Daniel Rourke /stream

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There are tens of thousands of genes in the human genome: minuscule twists of DNA and RNA that combine to express all of the traits and characteristics that make each of…

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In mid-January, a group of computer scientists and biologists from the University of Vermont, Tufts, and Harvard announced that they had created an entirely new life form — xenobots, the world’s…

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When humans started to tame dogs, cats, sheep, and cattle, they may have continued a tradition that started with a completely different animal: us.

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WASHINGTON — As a teenager, Keoni Gandall already was operating a cutting-edge research laboratory in his bedroom in Huntington Beach, Calif.

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For David Reich, research can be a harrowing experience. The 44-year-old Harvard University geneticist says he now goes to bed terrified he will wake up to find his team’s recent, stunning…

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We have learned how to manipulate the code of life. Why this hasn’t received more attention is beyond me. Synthetic Biology is a multidisciplinary field that often defies definition. Yet despite…

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Genomics entrepreneur Craig Venter has created a synthetic cell that contains the smallest genome of any known, independent organism.

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In 1997, scientists found the first scrap of Neanderthal DNA in a fossil. Since then, they have recovered genetic material, even entire genomes, from a number of Neanderthal bones, and their…

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In the May 15, 2014, edition of the journal Nature, Floyd Romesberg’s chemistry lab at San Diego’s Scripps Research Institute published a paper titled “A Semi-Synthetic Organism with an Expanded Genetic…

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Let’s say someone successfully cloned human ancestors. Then what? Are they like chimps, to be put in a zoo or a nature reserve? Do they need carers? Should we enroll them…

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When people think about SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, they imagine messages sent via radio—Jodie Foster tuning antennas, hoping to pick up signals from the “billions and billions” of star…

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n 1953, at the dawn of modern computing, Nils Aall Barricelli played God. Clutching a deck of playing cards in one hand and a stack of punched cards in the other,…

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Craig Venter reclines in his chair, puts his feet up on his desk and - gently stroking his milk chocolate-coloured miniature poodle, Darwin, asleep in his arms - shares his vision…

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Editor's note: Stuart Pimm is the Doris Duke Chair of Conservation Ecology at Duke University, and the 2006 laureate of the Dr. A. H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences awarded by…

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Hilary Rose is a prominent feminist and sociologist and is currently a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. Steven Rose is a neurobiologist at the Open University and the…

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A scientist believes he's close to perfecting the necessary technology to clone a Neanderthal - all he needs is a human woman to gestate it.

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Digital information is accumulating at an astounding rate, straining our ability to store and archive it. DNA is among the most dense and stable information media known. The development of new…

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In the invisible, parallel world of Earth, they kill half the bacteria in the ocean every day, and invade a microbe host 10 trillion times a second around the world. There…

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Craig Venter spins increasingly ubiquitous metaphor: "The digital and biological worlds are becoming interchangeable" "All living cells that we know of on this planet are 'DNA software'-driven biological machines comprised of…

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A chorus of smart, modern minds is rising over the hills of anthropology that the ancient Neanderthals of Europe weren't anywhere nearly as dumb, insufferable and unrecognizable as everyone thought all…

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A single cell, such as a bacterium, is the simplest thing that can be alive. In addition to the materials from which it is constructed, it needs three features: a way…

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Genetic information storage and processing rely on just two polymers, DNA and RNA, yet whether their role reflects evolutionary history or fundamental functional constraints is currently unknown. With the use of…

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There are tens of thousands of genes in the human genome: minuscule twists of DNA and RNA that combine to express all of the traits and characteristics that make each of…

Bookmark

In mid-January, a group of computer scientists and biologists from the University of Vermont, Tufts, and Harvard announced that they had created an entirely new life form — xenobots, the world’s…

Bookmark

When biologists synthesize DNA, they take pains not to create or spread a dangerous stretch of genetic code that could be used to create a toxin or, worse, an infectious disease.

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WASHINGTON — As a teenager, Keoni Gandall already was operating a cutting-edge research laboratory in his bedroom in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Bookmark

We have learned how to manipulate the code of life. Why this hasn’t received more attention is beyond me. Synthetic Biology is a multidisciplinary field that often defies definition. Yet despite…

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"BiteLabs grows meat from celebrity tissue samples and uses it to make artisanal salami." So proclaims the copy on BiteLabs.org, right under an all-caps call to action: EAT CELEBRITY MEAT.

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In 1997, scientists found the first scrap of Neanderthal DNA in a fossil. Since then, they have recovered genetic material, even entire genomes, from a number of Neanderthal bones, and their…

Bookmark

In the May 15, 2014, edition of the journal Nature, Floyd Romesberg’s chemistry lab at San Diego’s Scripps Research Institute published a paper titled “A Semi-Synthetic Organism with an Expanded Genetic…

Bookmark

Let’s say someone successfully cloned human ancestors. Then what? Are they like chimps, to be put in a zoo or a nature reserve? Do they need carers? Should we enroll them…

Bookmark

When people think about SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, they imagine messages sent via radio—Jodie Foster tuning antennas, hoping to pick up signals from the “billions and billions” of star…

Bookmark

In what appears to be the first study of its kind, computer scientists report that an algorithm discovered more than 50 years ago in game theory and now widely used in…

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Craig Venter reclines in his chair, puts his feet up on his desk and - gently stroking his milk chocolate-coloured miniature poodle, Darwin, asleep in his arms - shares his vision…

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Hilary Rose is a prominent feminist and sociologist and is currently a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. Steven Rose is a neurobiologist at the Open University and the…

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Using DNA would finally divorce the thing that stores information from the things that read it. Time and again, our storage formats become obsolete because we stop making the machines that…

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Digital information is accumulating at an astounding rate, straining our ability to store and archive it. DNA is among the most dense and stable information media known. The development of new…

Bookmark

In the invisible, parallel world of Earth, they kill half the bacteria in the ocean every day, and invade a microbe host 10 trillion times a second around the world. There…

Bookmark

Craig Venter spins increasingly ubiquitous metaphor: "The digital and biological worlds are becoming interchangeable" "All living cells that we know of on this planet are 'DNA software'-driven biological machines comprised of…

Bookmark

A copying error appears to be responsible for critical features of the human brain that distinguish us from our closest primate kin, new research finds. When tested out in mice, researchers…

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A single cell, such as a bacterium, is the simplest thing that can be alive. In addition to the materials from which it is constructed, it needs three features: a way…