Video of the Week #2: Creating Synthetic Life
“Creating Synthetic Life” is a documentary which premiered on the Science Channel in 2010. It follows the story of Craig Venter and his team in creating Synthia (or Mycoplasma laboratorium), an organism which has been declared by some to be “the first synthetic organism”. The documentary has a few flaws, something not unexpected given its very general […]
Italian GM Research Under Threat
While anti-GM crop destruction may have been stopped at Rothamsted only a week ago, yet another project has come under threat. Dr. Eddo Rugini has spent the last 30 years working on woody plant propagation in Italy, specifically looking at transgenic olive trees, cherry trees, and kiwifruit vines. He gained permission to grow the plants […]
Datoos: DNA Tatoos
Datoos, or DNA tattoos are an idea conceived by Frog Design. The idea is simple, a temporary printable tattoo which has an interactive display which can also monitor your health through various input. Essentially they are an idea for a more artistic way to replace and improve on current smartphones. Sadly frog design hasn’t moved forward […]
Animation: ‘MURDER’
‘Murder’ is a short animation about a scientist’s pursuit of cloning. It touches upon some of the potential philosophical and ethical problems with such a technology. Although we shouldn’t confuse it with modern cloning which works in quite a different fashion. Nonetheless, an interesting piece to watch! Watch the film after the break.
Bioinformatics as a Hobby
Bioinformatics is the study of data generated from biological experiments. With the advent of high-throughput sequencing and many other rapidly improving technologies Biologists are often producing far more data than they can properly analyze. With data being so easy to produce we have massive amounts of data, much of it publicly available – which could […]
