This is the revised version. For references, cite the published version as: Alberto T. Estévez, “The fifth element: biodigital & genetics”, in Ahmad Vasel-Be-Hagh, David S-K. Ting (eds.), Environmental Management of Air, Water, Agriculture, and Energy, CRC Press / Taylor & Francis Group, Boca Raton, 2020, pp. 195-212. ISBN 978-0-367-18484-1. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429196607 Available in: https://www.crcpress.com. “The fifth element: biodigital & genetics” Alberto T. Estévez Introduction: The Fifth Element In the context of this book, entitled “Air, Water, Food, and Energy – the four life-supporting elements”, it can quickly come to mind which in one way or another has fluttered by human thought since the beginning of history, the fifth element. For some of our generations, immediately, this will remind the fantastic film by Luc Besson, The Fifth Element (1997), a classic of science fiction, not without symbolism, to be also applied to our days. It takes place in the 23rd century, and it deals with the survival of planet Earth against a great evil that is approaching. Such salvation can only be achieved if four stones, that contain the essences of the four mythical elements (air, water, earth and fire), are joined. And these must be activated with the fifth element, which, in the form of a humanoid (genetically reconstructed from only a piece of living cells), is able to combine the power of the other four into a “Divine Light”. But curiously, at the end, the humanoid no longer wants to save the world, because she has seen the brutality of human violence and refuses to release the “Divine Light”: “What's the use of saving life when you see what you do with it?”, she said. Luckily, the protagonist makes her feel something, for what she does deserve to save the world, love, which will be discovered precisely as the authentic fifth element. (In the background there is also a sceptical look at capitalist consumerism, at the obsession with technology, and at the same time the tension in front of it that must be solved: nothing far from our present). Actually, human violence is nothing new, since it could be said –symbolically– that it exists since there were more than three people in the world. So the new great evil, genuinely of our times, is the planetary unsustainability. And the survival of planet Earth against this great evil that is approaching can only be achieved joining really global efficient solutions for air, water, food and energy. As the four elements proposed by the Greeks are air, water, earth and fire, it can also be said that “the four life-supporting elements” are “Air, Water, Food, and Energy”. Understanding food as earth: after all food is a kind of earth transformation. And understanding energy as fire: after all, fire is pure energy, and symbolically can be said that fire is the primary original energy, the best symbol for energy. Furthermore, they are not separate elements: necessarily they have certain connections between them.