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Synthetic Chromosomes Successfully Integrated Into Brewer's Yeast
New submitter dunnomattic writes: "Researchers at New York University School of Medicine have achieved a milestone in synthetic biology. A fully synthetic yeast chromosome, dubbed 'synIII,' has successfully replaced chromosome 3 of multiple living yeast cells. The researchers pieced together over 250,000 nucleotide bases to accomplish this feat. Dr. Jef Boeke, the lead author of the study, says, 'not only can we make designer changes on a computer, but we can make hundreds of changes through a chromosome and we can put that chromosome into yeast and have a yeast that looks, smells and behaves like a regular yeast, but this yeast is endowed with special properties that normal yeasts don't have.' Work is underway (abstract) to synthesize the remaining 15 chromosomes."
One giant leap for Synthehol.
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... is how the zombie apocalypse begins, with mutant yeast in our beer. I have an idea for the first brand: Coorpse Light.
So, no super speed, or strength, or other abilities, no synthesizer music.
For our $6,000,000, all we get is a "yeast endowed with special properties other yeasts don't have"? This will not make a compelling television drama. Perhaps a bland sitcom, but not much more.
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
Oh lord, the Luddites are bad enough with "normal" genetically engineered foods. I hate to imagine the kind of outcry they're do for this.
Honestly, I think that fear is overblown. Vertebrate pathogens have had hundreds of millions of years of optimization in the most ruthlessly selective "laboratory" ever known, and while there are obviously some pretty deadly ones out there they haven't managed to wipe us out yet. Nothing we do in a lab is likely to come close, in terms of coming up with something that can spread wildly on its own.
I used to work between a synthetic bio lab at one end of the hall and an infectious disease lab at the other. Ask which one scared me more.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
On the other hand, things like Dutch Elm Disease show just how devastating a new pathogen can be. I think co-evolution is why "natural" diseases don't have much chance in wiping us out. Given this new ability to skip evolution altogether, look out.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Co-evolution only looks "co" on very large timescales; every new trick our immune systems have come up with has been in response to something a pathogen already came up with. Sure, there always can (and will) be new plagues, whether the victims are trees or people. I just think they're a whole lot more likely to come from the nigh-uncountable number of random "experiments" taking place in the wild than they are from anything done in a lab.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
It's not a perfect analogy, but German and Belgian beers are a good example of what you can do with narrow and open views on ingredients, respectively. The Germans were limited by the Reinheitsgebot to what they could use in their beers, and they produce a relatively narrow range of lagers which are, in my opinion, unspectacular. In contrast, the Belgians use a much wider range of ingredients and adjuncts. They produce what are widely considered some of the finest beers in the world, and they have a much wider range of styles.