DNA Hackers Wanted

We can now design a DNA strand in a lab, inject it into an existing bacterial cell with its original DNA removed, and get the resulting organism to reproduce. In the experiment announced today, the DNA they injected was just a synthetic bit-for-bit reconstruction of an existing genome from another bacterium – but there’s no reason why, in the future, one couldn’t hack on it first.

Of course, like a geek becoming familiar with a new and strange codebase, we’ll start by making little changes – insertions to add additional capabilities, scratching a few small itches. But hopefully, in a while, we will understand the internals enough to do performance optimization, better error handling or major functional enhancements.

God had great fun creating and designing life, and he’s the universe’s greatest hacker; it’ll be awesome to be able to think some more of his thoughts after him.

Now all we need is for someone to write a cell emulator for testing out new designs…

4 thoughts on “DNA Hackers Wanted

  1. You’re quite unfair to the Human Kind.
    As far as we (currently) know, Man is the universe’s greatest hacker, while Craig Venter and his team are the first sentient beings creating life from scratch :)

  2. If Darwin were alive today he would see that the fossil record has yet to offer any evidence an intermediate or transitionary form to support his theory of evolution from one species into another (macro-evolution).

    Lie.
    What would pastor David MacAdam describe these morphological_intermediates as? No doubt the usual tactic: ‘critics describe any observed evolutionary change as “just microevolution”.’
    The kicker is we don’t find intermediate forms where the genetic basis of taxa doesn’t predict them, i.e. no bird-mammals.

  3. Wait ….after the new era has began ……2012….evolution will skip a beat……like it or not it has already began…….more children than ever are being discovered to have great psychic abilities so you will see a jump in every thing from technology to new species emerging from existing ones ….just wait and see. No bird animal ……..lol Godspeed

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