It is an age, most tellingly, of proliferating new terminology. For example, we now have “synthetic biology” to describe a hybrid of biology and chemical engineering in which scientists create biological systems that are not found in nature.
更贴切地讲，这是一个新词泛滥的年代。比方说，我们现在有了形容生物及化学工程混合研究的“合成生物学”，该学科科研工作者能够创造自然界不存在的生物系统。人造细胞现在可以植入人体。2010年，生物学家克雷格·文特尔首次创造出自我复制的全合成细胞。