J. Craig Venter

[Shirtless Crackhead]

So, I'm wondering how many science geeks like myself are on here, and know about Craig Venter's synthetic life.

 

Long story short, in the last 15 years, he's sequenced the human genome in 2 years (after claiming it would take 3, and expected to take 20), then he got a team together, and from the four base chemicals of the genetic structure (ATCG), was able to build some simple molecular DNA chains (Viruses and RNA); eventually making an entirely new genetic structure for a +1 million base pair single-celled organism, aptly named Mycoplasma Laboratorium.

 

The Mycoplasma has a couple of websites, quotes, and a list of names of the people who worked on and made possible this project, written into it's genetic code; a watermark, to identify real and synthetic genomes.

 

Combined with some of the other recent developments in the fields of Genetics, Biology, Chemistry, etc...

 

I think we're looking at the dawn of Genetic Science going Sci-fi on our ass.

 

I just hope I'm dead long before furfags become a real thing.

[Harakiri Tiger]

Hahaha, wtf. They coded a watermark into it to track it. Man, those noobs and their egos.

 

=3

[Exorcet]

I haven't followed this very closely, but it has a lot of applications. What I would like to see is eventually being able to introduce DNA into multi cell organisms, but that's probably a ways off.

 

Nearer term, we might see good virus, and more genetically engineered fruit and what not so people can stop complaining about mice DNA (or whatever they put in fruit).

[Shirtless Crackhead]

 

If religion/catastrophe don't kill us first, and we can survive the next generation or so; we have a bright future indeed.