We already plant gene-spliced crops on tens of millions of acres. We can order genes from catalogs. Within a few years we will be able to read the code for our very selves and reach in and tinker with it. It is only a matter of time before hackers appear who think it might be fun, as computer hackers do, to create and release their own viruses. The stock market is speculating on this stuff.
National leaders ask companies, politely, to make their knowledge available to all.
We need to do much more than that, more than just fasten our seatbelts and go along for the ride. We need to slow down and think together about where this technology is going and who should own it and who should decide. For genomics it is still the day after Trinity. Donella Meadows is an adjunct professor at Dartmouth College and the director of the Sustainability Institute in Hartland, Vermont. For ABC News superstar Diane Sawyer, it was all in a day's work.