo things that go on in laboratories, but it has now reached a whole new level. Because even the genetic engineering part of cutting different parts of genes out and kind of photocopying them and all that, even that was starting to get cumbersome when modern day scientists started to realize that there's a much more effective way of doing this. But we now, due to 3D printing technology, we have the ability to literally print genetic code to engineer life. So instead of having to go out and take some code that's there and work with it, no, you can just print up your own code. It's not that difficult. Uh I think they say sugar is just one of the leading components of being able to do this. So here's what that means. Okay, you probably know and regardless of how much you understand about how computers work, and even if you understand how computers work, you you still really don't understand because it's just like a it's almost like some kind of uh spiritual concept. But anyway, uh computer software, traditionally, you know, basic software is a code that consists of zeros and ones. So scientists have started looking at DNA as being like computer code, except instead of being zeros and ones, it's A, T, G, and C. So you have four variables instead of two, which would automatically make it twice as complex, which is pretty astounding. So what they have been able to do is um take what, you know, again we think of as computer code but print it using these chemicals, so you now have a genetic code, and you can take that genetic code, and instead of putting it into a uh a computer like we do with software, you put it inside of some very, very basic cell, and then you let it germinate and you let it mature, and next thing you know, you have uh you know a three-headed dragon or whatever. And they're you know, they're doing this stuff already. I mean, I don't know if you realize this. That that this is where genetic engineering has morphed into what they now call synthetic biology, where they are printing the code and making creatures. And right now, supposedly, they're just making little things. I mean, there are conferences where you have people who are practically high school kids who are getting together now and doing this and having fun with it. Um and so I want you to realize the full implications of this and what this really means about what we can do now. That you don't even have to go out into nature and maybe find something and say, oh, I'm gonna take this characteristic or this attribute or this trait. No, you can just invent your own thing, and um it might take a few tries, but you'll get the code right. It's kind of like when you're building a web page. When you build a web page, if you do it manually, you might go in and you might type in a bunch of HTML, and then you you preview it. And it and then you look at it and you're like, ah crap, there's a mistake. I should have put a slash here instead of there, or I didn't close out this code. And then you go back and you fix it and you preview it again. You're like, okay, that looks better, but you know what, I don't like this font. And you go back and forth between preview and code, and then finally, yeah, you get the web page to look pretty much like you wanted it to. Well, that's what they're doing now. Um they're taking the the genetic code that they're printing synthetically, and they are, you know, previewing it here and there, but gradually, I mean there's there's no giant leap that needs to take place at this point between creating some little organism and some kind of big crazy thing. Which of course brings us directly to the old Jurassic Park conundrum. Because look, I have believed my entire life that if humans are capable of doing something, then eventually somebody will do it. To me, that's that should be a law of some kind. It's like Arthur C. Clarke had his three laws, well, that's one of my laws, is that if humans can do something, eventually one will do it. And I wrote about this in my book The Secret Wisdom of Kuko Khan, because I wholeheartedly believe that. And on one hand that can be a little scary because you could say, well, we got nuclear bombs out there, does that mean that somebody will eventually destroy the world? No, not necessarily, because it's not as easy to destroy the world as you think. We have nuclear bombs, does that mean a bomb will get used? Yep, it already has. But there are a lot of us here, and a lot of us don't want to drop a bomb, and so you know, it's not necessarily all doom and gloom, but I'm saying you're gonna have at least one isolated case somewhere of somebody being like, let's throw caution to the wind. Fuck it, let's make this thing. So let's go back to dinosaurs. Who doesn't love Jurassic Park, right? One of the greatest movies ever made. And it is astonishing when you go to museums and you see these dinosaur skeletons and you realize that these were real creatures that were at one time running around in what is now your backyard. Of course you want to see that. Of course you want to see that. Now the movie Jurassic Park did a great job of pointing out the conundrum there of okay, just because you can do something, does that mean you should, and ethics and morality and all these things come into play. We know, I think, about the pros and cons and how to debate that on all sides, but let's just get real here, okay? The reality is if you put a little machine in front of me right now, Joshua P. Warren, you put a machine in front of me right now, and you're like, look, we've got a Tyrannosaurus Rex programmed in here right now. All you have to do is hit the enter button. It's gonna print this thing, and you know, in like a few months you're gonna have a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Are you gonna hit that button or not? Now look, I wish that I could sit here and tell you honestly that I would be like, no, no, no. This is not meant to exist in the world. I am not going to plague God. But I'm not fully prepared to tell you that. Okay? Now I'm not