Time to start searching for the Probaway Person of the Year

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Probaway Person of the Year 2018, The creation of heavy elements

This blog began on January 2nd, 2008, with Probaway Person of the Year, and I have repeated that search every year since. It was prompted by the TIME Person of the Year being persons who were not going to be remembered for very long. Thus my search strategy was to place myself five hundred years into the future and ask, “Who did something in that year that is still remembered?” Neil Armstrong, who first set foot on the Moon, will be remembered but John F. Kennedy, who set the whole effort into motion, won’t be remembered.

The complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2017 – Albert Einstein for predicting black holes, their collisions creating gravity waves, and the laser for observing the gravity waves.
• 2016 – Xi Jinping for taking China from a backward economy to the most powerful one on Earth.
• 2015 – Peter Higgs and Alan Guth created theories that led to proofs this year of mass and gravity sources.
• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

These may seem like strange choices but they are people involved in potentially long-term-memorable events which had a major tipping point the year before their selection.

At the moment the discovery of the collision of two neutron stars by the LIGO instruments, while similar to last year’s pick, is of Universal importance. It begins a whole new era of astronomy, but the LIGO instrument was also involved in the reason why last year Albert Einstein was chosen. After the neutron star collision was detected by LIGO the web network permitted many of the major visual telescopes of the world to observe the results of the collision. This is of great importance because they were able to see the Fraunhofer lines and thus to discover the source of the heavy elements on the Periodic Table of Elements. The energy needed to create some elements is greater than is produced by a supernova. Nearly all the elements necessary for life are the lighter ones, but there may be some of the heavy ones that are needed. Trace elements in the human body include boron, chromium, cobalt, copper, fluorine, iodine, iron, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, silicon, tin, vanadium, and zinc. I don’t know at this time if any of these elements need a neutron star collision for their formation, but some are candidates.

The discovery of the creation of the heavy elements of the Universe is a major event.

Probaway Person of the Year, Albert Einstein

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Albert Einstein, Gravity waves, High frequency lasers, LIGO, Probaway Person of the Year

The Probaway Person of the Year is Albert Einstein who one hundred years ago predicted black holes, the collision of black holes and those collisions forming gravity waves in the time-space continuum and he laid the groundwork for lasers which were used for detecting the gravity waves last year. He died in sixty-two years ago but the search for gravity waves was conducted because of his prediction based on his General Theory of Relativity.

Albert Einstein when a child

Albert Einstein when a student about age 19.

Albert Einstein January 1903 a year before publishing the four miracle papers.

The LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) instruments using advanced laser measuring tools detected the gravity waves created by the collision of two 30 solar mass black hole objects. Einstein predicted and did the math for 1. Black holes, 2. Black hole collisions, 3. Gravity waves, and 4. Lasers.

Predicted in 1916 by Albert Einstein on the basis of his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves transport energy as gravitational radiation, a form of radiant energy similar to electromagnetic radiation.

On 11 February 2016, the LIGO collaboration announced the first observation of gravitational waves; because these waves were generated from a black hole merger it was the first ever direct detection of a binary black hole merger. 

Note that Einstein did all of those things essential to the discovery of gravitational waves one hundred years ago in 1916, but it took that many years to develop the technology necessary to prove his gravity wave theory. We must thank the thousands of people who worked on the LIGO project, and the millions of people that were responsible for creating the background technology that was necessary for these scientists to do their work, and the billions of people who through their purchasing of modern products supplied the money and the inputs to do those extraordinary things. This is ongoing research that is providing a new form of a telescope to observe the workings of our universe. Strange things are being discovered that are putting us into our place and time in the Universe. Albert Einstein – A Genius Amongst Men is a documentary video of Einstein’s life.

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The complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2017 – Albert Einstein for predicting black holes, their collisions creating gravity waves, and the laser for observing the gravity waves.
• 2016 – Xi Jinping for taking China from a backward economy to the most powerful one on Earth.
• 2015 – Peter Higgs and Alan Guth created theories that lead to proofs this year of mass and gravity sources.
• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

These may seem like strange choices but they are potentially long-term-memorable events which had a major tipping point the year before their selection.

