DailyDirt: Bioengineered Microbes Are Growing Our Way
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Scientists haven’t quite figured out everything about the genetic code of living things on Earth, but plenty of folks are tinkering with genetic engineering and creating some interesting results. Here are just a few neat projects with some modified microbes.
- The evolution machine is just a prototype right now, but it could speed up genetic engineering projects with directed and automated mutations for microbes. One of the projects for the evolution machine would be to create an organism that was immune to all viruses. What could possibly go wrong with that? [url]
- Single-cell biological lasers have been created with green fluorescent protein and human embryonic kidney cells. It’s not sharks with lasers attached to their heads, but it’s a start. [url]
- The technique of steganography by printed arrays of microbes (SPAM) sounds like the nerdiest way to send a message. Using bacteria to encode secret messages could also be another interesting method for lots of copies keeps stuff safe (LOCKSS). [url]
- To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what’s currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]
By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.
Filed Under: bacteria, biology, evolution machine, genetic engineering, lasers, microbes
Comments on “DailyDirt: Bioengineered Microbes Are Growing Our Way”
“The technique of steganography by printed arrays of microbes (SPAM) sounds like the nerdiest way to send a message. Using bacteria to encode secret messages could also be another interesting method for lots of copies keeps stuff safe”
Good Lord! That sounds like a Germophobic Copyright Shill’s worst nightmare
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Just wait until this SPAM technique is combined with offers for erectile disfunction drugs… SPAM Spam. (Eggs? And spam)
Why would anyone think that using organic matter to encode messages is a good idea?
Microbes grow, reproduce, die, etc.
Organic technology is popular in science fiction, but is it really practical?
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Why would anyone think that using organic matter to encode messages is a good idea?
Stuff written on paper can be erased, burned, photocopied…
All information is subject to accidental destruction, right? The DNA of microbes contains some of the oldest information of life for our planet… so why not try to store information in DNA? The problem might be that the message could get corrupted, but is the rate of DNA corruption that much faster than other storage media?
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Stuff written on paper can be erased, burned, photocopied…
All information is subject to accidental destruction, right? The DNA of microbes contains some of the oldest information of life for our planet… so why not try to store information in DNA? The problem might be that the message could get corrupted, but is the rate of DNA corruption that much faster than other storage media?
True that paper copies can be accidentally destroyed, but with bacteria, can the message still be read if the bacteria dies off? Maybe the delivery van was parked in the sun and the internal temperature went up to 120 degrees, cooking the microbes. Or maybe the letter gets irradiated as an intentional effort to kill off bacteria. Didn’t they start doing that after the anthrax scares? Is the message still the same if the bacteria multiplies?
It just seems that organic matter is too unpredictable to be a reliable way to hold a message.
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I’m not exactly sure how they’ve encoded the messages in DNA (tl;dr), but the DNA itself shouldn’t be destroyed when the bacteria die off (unless those dead bacteria are consumed by other organisms which chemically break down the encoded-message DNA)…