Life

Available for over a year

FutureProofing is a new series in which presenters Timandra Harkness and Leo Johnson examine the implications - social and cultural, economic and political - of the big ideas that are set to transform the way our society functions. Episode 1: Life. FutureProofing explores why emerging bio-technology will transform how we understand and control life itself. Timandra and Leo discuss the consequences for humankind with leading genetic scientists and designers - people who are now able to create and manipulate the very building blocks of life. The programme examines the results of inventing and editing life forms; how easy it is to become a bio-hacker; why the FBI has decided to adopt a strangely relaxed attitude towards such potentially catastrophic experimentation; and how a new understanding of biology as a software engineering system that we can design has profound consequences for the way we think about Life in future. Producer: Jonathan Brunert.