TRUTH BEHIND THE FICTION
At the time I was writing IMMUNITY, the possibility of a pandemic during a presidential election seemed remote indeed. Alex Blake, whose adventures are chronicled in my mysteries, joined the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in the first book in the series to sequence the 1918 Spanish flu genome. In reading about that devastating disease, I began to imagine how a modern day version might affect us, escalating cultural tensions, creating hierarchies among recipients of protective equipment, grounding flights, and revealing how small a safety net we have as a society. All those problems have indeed come to pass with the coronavirus. But we’ve also seen small miracles, great compassion, and new avenues of intimacy. We’ve also seen a flourishing of pandemic art, music, and fashion.
In IMMUNITY, I introduce two computers, Sam and Nat, that run on DNA. The race to create such computers is already underway, as I document in my article "DNA Inside" in the Journal of Life Sciences. Richard Feynman once said, “The inside of a computer is dumb as hell, but it goes like mad.” Computers’ speed comes from their being able to quickly solve problems one step at a time. DNA is much faster. It replicates exponentially and each of the strands can be working on a different aspect of the problem at the same time. And rather than needing a billion dollar dust-free factory to make thousands of silicon chips, you can use a single bacteria cell in a flask lab to produce billions more cells with the same DNA.
In IMMUNITY, I introduce two computers, Sam and Nat, that run on DNA. The race to create such computers is already underway, as I document in my article "DNA Inside" in the Journal of Life Sciences. Richard Feynman once said, “The inside of a computer is dumb as hell, but it goes like mad.” Computers’ speed comes from their being able to quickly solve problems one step at a time. DNA is much faster. It replicates exponentially and each of the strands can be working on a different aspect of the problem at the same time. And rather than needing a billion dollar dust-free factory to make thousands of silicon chips, you can use a single bacteria cell in a flask lab to produce billions more cells with the same DNA.
Barbara Findlay, my fictional lawyer for the AFIP and Alex’s BFF, is concerned about the privacy issues raised by new technologies. Those concerns have dominated my legal career, whether I was writing about genetics or about digital technologies. They formed the basis for my non-fiction book I KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND I SAW WHAT YOU DID: SOCIAL NETWORKS AND THE DEATH OF PRIVACY. With the rise of video conferencing on platforms such as ZOOM, privacy issues are paramount as concerns are raised about hacking, theft of intellectual property, and how the microphone on your computer, once enabled for a call, can record and collect data about other things you happen to say in your home once the call is completed. Brave New World indeed.
Click for Lori's interview on Death of Privacy.
Bloomberg Law
Bloomberg Law