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Venter Hopes Synthetic Life Will Be Possible in One Month
Next Big Future — It is report in New Scientist that if the ability to build a synthetic genome can be combined with this technique to transplant it, then the dawn of synthetic life could be close. Indeed Venter hopes this biological milestone will be possible in just a month or so. Bloomberg News has coverage of the work by Venter and his team on synthetic life. When the transplanted bacteria in their previous effort failed to function, Venter’s team realized that the restriction enzymes might be interfering. By transplanting the DNA of the first ...

Ripped From the Journals: The Biggest Discoveries of the Week
Discover Magazine | rsslist — Nature 8-20 Nature , August 20 Sometimes the big news is also really, really small. A paper published on Nature’s Web site on Sunday describes how researchers made the world’s smallest laser , composed of a single nanoparticle measuring only 44 nanometers across. Researchers say the tiny devices could one day be the foundation for optical computers that use circuits made of light instead of electrical impulses. Another article in the journal has implications for the future of agriculture and how we’ll feed the planet’s booming population: A study of rice plants that can survive severe flooding found that two so-called ...

Synthetic Life By the Year’s End? Yes, Proclaims Craig Venter.
Discover Magazine | rsslist — synthetic biology Although scientists may not have come close to cataloging all the different kinds of life on the planet, genetics pioneer Craig Venter is pressing ahead with his plans to create biology version 2.0. Venter is at the forefront of the new field of synthetic biology, in which scientists try to create all new organisms out of their component genetic parts:“We’re moving from reading the genetic code to writing it” [ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ...