transformation
sporte | April 22, 2009That's how new life forms are created every day in the wild, folks. Human researchers of course have added a few twists on the theme. If we can't induce bacteria or animal cells to collect new bits of DNA on their own, we turn to electroshock therapy. With plants.... aw heck, we just shoot them.
And where did this crazy rant come from you ask? Last Saturday morning, at the crack of 9 am I got to be interviewed on a radio program with two of the main spokespeople from the DIY bio movement, Mackenzie Cowell and Meredith Patterson.
The program was "The Food Chain" (you can listen to it…
sporte | December 29, 2008Cloning the gene for green fluorescent protein is fun. Lots of fun. Cloners have put the GFP gene into rabbits, plants, cats, fish, and worms, and made mutants that code for proteins in every color of the fluorescent rainbow. Teachers like GFP so much that every year, high school students throughout the U.S. clone GFP in biology class.
Now, some people, who call themselves DIY biologists, have started cloning GFP for fun in their kitchens. Other people find this alarming.
From Yahoo news:
Jim Thomas of ETC Group, a biotechnology watchdog organization, warned that synthetic organisms…