Our Daily Bread

In the late 1970s, biophysicist Harold J. Morowitz of Yale University reached some startling conclusions about what it would cost to make a human body. Taking into consideration the proteins, enzymes, RNA, DNA, amino acids, and other complex biochemicals that make up the stuff of life, Dr. Morowitz states, “Fashioning this chemical shopping list into human cells might cost six quadrillion dollars. Assembling the resulting heap of cells into tissue, the tissue into organs, and the organs into a warm body might drain all the treasuries of the world, with no guarantee of success.”