3 ms·
The next antibiotic is in a pile of dirt somewhere. The next virus antibody is in an animal somewhere. Nature is way better than humans at scale for biochemis
by jleyank 5y ago
The next antibiotic is in a pile of dirt somewhere. The next virus antibody is in an animal somewhere. Nature is way better than humans at scale for biochemistry and has been doing it way longer. Before modern computer or X-ray based drug design there were whole animal and collect-and-test. Chemists can tune better than nature but evolutionary pressure is amazing and can be harvested.
- drBonkers 5y agoThere's an animated piece on Netflix called Midnight Gospel. In it, the ability to simulate universes is invented. As a result, there are technology farms that harvest technologies developed in the simulated universes (rather than invent their own). How we harvest nature's "technology" reminds me of this.
- radicaldreamer 5y agoIt's a pretty good strategy to be honest... much better than hoping to get lucky in the lab by yourself (even with a handful of postdocs)
- RangerScience 5y agoThere's an old Theodore Sturgeon story about this, where a man makes a tiny, ultra-fast civilization 'in his basement' and then learns from them, not-quite passing off this inventions as his own.
- drBonkers 5y agoOh, the writers of Rick and Morty have an arc with this premise. Fun to know they got the idea from Sturgeon.