Monthly Archive for May, 2010

From Discover,

This old English major’s heart is warmed by the news that the new synthetic cell carries a line from James Joyce, inscribed in its DNA: “To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.”

What would Joyce have thought if someone had told him that one day the synthesized genome of a goat pathogen would carry his words? I would hope that whoever told him would make sure that he did not think this moment marked his literary immortality. In fact, his deathless prose is probably being desecrated by the relentless erosion of evolution right now.

The scientists who produced the new synthetic cell copied the genome of a microbe, letter for letter, and then inserted the synthetic version into a host cell. To determine that their experiment worked, they needed a way to tell the genomes of their synthetic cells from the natural genomes that were their model. So they inserted “watermarks” into the artificial genome. These sequences of DNA (which spelled out the work of Joyce and others through the genetic code) sit in non-coding regions of the microbe’s DNA. As a result, these watermarks cannot disrupt any essential protein-coding genes or stretches of DNA that are vital for switching genes on and off.

To Read More…

From Siri Carpenter, Science

What makes it possible for people to love, hate, help, or betray one another? How do we decode facial expressions? How do we understand and regulate our own emotional experiences? How do we separate the self from the other, make moral judgments, or decide how much money to save for retirement? What causes some people to turn to religious extremism, heroin, or politics? How does the brain fail those with social deficits such as autism?

Questions like these sit at the junction of our social, emotional, and biological realities, and they drive the young but rapidly growing field of social neuroscience.

Until a few years ago, the idea that science could elucidate the neural foundations of social phenomena as complex as love, friendship, and trust “just basically seemed ludicrous,” says Janine Simmons, chief of the National Institute of Mental Health’s (NIMH’s) program for affect, social behavior, and social cognition. Such “big questions” motivate many scientists to study neuroscience or psychology, she says — but soon they realize that the ability to address such questions is limited by technology. “It’s just recently that people have not been laughed at for taking on these more complex questions,” she says.

To Read More…

From Lee Billings, Seed

By virtue of the fact that our ancient evolutionary ancestors were graced with five digits on two forelimbs, we humans now have two five-fingered hands, and most of us count in base-10 notation. Consequently, certain temporal milestones are more appealing than others. For instance, media stories this week commemorated the 40th anniversary of Apollo 13, the legendary lunar mission where three astronauts trapped in a malfunctioning spacecraft were saved through an inspiring combination of luck, ingenuity, and teamwork.

This week also saw the 29th anniversary of the first space shuttle launch, as well as the 49th anniversary of Vostok 1, the flight that took the first human into outer space. But, thanks to our ten-fingered ways we’ll all wait until next year to celebrate. So it goes in any product of biological evolution—seemingly insignificant initial events cast shadows measured in eons. This holds true for technological progress, too: Early decisions in development or deployment become locked in, constraining later features and capabilities. Consider NASA: Today’s extremely expensive and somewhat unsatisfying staples of US human spaceflight, the space shuttle and a space station, can be traced back forty years or so to the aftermath of the Apollo program, when President Nixon chose them as its replacements. The legacy of these choices is that no one has ventured beyond low-Earth orbit ever since.

To Read More…