A possible Probaway Person of the Year, Albert Einstein

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Albert Einstein, Black holes demonstrated, Black holes merge, Gravity waves discovered, Gravity waves predicted, Lasers, LIGO, Photo of young Albert Einstein, Probaway Person of the Year

The Probaway Person of the Year won’t be decided for another three weeks until the year is over. On January 1, 2017, the person will be chosen, but Albert Einstein is a top candidate even though he died 18 April 1955 (aged 76) in Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

Albert Einstein age 19

The LIGO instruments using advanced laser measuring tools detected the gravity waves created by the collision of two 30 solar mass black hole objects. Einstein predicted and did the math for 1. Gravity waves, 2. Lasers, 3. Black holes, and 4. Black hole collisions.

Predicted in 1916 by Albert Einstein on the basis of his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves transport energy as gravitational radiation, a form of radiant energy similar to electromagnetic radiation.

On 11 February 2016, the LIGO collaboration announced the first observation of gravitational waves; because these waves were generated from a black hole merger it was the first ever direct detection of a binary black hole merger. 

Note that Einstein did all of those things essential to the discovery of gravitational waves one hundred years ago in 1916, but it took that many years to develop the technology necessary to prove his gravity wave theory. We must thank the thousands of people who worked on the LIGO project, and the millions of people that were responsible for creating the background technology that was necessary for these scientists to do their work, and the billions of people who through their purchasing of modern products supplied the money and the inputs to do those extraordinary things. This is ongoing research that is providing a new form of telescope to observe the workings of our universe. Strange things are being discovered that are putting us into our place and time in the Universe.

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I was discussing my next Probaway Person of the Year this morning with “Nicolai Tesla” and we were comparing the creation of the Oculus Rift with the LIGO project as being remembered in 500 years. The Rift might be a major turning point in human perception of reality, perhaps even more profound than the computer, or the web, because it gets into a person’s physical reality at a deeper level. The LIGO discovery of gravity waves, by comparison, has a fundamental impact on how humans perceive their relationship with the Universe. It is an opening door that may have the impact of the optical telescope for expanding our understanding. Both are important!

A possible Probaway Person of the Year, Palmer Luckey

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Palmer Luckey, person of the year, Probaway Person of the Year, Probaway Person of the Year 2017, Virtual Reality, VR

The Probaway Person of the Year won’t be decided for another month, until January 2017, but Palmer Luckey has done more than any other person to bring Virtual Reality into a functioning computer-mediated reality available to the public.

Palmer Luckey, the creator of workable Virtual Reality, Oculus Rift, speaking at D.I.C.E. 2014 Summit

There have been a few quick attempts to get VR out to the public before Luckey, by other giants of the media and computer world, but Luckey forced them to do it. The Oculus Rift VR reality system is probably going to be a grand opening for the entertainment media because it has enough quality to be satisfying. The lesser attempts are only introductory and stop-gap devices put out by others who are finally seeing the light of its possibilities. These early attempts are failures and soon to be forgotten because they do not have the presence to feel real, and often leave viewers feeling sick. Luckey’s machines pass that threshold of acceptability, at least for playing properly designed games, and the greater powers needed for fully functioning human reality are being explored. It will take vast amounts of money to explore the possibilities of VR, but Luckey has provided the impetus to invest the money, and the money is now flowing.

The Probaway method for searching for the Person of the Year is to look back from a postulated five-hundred years in the future and pick the event that will still be remembered at that distant time. A good example of how that strategy is used is to compare President John F. Kennedy proposing to send a man to the Moon in the early 60s, which will be forgotten after 500 years, with Neil Armstrong’s actually putting his foot on the Moon, which will be remembered, if of course there are sentient beings to do the remembering. The only other contender for that permanent fame would be Buzz Aldrin because he spoke the very first words spoken on the Moon. He said, “Contact light,” when the lander’s sensors detected the landing gear touched down. Of course the prepared words, “One small step for a man, one giant step for mankind,” will be remembered, even though they were said hours later when Armstrong stepped off the spacecraft ladder onto the surface of the Moon.

