Nonlinear Genetics

The genetic code does not, and cannot, specify the nature
and position of every capillary in the body or every neuron
in the brain. What it {can} do is describe the underlying
fractal pattern which creates them.

Remember, genes are NOT blueprints. This means you can't, for example,
insert "the genes for an elephant's trunk" into a giraffe and get a
giraffe with a trunk. There -are- no genes for trunks. What you CAN do
with genes is chemistry, since DNA codes for chemicals. For instance,
we can in theory splice the native plants' talent for nitrogen fixation
into a terran plant.

It is a medical commonplace that the tissues of the human body
replace themselves regularly, essentially creating an entirely
new body every seven years. From whence then come cancer and the
slow degeneration of age? They exist as faults in the patterns of
intelligence within the genes themselves; by reprogramming these
smallest parts, the whole becomes well.