ABSTRACT
J. Craig Venter declared in 1998: “We are now starting the Century of Biology.” This had been recognized before. In fact Gregory Benford was already pointing to this fact in 1995, when he noted that physics had dominated the twentieth century, as chemistry had probably dominated the century before. In his own words:
And yet, far from the physics departments of the great campuses, a clarion call is sounding through our time, one that responds to hot-button environmental problems and that incorporates rapid advances in other laboratories: Biology has turned aggressively useful.
