Evolving with Greg Bear's Blood Music

The rate of technological advancement in the early years of the 21st century is truly astounding. Of particular interest is the application of technology to the field of medicine and the implications that the introduction of artificial elements into our natural biology entails.

In his 1983 Hugo Award-winning novelette "Blood Music,"* Greg Bear offers a glimpse of the future that is becoming increasingly and eerily real every day. In our own modern reality, scientists and doctors are making progress towards growing organs for transplant, using genetic manipulation to combat disease, and even recently announcing the impending introduction of a microchip that can be implanted under the skin to store information about a person and read by a scanning device. With each new announcement, we move closer to becoming a combination of man and machine.

In "Blood Music," the brilliant scientist Virgil gets into hot water with his employer, Genetron Corporation, when he takes a mad-scientist bent in his work developing MABs (Medically-Applicable Biochips). The idea behind MABs is to create a type of molecular computer that can be tailored to fight disease and correct other problems such as poor eyesight. The computers are made with nucleo-proteins and are like DNA, except that all of the information can interact. It all sounds like a great advancement for humankind. Just image: no more routine disabilities.

But Virgil sees greater potential and begins increasing the intelligence of the bacteria that he is using as hosts for these tiny computers. As he beefs up the E. coli, the bacteria's intelligence level rises first to that of a planarian

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