How to Defeat Your Own Clone: And Other Tips for Surviving the Biotech Revolution

Whether you've dreamed of a future with easy “genetic face-lifts and chocolate-flavored broccoli” or shivered from nightmares of “viral warfare and biologically enhanced Richard Simmons clones,” this book will set you straight on the facts behind genetics and cloning—and keep you entertained all the way. Humans, they say, have been practicing genetic engineering for millennia, beginning with early agricultural practices and the domestication of wolves and cattle. But now that scientists have sequenced the human genome, and stem cell research offers potential cures for everything, bioengineers Kurpinski and Johnson want to warn us away from extreme future dystopian scenarios such as eco-collapse and “ultraintelligent überclones” or a utopian paradise where “Money grows on trees. Pigs fly.” Your clone may have the same “DNA blueprint as you, but it won't be you....” Your younger, stronger, healthier clone probably could defeat you in a stand-up fight, but having read this book, you'll be prepared to outsmart it. Kurpinski and Johnson have written a science book that is irreverent, timely, accessible, and, best of all, compulsively readable.(Feb.)