(Picture from here.)
The Second Big Thing that happened this week is the creation of an synthetic bacteria.
No, I don't mean fiddling around with an existing bacterial. I mean a fully functional artificial bacterial genome.
Craig Venter has been working on this problem for some time. His approach to artificial life is to create a synthetic bacterial genome and implant it in a host cell where the original DNA has been removed. The cell machinery itself is not synthetic.
Once the DNA was placed in the host cell, the cell behaved as it had been programmed to do by the synthetic DNA and not according to the DNA of the original host cell. The cell has replicated successfully.
This approach to synthetic life solves a piece of the problem: creation and transfer of a working synthetic genome.
The genome in question, though created in the lab, derives from a living system: Mycoplasma capricolum. The target cellular host is also a Mycoplasm. It is not a genome created from scratch to a particular purpose.
There is corresponding research into the smallest possible genome: the bare essential genome that can be used as a pattern for true synthetic life. Carsonella, for example, has only 182 genes and 160,000 DNA base pairs. The artificial chromosome used by Venter's team was a million base pairs. Carsonella, however, is a parasite. A recent nanoorganism, dubbed ARMAN, has been discovered in northern California. (See also here.) Its genome has about a million base pairs-- more comparable to Venter's chromosome.
It could be that Venter's team is pushing down towards the lower limit of a viable genome.
Articles on the work:
BBC
Nobel Intent
Make
Jerry Coyne
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Wall of Idiots
James David Manning. And here.
Gleeeen Beeeeck
Lies about Kagan.
Brit Hume
Rand Paul and here
National Republican Congressional Committee
Sue Lowden
House GOP
Douglas Hughes, R candidate for CA governor
Andrew Brown
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again REAL cool site....I'll waste quite a bit of my bosses time checking on the articles and links....thanks! As for the "Oilpacolypse"....don't get me started!
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relaxshacks.com
You must have noticed some links to your site. It's extremely cool.
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