saying I've made my mind up 100%, but I'm telling you there's a very good chance that I would hit that inner button. Because selfishly I want to see a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Why? I don't need to see one. Nobody needs to see one really, as far as I'm concerned. They've been gone for millions of years. They don't they don't play a role I don't think they're going to do anything helpful here. It's just dumb, stupid like human curiosity. You know, you want to see something like that. And that may end up being the undoing of humanity, frankly. But um but seriously, you know, ask yourself that question. Would you do it? Would you hit the enter button? I mean, I don't know. But I'm just being honest with you, I probably would. Curiosity killed the cat. But maybe it's not so bad to have a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I mean, maybe if you have a Tyrannosaurus Rex, he's not going to break out and go around and eat everybody. I mean, maybe they are super gentle. They could just be like uh, you know, I used to have a Rottweiler. And yeah, he's scary if you come around the house and you're not supposed to, but the rest of the time he's just a big goofy thing. Very lovable dog. He was gigantic. He was about the size of a black bear, but he thought he could crawl in your lap and you know curl up in your lap. Who knows? Who knows? But anyway, look. I think what you can rest assured of is that yeah, we're gonna have dinosaurs running around again. The technology's there, somebody's gonna do it. For all I know, it's already been done. I don't see a huge reason that it could not have already been done. These are complicated issues, but let me tell you, oh, it's about to get a lot more complicated when we bring humans and human genes and manipulating human genes into this. Oh yeah, it's about to get a lot more complicated. We've known that this was coming for a long time. Well, it's about to arrive. Because now that we can do this, now that we can print genetic code, what that means is that it's just a matter of time before some doctor in some country of this world sits down with a couple of parents and says Do you want your baby to be healthy? Because the baby at this point genetically has, you know, such and such chance of having this problem or that problem. We can go in and we can fix that and make sure that your baby is healthy. That's how it will begin. And of course, of course, uh uh some parent is gonna be like, hell yeah, make my baby healthy, you know, you're not gonna mess with anything else, just make my baby yeah, yeah, yeah. So you make the baby healthy. And then all of a sudden we get all these success stories like, well, I love my baby so much, I had this genetic thing done to make sure my baby is healthy, doesn't have to suffer through the hardships that I suffered through growing up, or that my grandparents suffered through. And then a doctor is gonna come along at some point and say, you know what'd be a really cool gift to give this child? How about we make him live two hundred years instead of one hundred? Because think of all the things that you want to accomplish in your measly one hundred years, and and it's just really not enough time. Let's give this baby two hundred years. And then you have some mom and dad sitting there like, yeah, let's keep our baby around longer than everybody else's baby, you know. Let's let's give him the ultimate gift, the gift of immortality. It's not really immortality, but you know what I'm talking about. So now, you know, so now the baby gets to live 200 years, and then somebody's gonna be like, Well, my baby's gonna live 300 years. Well, at some point, all this evolves into well, um, what do you want the baby to look like? You know, do you want the baby to have big, strong muscles? Because that's kind of nice. Have a strong, strong little Arnold Schwarzenegger baby, little superhero baby, you know? And and when we start breaking it down into that concept that uh I I guess that it's been a year since I've been years since I've seen it. I believe that movie Gattaca gets into this. Even one of the more recent Superman movies sort of um uh described a similar phenomenon happening on the planet Krypton, where not surprisingly, Superman was born. Um so look, this is this is the reality, this is what's coming down the pike. Okay, whether you uh you don't I don't surely you believe me, but even if you don't, does it matter? I'm telling you, this is what's gonna happen, and I think that um we're gonna be there within my lifetime. I really do. Uh if i if there are laws and stuff that resist this, that keep it at bay, uh it may be you know a few hundred years before it becomes more acceptable, but in the meantime, I guarantee you, people are gonna be doing it behind the scenes. So this is something you have to accept. There are gonna be new creatures running around, there are gonna be modified creatures running around, and it really does make you go back and rethink all of these images from ancient times about chimeras, creatures that had like the head of a human and the body of a lion, or you know, whatever, because uh it makes you think that if there indeed was some advanced civilization that visited ancient humans in the past, um they could have already had this technology and not only have created all kinds of freaky things like you see in Egyptian hieroglyphs, but uh also possibly created what you and I are. You know, we are we are modified apes. Uh does that take God out of the picture? No, it doesn't. Because that's no different than saying that the fact that we were able to create a chihuahua from a wolf somehow negates the existence of God. No. I think whatever whatever you think God is, God provided some source material here, and then we tapped into that source material, and then we started reshaping it to our needs, because guess what? You inherited this God-given ability to be a little creator creator yourself, and so that's what's happening. People are being creators right