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Here There Be Dragons

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the omg-unicorns dept.

ThisNukes4u writes "The Economist reports that scientists in California are coming closer to creating real-life mythical animals. Basically, they re-create the natural selection process through a computer simulation and then clone the resulting set of DNA in a donor animal." From the article: "Each computer starts with a search image (dragon, unicorn, gryphon, etc), and the genome of the real animal most closely resembling it (a lizard for the dragon, a horse for the unicorn and, most taxingly, the spliced genomes of a lion and an eagle for the gryphon). The virtual genomes of these real animals are then tweaked by random electronic mutations. When they have matured, the virtual adults most closely resembling the targets are picked and cross-bred, while the others are culled."

5 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. I Like Pickles!!! by DAldredge · · Score: 5, Informative

    I Like Pickles!!!

    Please mod me up to +5!!!!

  2. Mermaids by Jedi+Alec · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll have 2 please. Grilled, preferably.

    --

    People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
  3. An interesting observation.... by rune2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    You know it's gotta be April Fool's when there are no dupes and people actually RTFA... (besides the whole color scheme thing that is)

  4. Re:Got to respect The Economist by Raul654 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Pffft, the New York Times is clearly superior. They ran fake articles for months before anyone caught on.

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    To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
    --E.C. Stanton
  5. virgins and unicorns by artificialj · · Score: 5, Informative

    You know, only a virgin can catch a unicorn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn). Seems fitting that this gets posted on /.