Preserving the Past

TAE posits that the film adaptation of "Mimsy Were the Borogroves", "The Last Mimzy" is actually a fairly intelligent idea: future humans might need our DNA to save themselves. TAE further posits that we should all be freezing a sample of our cells, now, in case we need them later.

The argument in "Mimzy" is that future humans have mutated, due to some unexplained ecological crisis, into beings lacking viable immune systems. They live in bizarre suits. A scientist sends back in time inanimate objects and a robotic rabbit hoping the rabbit will obtain a DNA sample from a human of the past, while the "toys" are actually the tools necessary to open a wormhole to the future and return the rabbit to the scientist.

Back in reality, TAE has to wonder about the recent gammy ray burst that was so powerful that it blinded several telescopes that monitor x-rays. It was that power - and it was 5 billion light years away. One of Gregg Easterbrook's favorite topics is the fact that a gamma ray burst from a distant star could wipe out life on Earth; there is literally nothing we could do to stop it, and it could already be on its way here.

So TAE wonders: could a gamma ray burst, not strong enough to wipe out life, but strong enough to cause massive radiative DNA damage, be the impetus for needing to preserve human DNA in some form?
Imagine it this way: suddenly we wake up one morning and we're all radiated. Many humans on the side of the planet that was in the direct path of the GRB die within a week or so from radiation poisoning and organ failure. Within the next few years, many millions more of the "dark side survivors" also die from endemic cancers. Women who attempt to get pregnant have such massively damaged eggs (and their male partners such massively damaged sperm) that the eggs either immediately self-abort, or the fetuses do not make it full term. Humanity, it seems, is about to go extinct.

Enter the library of adult human cells. Bucking "ethics", humans could remove the DNA from female egg cells, and replace it with the DNA from the preserved adult cells. The eggs, now apoptic-mutation-free, could be carried to term by the surviving women, who would basically have regenerated the current generation of humans, only this time without the problematic genetic mutations. We could even pay bonuses to women who carried twins or triplets, to help rapidly regenerate the human population.

The parent generation would be a total loss, as they'd die without kids. But they'd basically just try again, as the children they raised. Talk about second life!

In any case, it seems like cryogenic storage of cells is a relatively cheap and easy process, and banking a large and diverse number of adult cells would ensure that a future generation of humans, should the above scenario occur (or a variant), would minimize inbreeding and help restore humanity to its pre-cataclysm glory.



Now, having finished writing this entry, it occurs to me that if I ever run for public office my opponent will use entries like this to play me off as a crackpot. So be it.
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