Engineered virus which hacks & controls brain: Do you mind?

Viruses and bacteria are manipulating the chemicals inside the human body and, by programming them to send the right agents into the brain, the bio-programmer potentially can take control over the victim’s behavior.

We are seeing the opening stages of the synthetic biology industry. Some basic tasks like decoding, insertion and excision of parts of the DNA, and relatively successful attempts of cloning is pretty much everything that modern science can carry through.

But in the ’80s, computer science technology was actually at the same level of maturity. At that time no one could really believe that 20 years later any person would have a greater power over the computer – and not only the one that belongs to him – than the best present-day programmers.

Cells are living computers and DNA is a programming language that can be used to control and influence life forms, believes Andrew Hessel of Singularity University, on NASA's research campus.

“Synthetic biology – the writing of life,” Hessel says. “It's growing fast. It will grow faster than computer technologies.”

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