CNN reports scientists are close to extracting Leonardo da Vinci's DNA from paintings and other items he touched:
"Artist, inventor and anatomist Leonardo da Vinci was the definition of a Renaissance man - and scientists are aiming to unlock the secrets of his genius on a genetic level. But more than 500 years after his death in 1519, it has proved virtually impossible. He never had children, and his grave site in France was destroyed during the French Revolution. Scientists participating in the Leonardo da Vinci Project have taken an inventive approach: sampling his artifacts for DNA."
Long story short, they've developed new techniques that allow them to extract DNA from items used or worn by people long ago. The more they work at it, the better they get at reaching further and further back. Soon, they'll have the complete genome of da Vinci, with which they hope to understand and replicate his genius.
My reaction:
If you have an organism's full genetic code, you can clone it. This has been done with microbes, plants, fungi, and more recently, animals... even mammals. First it was sheep. In 2018 scientists cloned monkeys. Human cloning has been made illegal in many countries, but some countries (and some scientists) have vowed to continue experimenting. Very few believe it isn't possible. Many believe it has already been achieved in secret.
In any case, put that together with this news story, and now we're months away from being able to clone Leonardo da Vinci.
And any other famous person who lived in the past several hundred years.
And my grandmother, whose DNA is surely retrievable from the blankets, clothing, household items, family heirlooms, and other stuff she left behind. And probably old uncle Jerry, too... but maybe we'll just leave him alone...
Point being, we can (maybe not legally or morally, but we can) already "bring back" pretty much anyone (human or otherwise) who lived since the 1800s. After just 10 years, they've made breakthroughs in leaps and bounds, and now using artificial intelligence, rapidly gaining the ability to reach back further into the past.
When I say "bring back", I'm talking about their physical living body. As far as I know, that would also bring back their personality, quirks, likes and dislikes, behaviour, etc. What it wouldn't bring back is any memories they made during their previous life.
Which might be for the better. After all, grandma was "ready to go" at the end of her life. If I brought her back, memories intact, she might have a stern word or two for me! But then again, one of the main reasons she was "ready" was that her body was failing her, and life had become unpleasant. With a new body, maybe she'd be happier than ever before? Who knows.
Davinci died over 5 centuries ago, but we're getting close to obtaining his DNA. If the techniques are reaching further back all the time, it won't be long before they can collect samples from 20 centuries ago - the Shroud of Turin, pieces of the original cross, or some ancient scroll... and resurrect Jesus. Would he grow into a man with supernatural powers and a direct connection to the Creator of the universe? Did the Son of God have special genetics, or was he just a mix of Joseph and Mary? Perhaps we'll soon find out, although I think a few groups are going to have objections.
Who really owns DNA? Is there such thing as privacy once you're dead? Or after you die, is your DNA fair game to be collected, analyzed, and used? After all, Leondaro da Vinci isn't being given the option to say "no" to this. Dozens of scientists are working full time to piece it together, and then use it to figure out what made him unique. I don't hear anyone standing up in his defense, or any talk of his rights. He's gone, and he can't stop us... so apparently it's a mad rush to see who can reassemble his genome fastest.
Imagine the 3-letter-agencies, with all their clandestine experiments and technologies, turning their attention to resurrecting certain historical figures? Like Sun Tzu... we could find out why he was so brilliant at military strategy, maybe put some of it to use today. Or Hitler, find out what made him tick, maybe weaponize it for modern use. Maybe they'll raise up someone's deceased loved one use them for nefarious purposes.
To say nothing of our ability to harvest DNA from extinct species, including dinosaurs in much the way they did in the fictious film Jurassic Park. These techniques are making it easier to go further back, and with greater accuracy. We could even bring back extinct microbes, including eradicated diseases. So many possibilities.
Meanwhile, CNN brings up none of that. Just a bit of entertainment value to be gained from the idea of scraping together a famous ancient figure's genetic code. Just something to be aware of, but not think deeply about. And certainly not something to be alarmed about. Not even worthy of a quick blog post. Back to your day, nothing to see here.
DRutter
How to bring memories back? If you clone a human is impossible to bring the same consciousness back before the death unless you got all stored in a computer before dying somehow which for now is still impossible.
If they succeed, great, at least it'll be nice to see the famous Da Vinci again, though it'd scare some people. But if they don't, great too. Not everything can work out in life, even in science.
I'm not in favor of our overlords cloning armies to replace us. However simply cloning DNA doesn't create people, and it is the environment in which DaVinci emerged that created his person and that enabled him to achieve remarkable understanding that stood out from the society of that day. It would not be so remarkable today.
The DNA isn't a mechanism that creates our persons. It is a mechanism that provide the physical structure, the scaffolding, if you will, our persons inhabit. Dr. Michael Levin has shown that our physiology, in fact, is planned and built not according to instructions encoded in our DNA, but in the consciousness our cells are availed. The cells communicate this physiological (and presumably our ego, the self, which is a management mechanism for the collective consciousness our cells share) plan through bioelectrical signaling. Levin has successfully learned to interfere with these communications in other species, enabling this physiological plan to be dramatically altered. He has enabled frogs to regrow limbs, for example, which they, like us, do not normally do, and has created planaria (flatworms) to adopt two or even three-headed body plans, which planaria do not normally do.*
In doing this he did not alter the DNA at all, nor change the chemistry of any physiological process in any way - except interfering with the bioelectrical intercellular signaling cells of macrocellular organisms communicate the body plans they grow from a single fertilized ovum. Simply reproducing the DNA a creature receives does not create their person, their self, that this intercellular network designs, and his research proves this.
Have a look at what he has shown and you will see that we are part of an organized consciousness collective that itself organizes our physiological body plan using the infrastructure our DNA provides, and also certainly imparts our ego, our sense we are an individual conscious person, and not the DNA.
Thanks!
Edit: *Significantly, while planaria will regrow from severed parts, like a starfish, when two headed planaria Dr. Levin has caused to be grown are separated into parts, each of those parts then regrows planaria with two heads. He does not have to again interfere with their growth. The collective consciousness of the shared intercellular network continues to follow the physiological plan Levin imparted to them prior to amputating the head of the two headed planaria from which subsequent generations are produced. This clearly is not something DNA does. It is the conscious decision of that collective consciousness macrocellular organisms manage via bioelectrical signaling.
This consciousness isn't created by our DNA, but is imparted by the consciousness of the sperm and egg, that each are members of the collective consciousness they sprang from, and thereby decide the nature of the new collective they are forming. DaVinci clones would not have these consciousnesses from the parents of the original DaVinci, and geneticists have no understanding of this aspect of cells, nor I suspect, do our overlords. The cells of the DaVinci clone would be availed of the consciousness of the egg they employ to impart the DNA they cobble together, and this would be much different than the original had. I doubt the clone would even physically mirror the original, because it is the physiology decided upon by the collective consciousness that chooses the specific physiology they design.
God help us if our overlords realize how to do this to us, as Levin has learned how to do this to planaria and frogs. For example, Levin has not learned how to regrow the frog from the severed limb, while planaria will regrow the whole planaria from a severed tail. Clearly the cellular network has the ability to decide to regrow a frog from the cells of the limb, because planaria do that, and so do starfish. Did our overlords know how to regrow entire people from a severed finger, I cannot imagine the horrors they would create, other than the vats containing all the severed parts of their clones being regrown into whole bodies. That is all the horror I can stand, already.