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

Kyle Kurpinski received a Master's degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in bioengineering in the joint graduate group between the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, San Francisco. He is the lead product development engineer at Nanonerve, Inc. 

Terry D. Johnson received his Master's in Chemical Engineering from MIT and is currently a lecturer in the Bioengineering Department at the University of California, Berkeley.

Send in the clones! On second thought, maybe not.
 
CAN IT READ MY MIND?
WILL IT BE EVIL?
HOW DO I STOP IT?
 
Find out the answers to these and other burning questions in this funny, informative, and ingenious book from two bioengineering experts who show you how to survive—and thrive—in a new age of truly weird science.
For decades, science fiction has been alerting us to the wonders and perils of our biotech future—from the prospects of gene therapy to the pitfalls of biological warfare. Now that future looms before us. Don’t panic! This book is all you need to prepare for the new world that awaits us, providing indispensable cautionary advice on topics such as
 
• bioenhancements: They’re not just for cyborgs anymore.
• DNA sequencing and fingerprinting: What’s scarier than the government having your DNA on file? Try having it posted on the Internet.
• human cloning: Just like you, only stronger, smarter, and more attractive. In other words: more dangerous.

Our future may be populated by designer babies, genetically enhanced supersoldiers, and one (or more!) of your genetic duplicates, but all is not lost. How to Defeat Your Own Clone is the ultimate survival guide to what lies ahead. Just remember the first rule of engagement: Don’t ever let your clone read this book!

Publishers Weekly

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.)

Prologue vii

1 The Biotech Revolution: (Engineering Life For Fun and Profit) 3

A brief introduction to the field that will fundamentally change you, and soon.

2 Cloning and You: (and You, and You, and ?) 19

What is this "clone" of which you speak?

3 Common Misconceptions about Cloning and Biotechnology: (Popular Culture Is a Poor Teacher) 51

Various affronts to biology and common sense in print or in film, and why they are all bollocks.

4 Bioenhancements: (Self-Improvement That Really Works!) 73

The human body as a unique fixer-upper opportunity.

5 A Starter Kit for Playing God: (Fiddling with Lower Life-Forms) 117

Frankenfood, human bits grown in plants and animals, and other alternatives to obscene breeding practices.

6 How to Defeat Your Own Clone: (and Look Good Doing It) 139

How to circumvent and defeat you if you and you aren't getting along as well as you would like.

Epilogue 179

Acknowledgments 181