What happens when we can program our biology like we do software in a computer? Humanity’s finding out. It means we can translate a virus’s genome into a vaccine in less than a year, like we did to create the COVID mRNA vaccines. But it also means that anyone sitting in their mom’s basement can download that genome, too. Abdul reflects on the possibilities and pitfalls, then he interviews Michael Specter, Staff Writer at The New Yorker, about his new audiobook about synthetic biology’s future, “Higher Animals.”