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Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

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CWuestefeld:
Incredibly fascinating yet vaguely scary science headline:

Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

It has been 50 years since scientists first created DNA in a test tube, stitching ordinary chemical ingredients together to make life's most extraordinary molecule.

Until recently, however, even the most sophisticated laboratories could make only small snippets of DNA -- an extra gene or two to be inserted into corn plants, for example, to help the plants ward off insects or tolerate drought.

Now researchers are poised to cross a dramatic barrier: the creation of life forms driven by completely artificial DNA. Scientists in Maryland have already built the world's first entirely handcrafted chromosome -- a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.

To read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/16/AR2007121601900.html

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