More than mere genetic engineering

Scientists have been doing genetic engineering for some time. Heck, if you count breeding for traits, we’ve been doing it for centuries. But actual modification of DNA, changing the GCAT letters is pretty recent. But now scientists have gone past that. Scientists have added new nitrogen bases. They’ve added X and Y.

First, they had to make the new bases (d5SICS (X) and dNaM (Y)). They used RNA to make them in test tubes. Next, they had to get the X and Y into the cell. Using the favorite bacteria of mad scientists everywhere, Escherichia coli, they added a gene that would let the new bases through the cell membrane. Now that the e. coli had X and Y, they added a loop of DNA that contained a base pair of these bases, just one rung of the DNA double helix. For a week the bacteria multiplied, and each new cell had the DNA loop with the XY pair.

Click for more:

  1. http://www.nature.com/news/first-life-with-alien-dna-1.15179
  2. http://scitechdaily.com/scientists-engineer-first-living-organism-expanded-genetic-alphabet/
  3. http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/182119-first-living-thing-with-alien-dna-created-in-the-lab-we-are-now-officially-playing-god

8 bit computers floating around inside living things?

Scientists have made DNA based robotsnanobots – to carry medicine to diseases and release drugs when the diseases are reached. By using DNA folding, drugs can be stored inside cages of DNA molecules. The DNA will unfold when it touches the right protein. They have made the DNA unfold when it touches certain disease molecules. These have been injected into cockroaches. These robots can behave like nanocomputers, and while we will soon be making them about as powerful as a Commodore 64 from the 1980s, how long until we have 64 bit computers traveling our bloodstreams, repairing damaged cells, transmitting information on our health at a cellular level?