IT ALL STARTED with a brawny, tattooed building contractor with a passion for exotic animals. He was taking biology classes at City College of San Francisco, a two-year community college, and when students started meeting informally early last year to think up a project for a coming science competition, he told them that he thought it would be cool if they re-engineered cells from electric eels into a source of alternative energy. Eventually the students scaled down that idea into something more feasible, though you would be forgiven if it still sounded like science fiction to you: they would build an electrical battery powered by bacteria. This also entailed building the bacteria itself — redesigning a living organism, using the tools of a radical new realm of genetic engineering called synthetic biology. (read entire article)
Newsflash:
- Salt & Power Shakers
- The economic and social life of synthetic biology
- Marchantia in Kyoto
- Synthetic Biology - Think Multicellular
- GPU accelerated biochemical network simulation.
- Press coverage for the Cambridge iGEM team
- Biology at Cambridge
- Growth in liverworts of the Marchantiales is promoted by epiphytic methylobacteria.
- Genetic changes accompanying the domestication of Pea
- Hack an Air Freshener into an Remote Camera Trigger [DIY]
- Buying Guide: Best cheap DX11 graphics card: 10 tested
- Planon releases credit card-sized scanner for receipts
- Players control real microorgansims in 'biotic video games'
- CompuLab introduces its smallest, most energy efficient mini-PC to date
- Disposable microfluidic devices created using regular wax paper
- MSI AMD Fusion Brazos Mini-ITX E350IA-E45 is now available in Japan
- Mussels inspire self-healing sticky gel
- Pentel Airpen Mini now Compatible with Android Devices
- Built your own private network on the Go with Planex latest 3G Wireless Router
- DreamPlug offers compact, low power, performance computing
- PFU Fujitsu introduced the ultimate document scanner, the N1800
- Hydrogel used to create precise new biochemical sensor
- 80 Free and Awesome Photoshop Brushes
- Giant Knitted Squid
- Nitrogen fixation by marine cyanobacteria.
- Peptide signalling in the rhizobium-legume symbiosis.
- Auxin conjugates: their role for plant development and in the evolution of land plants.
- Illustrated anatomy of Gamera and foes
- Pickle Toothpaste
- Edible Giant Toasted Leafcutter Ants
- Flypaper Clock Eats Flies, Uses Their Bodies for Energy
- New E. chromi video
- Positions at Microsoft Research, Cambridge UK
- iGEM2011 recruitment
- Dynamics in the mixed microbial concourse.
- Making classic frequency counters into Nixie clocks
- Xi3 modular computer to make global debut at CES 2011
- The 4x4x4 LED Cube Using an Arduino
- Researchers develop genuine 3D camera
- Microbial Cell Factories: Engineering the cell surface display of cohesins for assembly of cellulosome-inspired enzyme complexes on Lactococcus lactis
- Presidential Commission reports on Synthetic Biology
- Cambridge presentation 2010
- iGEM2010 Jamboree
- Improved BioBrick components for bioluminescence
- Cambridge team at the iGEM2010 Jamboree
- University of Cambridge team wins iGEM synthetic biology competition
- Reversal of an epigenetic switch governing cell chaining in Bacillus subtilis by protein instability.
- App Magnets – upgrade your fridge with some app-etising icons
- Hackintosh In A Cardboard Box
- This Lung-On-A-Chip
- Pickle Adhesive Bandages
- USB Mix Tape
- Monster illustrations from Ultraman sonosheet book
- 15 Cool Stickers for your iPhone
- Bacteria are able to extend psuedo-legs and walk upright
- Japanese flower has the largest known genome
- Gibson Assembly Song
- DIYbio articles in Nature
- Gibson Assembly Song
- In Living Color: Bacterial Pigments as an Untapped Resource in the Classroom and Beyond
- Lego Shaped Ice Cube Tray
- Bacterial physiology: Bacillus takes the temperature
- Microfluidic approaches for systems and synthetic biology.
- GreenPhylDB v2.0: comparative and functional genomics in plants.
- The roots of a new green revolution.
- The Kno: A giant double-screen tablet to replace giant textbooks
- NVIDIA Fermi-Class Quadro GPUs
- Homemade laser microscope reveals water's murky secrets
- Verbatim launches Clip-It USB drive
- Synthetic Biology Faculty position
- SynBio2010 course in Synthetic Biology at Cambridge
- Synthetic Biology worth $4.5B by 2015
- Naked Scientist interview
- Royal Society: Future Technologies
- 2nd-generation GM traits
- NYT article about iGEM2009
- Synthetic Biology at the Wellcome Trust
- Giant Plant Cells
- Glass microbiology
- Endnote X3
- LEGO-sized hole punch
- Glowing Toyama Squid USB Memory Stick
- Green Pins
- Bacterial rainbow
- Synthetic operon for violacein production
- Cambridge team wins Grand Prize for iGEM2009
- The scatalog: E. chromi, pigment and poo
- Grand Prize for Cambridge iGEM2009 team
- Cambridge presentation at the iGEM2009 Jamboree
- Wellcome Trust iGEM2010 studentships
- Cambridge iGEM2009 team
- Synthetic Biology Project
- The iGEM Project
- RS Interface SynBio issue
- steam-powered dragon tin toy
- Magcloud: On Demand Magazine Printing
- RAE Synthetic Biology Report 2009
- Arduino Mega
- Phytocomp - new computing tools for plant science
- Computational Biology at Microsoft Research in Cambridge
Thursday, 11 February 2010 17:44
NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE PREVIEW
iGEM2009 and Do-It-Yourself Genetic Engineering
By JON MOOALLEM (New York Times: Published: February 10, 2010)