
Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home - davidw
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081225/ap_on_sc/do_it_yourself_dna_1
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patio11
Not much new about this -- the "make this strand of e. coli flouresce in the
presence of certain sugars" experiment was being done by (high school) AP bio
classes ten years ago. (I know, I did it. Bloody things died on me, but my lab
partner got it to work.) Since you're not doing original research it takes all
the biomedical engineering knowledge that growing a pack of sea monkeys takes
-- can you follow a set of direction? Good, have gene splicing.

The fearmongering about it is similarly blown all out of proportion -- people
think that suddenly everything gets more lethal once humans get involved. Oh
noes if it isn't "natural" we're one drop away from World War Z. Of course,
crossbreeding never really triggered that, selective breeding never really
triggered that, and viral infections never really triggered that -- but when
its humans messing with genes _directly_ why that is different, they say so
right in the Hollywood movies.

~~~
jfarmer
She wants to make yogurt bacteria fluoresce in the presence of melamine, which
is causing a load of trouble in China right now. That seems not only clever,
but commercially viable.

In any case, DIYbio and bio hackers are about bringing the hacking spirit to
biology, which right now is very capital intensive. Genetic engineering now is
like computing in the late 60s: big mainframes locked inside ivory towers and
Fortune 500 companies.

~~~
davidw
> bio hackers are about bringing the hacking spirit to biology, which right
> now is very capital intensive.

That's what I thought was noteworthy about it. My wife works in that field,
and it's night and day from ours. You have to have millions of dollars to do
anything at all, it seems.

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anthonyrubin
"...that drops to 80 degrees below zero, the temperature needed to keep many
kinds of bacteria alive."

What kind of bacteria are they referring to?

~~~
streety
I would expect they're preserving bacteria at -80 and not growing them at -80.
You need very cold temperatures, -80 and storage in liquid nitrogen, to
maintain the viability of a bacterial culture during storage.

