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Tuesday, June 1, 2010

The union between life and chemistry | Philadelphia Inquirer | 05/31/2010

The union between life and chemistry | Philadelphia Inquirer | 05/31/2010: "Team members made the genetic code out of chemicals with some assistance from yeast cells. Then they inserted this synthetic DNA into an emptied-out cell from a different type of bacteria and watched it 'boot up,' as they put it.

What's astonishing about this is that they created a synthetic version of the bacterium M. mycoides from various chemicals and parts of other organisms - none of which came from M. mycoides.

This is like making a fully functioning sheep from a vat of laboratory chemicals and parts from a pig and a cow. Even Dolly, the famous clone, was made using other sheep.

Venter described the team's accomplishment as the first self-replicating species on the planet whose parent is a computer."

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