University of Northern Iowa
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 18th, 2008
Your Burger on Biotech Submitted by MichaelVail on Tue, 03/18/2008 - 5:42pm. 1984 Biotechnology Brave New World burger of the future cloned meat FDA genetically modified cheese hamburger lab-grown bacon one charbroiled cloned-beef patty protein-spiked bun. If the biotech industry has its way, ordering a hamburger might soon sound something like this: “one charbroiled cloned-beef [...]
Posted in Plant Biotechnology on Mar 16th, 2008
Using a systems biological analysis of genome-scale data from the model plant Arabidopsis, an international team of scientists identified that the master gene controlling the biological clock is sensitive to nutrient status. The study will appear in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This hypothesis derived from multi-network analysis [...]
Posted in Plant Biotechnology on Mar 16th, 2008
Crop scientists have cloned a gene that controls the shape of tomatoes, a discovery that could help unravel the mystery behind the huge morphological differences among edible fruits and vegetables, as well as provide new insight into mechanisms of plant development.
The gene, dubbed SUN, is only the second ever found to play a significant role [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 16th, 2008
“Can we create new life out of our digital universe?” asks Craig Venter. And his answer is, yes, and pretty soon. He walks the TED2008 audience through his latest research into “fourth-generation fuels” — biologically created fuels with CO2 as their feedstock. His talk covers the details of creating brand-new chromosomes using digital technology, the [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 15th, 2008
A mixed bag this week in my Alchemist column on ChemWeb.com this week. First up, news that US$1 million is to be ploughed into biofuels research that could circumvent some of the serious environmental concerns associated with this renewable energy source.
French Fries, Wild Mushrooms and Ouzo — Sciencebase Science Blog
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Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 15th, 2008
Two rather contrasting videos on synthetic biology this month. In the first videocast, released by TED, Craig Venter exposes his grand vision of synthetic genomics. He insists on the notion of ‘combinatorial genomics’, that will combine the power of large scale DNA synthesis (’robots that can make a million chromosomes a day’) with a database [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 12th, 2008
I’m sorry, your genes are not suited for this job March 3rd, 2008 Robert Posted in Dreams, People, Technology | No Comments » Well, we knew that life was headed in this direction, but reading Michael Arrington’s description of his test results from 23andMe gives me cause to shudder. The outcomes [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 9th, 2008
Designer Babies? the controversy is just starting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ejtr36ddoQ&feature=user
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Posted in Tissue Engineering on Mar 9th, 2008
Transgenic xenotransplantation. That’s a mouthful. But it’s basically the injecting of human DNA into animal embryos, which eventually grow into animals sporting human genes (transgenic), and then killing the animals and transplanting their now more “human-like” organs into people (xenotransplantation) who desperately need a new liver or heart or kidney — without which they would [...]
Posted in Synthetic Biology on Mar 7th, 2008
A video of Drew Endy’s presentation from the 24th Chaos Communication Congress can be found here. It discusses genetic code in terms of Accelerating Returns, developing a high-level programming language, and the worldwide collective development of open-source objects. He proposes reprogramming bacterial DNA as one form of nano-engineering. Bio-safety and the future of bio-hacking communities [...]