By cracking the genetic code, we have become able to harness the machinery of living cells to do our bidding by assembling new macromolecules of our own devising. As we have gained an ever more accurate picture of how life’s tiniest and simplest building blocks fit together to form the whole, it has become increasingly tempting to imagine that biology’s toughest puzzles may only be solved once we figure out how to tackle them on physics’ terms. – Nautilus