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Reinventing the Body : The Illusion of Reality
Science fiction writers have long dreamed of breathing life into the inanimate, whether Pinocchio, Frankenstein or Edward Scissorshands.
From the first mechanical hummingbirds created by clockmakers to the synthetic images of larger-than-life dinosaurs, from the android automatons of the 18th century to the anthropomorphic robots of the year 2000, it has always been a question of programming. Whatever the materials or the external resemblance, what connects these imitations to living beings is, first and foremost, the program that controls them. The perforated roller of the early automaton has simply been replaced by the electronic information behind the virtual image or the robot.
In biotechnology laboratories, it is similarly the information in the genetic code that is at the heart of the issue. The genes which researchers modify in order to transform bacteria, plants and animals are simply the program that governs living things.
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