- Guardian Unlimited Science
- 10/5/20 19:38
Genetic entrepreneur Craig Venter explains how his team of researchers created a new life form – and what happens next
Genetic entrepreneur Craig Venter explains how his team of researchers created a new life form – and what happens next
Does Craig Venter's creation of life in the laboratory finally squeeze God right out of the scientific universe?Craig Venter's production of an entirely artificial bacterium marks another triumph of the only major scientific programme driven from the beginning by explicit atheism. Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, was a militant atheist, who refused to accept a job at a...
This is the article published in Science today describing how Craig Venter and his colleagues synthesised an entire bacterial genome from scratch and incorporated it into a cell. The new genome took over the cell, which was capable of continual self-replicationCraig VenterGeneticsMicrobiologyBiologyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our...
In a landmark for science, the American biologist and entrepreneur Craig Venter has created the first synthetic cell
David Mitchell's Soap Box: America's spelling and grammar comes under the glare of David's beady eye. How do you think the Queen feels about the wanton abuse of her English?David Mitchell
Scientists in Japan filmed the maiden flight of their lifesized mechanical butterflyThe swallowtail butterfly has exceptionally large wings relative to its body mass, a feature that makes its in-flight movements unique.This scale model, which copies the shape of the swallowtail's wings and the thin veins and membranes that cover them, reveals that the insect achieves forward motion with simple...
WEDNESDAY 19. MAY 2010
The BCS is trying to raise the profile of IT workers with a campaign based on Information Pioneers. Five will be featured in short films that will be shown on the website, which went live todayThe BCS (British Computer Society) has launched a website at pioneers.bcs.org to "highlight the achievements of the often forgotten and unacknowledged Information Pioneers". You can vote for a select 150....
Botanists from the Natural History Museum's new Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity crawl over Juliette Jowit's garden to identify some of England's 55,000 species of flora and faunaJuliette JowitLinda NylindEric...
The thermal waterlily, extinct in the wild since it disappeared from Rwanda in 2008, has been granted a new lease of lifePlant experts at Kew Gardens have rescued the smallest waterlily in the world from the brink of extinction.The thermal waterlily has not grown in the wild since the last specimens vanished two years ago from its only known habitat, a hot spring in southwest Rwanda.After a...
I don't know what Steve Seddon is talking about when he refers (Letters, 17 May) to "properly spoken English". There are a huge number of varieties of spoken English, a small number of which are regarded as standard (not "proper") in certain regions. For example, standard American English is the variety spoken in the midwest. In England (not Britain, note) the standard is received pronunciation, a...
TUESDAY 18. MAY 2010
How many different species would you expect to find in a rather scruffy, small suburban garden? Juliette Jowit invited four ecologists round for a 'bioblitz' – with unexpected resultsThere are four bodies lying and crouching in our tiny back garden. The ecologists from the Natural History Museum (NHM) got here only minutes ago, but, while the kettle boils, they are already grubbing about behind...
Tomb of dignitary inside pyramid in southern Mexico may be oldest such burial documented in MesoamericaArchaeologists in southern Mexico have discovered the 2,700-year-old tomb of a dignitary inside a pyramid that may be the oldest such burial documented in Mesoamerica.The tomb held a man aged about 50, who was buried with jade collars, pyrite and obsidian artefacts and ceramic vessels....
Will new ministers ensure that universities, which have already taken the financial rap, are not subjected to further reductions?During the election campaign, the million+ thinktank asked candidates from the three main parties in England to respond to a "gold standard", which highlighted key policies for universities and research funding to be considered by the new parliament. Following the deal...
The University of Nottingham and Emis have made a heart disease risk assessment tool available as open source softwareThe decision to make the software available free of charge was made after an independent evaluation of the Qrisk2 tool by researchers at the University of Oxford. This found that the software was more accurate than the widely used Framingham risk assessment tool at predicting...