Scientists create synthetic genome

Scientists have synthesized the entire genome of a living organism — a bacterium — an accomplishment they say could lead to the development of artificial life.

The entire genome of the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium is only 485 working genes, the smallest of any living organism that can replicate by itself. But researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Md., said the process could eventually be applied to create synthetic organisms capable of producing biofuels or cleaning up toxic waste spills.

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Lately I’ve been thinking about Lisa Nowak, that astronaut who donned an adult diaper and drove hundreds of miles across the country to confront her romantic rival with pepper spray. The news media had a decent amount of fun with that story--the equivalent, in what passes for our national dialogue, of middle-school gossip and eye-rolling, everyone saying "Whatever" or "O-kaaaayyyy….". I think everyone was so eager to laugh at that pathetic woman because they all wanted to reassure themselves that she was crazy, her behavior was incomprehensible, that they would never do such a thing. But I think anybody who pretends not to be able to imagine what she was thinking is either naive or disingenuous. I understand exactly what happened to her. I recognized the symptoms immediately. She lost her shit.

Remember that pitiful mug shot of her face, looking so gaunt and disheveled, deranged and exhausted, utterly broken and lost? I've seen that face before, very recently, in the mirror. And so, I suspect, at one time or another, have most of us. And frankly anyone who hasn't isn't the sort of person I can fully understand. Most of us have just been lucky enough not to have that face photographed for the public record. But we shouldn’t let ourselves forget it, or the hours and weeks we spent curled up weeping on the bathroom floor, smashing things, sending ill-advised emails or having wrenching late-night phone conversations, watching whole seasons of TV series at one sitting, listening to the one song we could still stand to hear over and over, eating Froot Loops and bourbon, planning impulsive romantic proposals or scheming terrible revenge, sobbing in public, screaming and literally pounding the walls, praying out loud for the pain to stop. We’ve all worn the diaper.