Virtual Reality is an entirely new medium. In about five years, plus or minus four, it will have enough computer power to create presence enough to really feel that you are talking with someone who is actually there. At first VR is going to be limited to games, but the VR games will feel completely different from other computer games because they will have more of the emotional feeling of immediacy, of being immersed in reality with computer-generated beings. A well executed VR game will be scaled to fit your body and thus will give you the sense of presence of actually being in the scene. It will probably be soon followed by the military using the technology to train soldiers for combat, and perhaps to engage in actual combat. It will be helpful for scientists to clarify what they are thinking about if they have more real models to work with. Education will be helped because the students will be able to engage more fundamentally in the realities of what they are exploring. Movies designed for VR will become more real, because of the personal presence felt, and there will be times when the VR will permit you to engage in the action of the movie, and affect the outcome, and thus to create even more presence for the viewer and virtual participants. These other virtual participants may be human, or not, and be alive and playing in some distant land.

Other people, I am considering for 500-year fame, would obviously include Donald Trump. At the moment Trump hasn’t done anything unusual other than being elected President of the United States, and someone was bound to be elected, so being elected isn’t unusual, it’s even a foregone conclusion. There is the chance that he will do something next year that will make him famous, or infamous, but not yet. Last year I chose Xi Jinping because he had conducted China from being a third-world country into being the greatest economic powerhouse on Earth. Perhaps Trump will do the same. He claims he will make America great again, but much of his personal track record for his companies is exactly the opposite. We will see, but:

It is rare to get onto the Probaway Person of the Year list and common to fail in attempting great enterprises. 

Probaway Person of the Year Xi Jinping

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Probaway Person of the Year 2016, Remembered in 500 years, Xi Jinping

The proof that Xi Jinping, the President of China, is being successful is that China poured more concrete in the two years between 2011 and 2013 than the U.S. poured in the entire 20th century. This progress created more atmospheric pollution than any other country, but China is now leading the world in the Paris Green anti-pollution revolution. Xi has guided the world’s most populous backward country into being what will be seen in 500 years as the most successfully progressive country ever, and in doing so he will be remembered as the founder of a dynasty. Some of his quotations, “There are some bored foreigners, with full stomachs, who have nothing better to do than point fingers at us. First, China doesn’t export revolution; second, China doesn’t export hunger and poverty; third, China doesn’t come and cause you headaches. What more is there to be said?” “Our people […] expect better education, more stable jobs, better income, more reliable social security, medical care of a higher standard, more comfortable living conditions, and a more beautiful environment.” Xi also vowed to tackle corruption at the highest levels, alluding that it would threaten the Party’s survival.

Xi Jinping, the President of the People’s Republic of China

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The complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2017 – Albert Einstein for predicting black holes, their collisions creating gravity waves, and the laser for observing the gravity waves.
• 2016 – Xi Jinping for taking China from a backward economy to the most powerful one on Earth.
• 2015 – Peter Higgs and Alan Guth created theories that lead to proofs this year of mass and gravity sources.
• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

These may seem like strange choices but they are potentially long-term-memorable events which had a major tipping point the year before their selection.

Probaway – Person of the year 2015 – Peter Higgs and Alan Guth

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Alan Guth, Permanently memorable people, Peter Higgs, Probaway Person of the Year 2015

The points of the theories of Peter Higgs and Alan Guth are many orders of magnitude different in size and yet they are as nearly identical as it is possible to be. The physical proof of Guth’s theory, of how our Universe came to be as it is, was slow in coming but it finally did arrive this year. His original theoretical observations were published back in 1980. They concerned the expansion of our universe, the biggest observable thing there is, during the first second of its existence. In contrast Higgs’ theory refers to the tiniest of things, the eponymous Higgs boson, just observed last year in tiny explosions at the ATLAS high energy hadron particle collider. His theory was published in the 1960s. Both of these men’s work is inextricably pulled together both theoretically and in physical reality by gravity, and what gravity has pulled together I will leave together for the Probaway Person of the Year 2015.

