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Unit Five Biology I. Text 1.1 Before Reading The Biotech Century Never before in history has humanity been so unprepared for the new technological and economic opportunities, challenges, and risks that lie on the horizon. Our way of life is likely to be more fundamentally transformed in the next several decades than in the previous one thousand years. Here are just a few examples of what could happen within the next twenty-five years. A handful of global corporations, research institutions, and governments could hold patents on virtually all 100,000 genes that make up the blueprints of the human race, as well as the cells and organs that comprise the human body. They may also own similar patents on tens of thousands of micro-organisms, plants, and animals. Global agriculture could find itself in the midst of a great transition in world history, with an increasing volume of food and fiber being grown indoors. The shift to indoor agriculture could presage the eventual elimination of the agricultural era. While indoor agriculture could mean cheaper prices and a more abundant supply of food, millions of farmers in both the developing and developed world could be uprooted from the land, sparking one of the great social upheavals in world history. 　　 Tens of thousands of novel transgenic viruses, plants and animals could be released into the Earths ecosystems. Some of those releases, however, could wreak havoc with the planets biosphere, spreading destabilizing and even deadly genetic pollution across the world. Military uses of the new technology might have equally devastating effects on the Earth and its inhabitants. Genetically engineered biological warfare agents could pose as serious a threat to global security in the coming century as nuclear weapons do now. Animal and human cloning could be commonplace, with replication partially replacing reproduction for the first time in history. Genetically customized and mass-produced animal clones could be used as chemic