Nature, artifice and emerging diseases

Throughout most of our history, mankind has mistrusted the natural world as lurking with dangers and predators. With the advent of urbanization, Nature, red in tooth and claw, was something that needed to be conquered and tamed. Only since industrialization and the rise of the environmental movement have we returned to perceive Nature as something fragile and in need of protection against human action.But Nature has remained hostile: domesticated plants and animals harbour a diversity of commensals, parasites and pathogens, some of which have plagued humans—for example, the influenza virus or Yersinia pestis . Indeed, the risk of interspecies transmission of pathogens increases with increasing phylogenetic proximity (Taylor et al , 2001). Contrary to popular opinion, many things that we regard as ‘natural’ are more often dangerous than artificial objects.Life can be understood as a molecular machine, which directs both metabolism—that is, the flux of chemicals—and the transfer and maintenance of information from its underlying genetic code. This organization parallels a computer, which is both a machine and the data and programs to instruct its operation. …