If you could alter your DNA, what changes would you make? Would you choose to grow a stronger jawline or add muscles that would help you run faster? Have you ever wished for gills or wings?
A team of Chinese researchers may have been asking themselves the same questions when they announced in 2015 that they had tried to alter the DNA of nonviable human embryos. Their experiment failed: Many of the embryos showed unexpected mutations.
Scientists around the world called for a moratorium on all such research, but perhaps someday some individuals will try to change their DNA, regardless of the risks.
What If We Could Redesign Our DNA?
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/10/opinion/11tp-mello.html
How would people redesign their bodies, if they could? We can’t anticipate the technology involved in such a makeover, and have instead imagined that you will step into a booth, enter your wish on a screen and emerge transformed. The Brazilian illustrator Roger Mello has fancifully envisioned the results.
Opera Singer
To be able to sing in chorus, so there is no one else onstage to distract the audience.
Photographer
To steady my hand and eye so I snap the shutter without shimmy or flutter.
Philosopher
To fly, in hopes that my thoughts likewise won’t be earthbound.
Astronaut
To tap energy from the stars so I can see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.
Spy
To transmogrify so I can peek through any crack or crevice — and perhaps creep through it, too
Professional Cyclist
To become so lean and steely that my steed and I are one.
Stock Trader
To expand my hand amid the bidding crowd on the exchange floor
Bureaucrat
To develop the dexterity to rubber-stamp, refer or defer requests without staying one second past quitting time.
Fisherman
To grow fins so I can stalk the fish wherever they swim.
Actor
To adopt whatever identity a casting call requires.
Executive
To clone myself so I can be everywhere at once, thus achieving work-life balance.
Novelist
To expand my imagination so that my writing demands less perspiration.