Alan Guth, creator of the theory of the first few seconds of the Universe including gravity. – Picture derived from Steve Pyke, Esquire magazine 17March2014

Peter Higgs created the theory of the Higgs boson. It was just proven to exist this year in subatomic particles. It is the source of mass, that is gravity. – Picture derived from theguardian.com 6Dec13

What they each discovered could be found anywhere in the Universe, by any technologically sophisticated civilization, because it is so fundamental to our existence. But, on our Earth it was Higgs and Guth that discovered these fundamental things for us.

The complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2017 – Albert Einstein for predicting black holes, their collisions creating gravity waves, and the laser for observing the gravity waves.
• 2016 – Xi Jinping for taking China from a backward economy to the most powerful one on Earth.
• 2015 – Peter Higgs and Alan Guth created theories that lead to proofs this year of mass and gravity sources.
• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

These may seem like strange choices but they are potentially long-term-memorable events which had a major tipping point the year before their selection.

David Deamer has another shot at Probaway Person of the Year

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David Deamer, Probaway Person of the Year

A couple of months ago David Deamer gave a lecture here in our remote little town of Bend, Oregon. He was reporting on his progress in creating life following in the footsteps provided by nature. His efforts follow the natural process and that required him to create a method for getting proteins from outside a cell to inside a cell, and that required him to create a special kind of pore in the surface of a cell.

Cell membrane showing a protein channel

While considering this problem back in 1989 Deamer sketched his idea of how that might be done.

Deamer’s original sketch of a method for transferring proteins thru a channel

He realized that DNA strings composed of the four nucleobases, adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine, commonly abbreviated as A,C, G and T, going through the channel would be of varying sizes and charges. Those varying sizes would stress the channel walls and that if that stress could be measured it would be possible to sequence the DNA strings. A quarter of a century later, and a quarter of a billion dollars invested in a device, and that sequencing is now possible in a first generation product named MinION. This device is the size of a pack of cards and can be hooked to a USB on a computer and deliver reasonably accurate DNA sequences in very long strings. This device might, when manufactured in quantity, be as cheap as a cell phone, and then the price for sequencing DNA will plummet. Thirty years ago whole genome sequencing was impossible, fifteen years ago it cost a billion dollars, at present it is under ten thousand dollars, and who knows, but in a few years it may be so cheap everyone will have their DNA on a personal memory chip. The implications of this technology are fantastic.

In a few years you may have your DNA on a memory chip because of David Deamer, and that is why this is a second reason he is on my short list for Probaway Person of the Year.

Probaway Person of the Year – 2015 – contender David Deamer

From out of deep time and deep outer space David Deamer comes into my life to contend for my Probaway Person of the Year title of 500 year memorability. I had previously published Probaway person of the year – 2015 – contender Alan Guth, and considered nothing capable of displacing his accomplishment. Even if former winners, 2011 – Craig Venter, or 2014 – Jennifer Doudna, succeeded in creating the complete life package from nonliving materials, I didn’t think they should displace the first trillionth of a second creation of the universe revelation as a memorable personal accomplishment of the previous year.

David Deamer lecturing to an overflow audience at the Tower Theater in Bend, Oregon

But then, David Deamer comes to Bend, Oregon, USA, such a tiny place that I have to put the state name added to the city name for Americans to even have a clue where it is, and probably have to put the country name USA on the address for most people of the world to even know where Oregon is located.

Deamer came here and gave what was a perfect lecture spanning acceptable science to a crowd of mostly retirees and a taste of the latest cutting-edge discoveries on the path to the creation of life. Not just the process for creating life on Earth but of life anywhere in the universe. It is a far more complex process than inserting known, albeit manufactured, DNA inside of a cell wall as Venter did, or of generating any DNA code and inserting it exactly where it is wanted in DNA, as did Doudna. Those are obviously incredible feats, but what Deamer is doing is successfully duplicating nature’s processes at each of many steps between nonliving matter and self-reproducing cells. He demonstrated exactly how he found critical places in space and here on Earth where the needed processes could occur. He then did experiments to demonstrate they would occur when he put the right ingredients into those previously existing types of places.

