Okay. We have to assume that virtually everyone today is familiar with the term “hacking.” We generally associate this term with computers, and all they mean in our lives. Hackers can be bad or good, depending on your inclinations and politics - freedom fighters of the internet or reckless partygoers endangering us all. But hacking has never been limited to the computer world, and the term “biohacking” is becoming more popular in our everyday world.
So, what exactly is biohacking? The definition of “biohacking” can be extremely fluid. The term “hacking” itself originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a means to describe over-stimulated students tricks, pranks, and machinations. It gradually evolved into the world of computers, …show more content…
Changing your diet to include healthier, natural foods is biohacking in a very real sense, Simply going outside to bask in the sunlight in order to improve your health and increase vitamin D is, indeed, a simple form of biohacking. And humans have been doing this kind of self-improvement for thousands of years. And we have even biohacked other species. That cute puppy cuddling on your lap would possibly be ripping out your throat if we hadn’t biohacked his wolfen ancestors. And modern farmers certainly owe a great debt to their ancient predecessors who tamed wild grains and bred better vegetables. But a simple alteration to our bodies, an improvement here and there, should be of no concern to anyone but ourselves. Breeding animals and plants to serve our needs has certainly proved successful and beneficial. But concerns can certainly arise when the effects of biohacking are ever more far reaching. Should we breed a race of cyber humans, even if it becomes …show more content…
It’s one thing to change, and improve, our bodies by external means. A little more sun, a little less processed food, for instance. But how do we feel about altering ourselves at the most basic level? And how is this even possible? To understand how this can be done we must first unerstand, even is just a little bit, how our biology works. Every single living cell in our bodies contains a complex blueprint, a design, a recipe, for how to create a duplicate This blueprint is contained in a DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). This DNA is shaped like a twisted ladder, with each rung consisting of two elements. Scientists represents these elements as A, C, T, and G. So, a rung of the ladder will consist of a combination of two of these, such as AC, TG, TA, etc. Each blueprint, or ladder, contains millions of rungs, and is made up of chromosomes. Some chromosomes are long, and some are short, depending on the complexity of the organ or tissue for which they are the code. Human DNA, despite its miniscule size, would stretch to over two meters longs if untwisted and unraveled. Each segment of this chain is responsible for its own job. The DNA within each cell will recognize what each cell needs, and instruct the cell to build proteins. Proteins may be though as a tiny, little machines which convert amino acids in the body into new specialized proteins. This is
So, what exactly is biohacking? The definition of “biohacking” can be extremely fluid. The term “hacking” itself originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a means to describe over-stimulated students tricks, pranks, and machinations. It gradually evolved into the world of computers, …show more content…
Changing your diet to include healthier, natural foods is biohacking in a very real sense, Simply going outside to bask in the sunlight in order to improve your health and increase vitamin D is, indeed, a simple form of biohacking. And humans have been doing this kind of self-improvement for thousands of years. And we have even biohacked other species. That cute puppy cuddling on your lap would possibly be ripping out your throat if we hadn’t biohacked his wolfen ancestors. And modern farmers certainly owe a great debt to their ancient predecessors who tamed wild grains and bred better vegetables. But a simple alteration to our bodies, an improvement here and there, should be of no concern to anyone but ourselves. Breeding animals and plants to serve our needs has certainly proved successful and beneficial. But concerns can certainly arise when the effects of biohacking are ever more far reaching. Should we breed a race of cyber humans, even if it becomes …show more content…
It’s one thing to change, and improve, our bodies by external means. A little more sun, a little less processed food, for instance. But how do we feel about altering ourselves at the most basic level? And how is this even possible? To understand how this can be done we must first unerstand, even is just a little bit, how our biology works. Every single living cell in our bodies contains a complex blueprint, a design, a recipe, for how to create a duplicate This blueprint is contained in a DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). This DNA is shaped like a twisted ladder, with each rung consisting of two elements. Scientists represents these elements as A, C, T, and G. So, a rung of the ladder will consist of a combination of two of these, such as AC, TG, TA, etc. Each blueprint, or ladder, contains millions of rungs, and is made up of chromosomes. Some chromosomes are long, and some are short, depending on the complexity of the organ or tissue for which they are the code. Human DNA, despite its miniscule size, would stretch to over two meters longs if untwisted and unraveled. Each segment of this chain is responsible for its own job. The DNA within each cell will recognize what each cell needs, and instruct the cell to build proteins. Proteins may be though as a tiny, little machines which convert amino acids in the body into new specialized proteins. This is