now, and we are getting really good at it, and it's this is gonna be fun to watch. Um, so I'm gonna put a link on my Facebook page and on my Twitter account here to this story from Futurism.com that does a very good job of explaining specifically what's going on and how that we have transitioned from uh genetic engineering into synthetic biology and how simple and how incredibly affordable this has become. It's just i ridiculous. I mean, like it w it costs less than it does for me to go buy dinner tonight to like create a whole race of beings. I mean, it's just like it's it's it's insane. Um so that will be posted for you on uh again those sites. And while I'm digging into sites, I mentioned this yesterday. I want to tell you about something really cool that my friends are producing. You know, I'm here in Puerto Rico, but uh some of my buddies back in North Carolina are producing an amazing event that you might want to be a part of. It's called the Graveyard Adventure and Investigation Van Tour. So if you live near Western North Carolina, you might want to take advantage of this. Last year I hosted a van tour and we had an amazing time, and the co-host was Christian McLeod of the Asheville Cryptid Society. Well, Christian is also the co-host of this one, but this time he's teaming up with Daniel Hurst from MD Paranormal. Uh and if you don't know what MD Paranormal is, they're based out of Marion, North Carolina. I suggest you go to speakingofstrange.com. That's one of the that's the radio show that I created years ago that I still own and executive produce. If you go to speakingofstrange.com, you can click a banner there that gives you a lot of information about MD and what they do. I'm going to be talking more about MD later on at a future podcast, but for now, I'm just going to read you the description of this event. Um this event is going to take place overnight, of course, March 24th into March 25th of this year. So that's going to be next month. It's just a little over a month away. Uh everybody's going to meet at Well Played in downtown Asheville. That's a really cool bar. It's a board game bar that's owned by some of my great friends Kevin and Steve. And so everybody meets at Well Played. And here's the description. In association with Joshua P. Warren's Haunted Asheville and the Asheville Mystery Museum, as well as the Asheville Cryptid Society, MD Paranormal and Cryptid Investigations, we would like to invite you on a graveyard adventure and investigation van tour. We guarantee you will feel the chills run down your spine as we tour and investigate some of Western North Carolina's most haunted and creepy places. Our expedition will begin at 3 PM with a meet and greet at Asheville's game shop well played. We'll then board the mystery van and make our way to Asheville's infamous Riverside Cemetery. By the way, let me just pause to say Riverside such a classic old school American cemetery. That's where Thomas Wolfe is buried. That's where where Vance is buried the author O'Henry. So anyway, says next we'll stop for a bite to eat in one of Western North Carolina's most haunted taverns, and then we will venture to the historically gruesome Allison Deaver House. That is in Transylvania County, by the way, and it is the most it's it's the oldest house in Western North Carolina. Very haunted. There was a murder there. Anyway, it says um near this location we'll make a trek to a spooky surprise stop. And then it says, excuse me, I'm still uh I've been doing a lot of talking. Our group will have the privilege to unearth and discover secrets of the grave and beyond. And lastly, we will journey to Helen's Bridge while attempting to evoke the entity within and then complete our venture heading back to Well Played. So this is going to be led by Christian McLeod of the Asheville Cryptid Society and Daniel Hearst, who is with MD. All guests must be twenty-one years or older and provide current ID, and you've got to sign a signature waiving liability. You've got to sign a document providing your signature to waive liability. So anyway, if you are interested in being one of the people on this van, obviously there are only so many seats on a van. So if you want to do this, um I recommend you go to Asheville Cryptid Society.com and you'll find a link there. Or if you go to speakingofstrange.com and you click the banner to MD Paranormal, you should be able to scroll down and find a link to their online store, which will also have tickets. But again, that's coming up in um just a little over a month, so I hope that you will check that out. While you're on the internet and you're clicking around, you're having fun. Always want to remind you, my personal website is called joshua pwarren.com. There is no period after the pee. If you go to joshuapeewarren.com, you can spend hours there looking at amazing videos and photos and content that will leave you scratching your head. There's a curiosity shop there. You'll find a link at the top to the big event that I am producing in Las Vegas this May. And you'll find a link to this podcast. This podcast is called Joshua P. Warren Daily. That's because I try to record one for you every day. It's always short, it's always free, and uh you can subscribe there via various means when you click that little red box that tells you about the podcast. Or you can follow me on Twitter, and that's at Joshua P. Warren, and I usually tweet when a new one is available. I have a big busy day tomorrow. Um for one thing, tomorrow night I'll be with Heather Wade on Midnight in the Desert for about four hours, and you can listen to that live. So uh I'm not sure if I'll be recording another podcast tomorrow. I might skip a day since I have to do so much talking tomorrow night. But uh tomorrow, Dave Schrader's new podcast with me will be posted uh on his uh forum there, Beyond the Darkness. So a lot of cool stuff going on. Uh hey, as usual, thank you for your interest, thank you for your support, thank you for staying curious, and I will talk to you again soon.