New life could come into existence spontaneously at present but it wouldn’t survive in the wild because it would immediately be eaten by our modern advanced organisms. He showed us a movie of his pouring a porridge of common pre-biotic chemicals into a hot volcanic freshwater pond and having a scum form that was very similar to what was needed in a pre-biotic world to form life and it came very close to generating living cells, even today. It included layering processes which would protect polymerase formations forming from monomers, and a cyclic drying processes that would tighten into layers and form containers. There needed to be methods for cell walls to form, and to form passages, but these would be naturally occurring events in the cracks at junction lines of the cells, and ways for RNA to grow inside a cell and stretch the cell into two similar entities. There were demonstrations in movies of these things happening.

It turns out that all of the processes he discussed were easy to understand as naturally occurring phenomena, and these special things are still happening almost continuously in many places here on early Earth and in outer space. Early life needed to occur only once to get started but there was an ocean dense with opportunities for it to happen as soon as early Earth cooled enough to have liquid water. It probably began frequently and continuously at the beginning, and the best adapted to their local environment survived best and soon they spread and covered the early Earth with stuff that was reproducing itself and evolving, and that’s a definition of life. Once this first cell was growing and pinching off because of excess length, an ongoing struggle would ensue to fill the many unusual new environments that came into existence. That has been going on for billions of years and it brought life through to the Neanderthals, but then one night something very ordinary but very special happened. See – Selection processes – Natural, Sexual, Artificial and Eveish.

Here is the complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter  laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

Probaway person of the year – 2015 – contender Alan Guth

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Allan Guth, Big Bang expansion theory, Evolution of the Universe, person of the year

Each New Year I have chosen a Probaway Person of the Year. The guiding principle is to choose someone who will probably be remembered in 500 years, for something they did in the previous year. The search usually doesn’t begin in March, but Alan Guth’s discovering something that happened in the first millionth of a second of the Big Bang creation of the Universe has got to be a major contender. This same discovery requires an advanced civilization to accomplish, but that civilization could be located anywhere in the entire universe and get the same results. This isn’t just a discovery of the year, it is a discovery of all time.

There is one problem for the definition of the Probaway Person of the Year, being something done the previous year, because Guth proposed this the theory of Big Bang Expansion over thirty years ago, and it was the astronomical observations done at the South Pole over this last year that demonstrated the validity of his theory. Thus what was done this last year would fall most clearly within the preexisting definition, but the efforts and expense to find the markers of his theory would never have been attempted without Guth. Thus, it seems the major credit for the discovery should go to him, and the actual discoverers should have their names mentioned as the provers of the theory but not as its creator. I heard Guth present this theory to a small group in Berkeley over ten years ago, and only spoke to him long enough to thank him for his work, and for making such a strange idea seem so reasonable.

The complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter  laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

Probaway – Person of the year 2014 – Jennifer Doudna

Tags

Artificial life, Controling DNA, CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna

The work of Jennifer Doudna of UC Berkeley will have a huge effect on the future of all life here on Earth and possibly beyond. She and her team have created the ability to insert stretches of DNA exactly where they want them to go in a living chromosome’s DNA. The technique she developed into a practical method is known as CRISPR, and it will enable future living things to create new stuff that even science fiction hasn’t dreamed of yet. The possibilities reside in the realms of the unknownable unknowns, but the door has been opened.

Jennifer Doudna, the creator of workable CRISPR technology.

This technology combined with Craig Venter’s replicator, the design of which could be sent to a distant star system and built there, could enable life of any description to be sent from here to there at the speed of light. This isn’t an Earth-shaking discovery; it is a galaxy-wide enabling of life discovery. It enables life to move though the Universe at the speed of light, and once established to intentionally modify its phenotype to fit the new situation.

The complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2017 – Albert Einstein for predicting black holes, their collisions creating gravity waves, and the laser for observing the gravity waves.
• 2016 – Xi Jinping for taking China from a backward economy to the most powerful one on Earth.
• 2015 – Peter Higgs and Alan Guth created theories that lead to proofs this year of mass and gravity sources.
• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

These may seem like strange choices but they are potentially long-term-memorable events which had a major tipping point the year before their selection.

[Update January 16, 2014]
New Genome-Editing Method Could Make Gene Therapy More Precise and Effective
[Update Febuary 11, 2014]
DNA surgery from MIT