Robert Hickson • Oct 08, 2014 •
Biology has truly started conjugating with engineering now. All sorts of food and body parts are now being generated in the lab. While genetically modified crops and farm animals make the headlines, and raise concerns about environmental impacts, food safety, and ethics, there is a quieter synthetic biology revolution going on in labs. Synthetic biology is being used … Read More
Robert Hickson • Sep 07, 2012 •
Some of the keynote speakers at the recent Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference brought to mind the scene in Finding Nemo of the three sharks grinning at Marlin and Dory. Not, I hasten to add, because I view Monsanto, Du Pont, et al., as sharks out to gobble us, or NZ’s agriculture up. Or that I view GMOs as dangerous … Read More
Aimee Whitcroft • Feb 20, 2012 •
We’re back! And with a minimum of difficulties this week :) This week, Elf and aimee talk of a new soft motor, ROBOBEES, a teeeeeensy chameleon (squee!), hacking yoghurt, some very ancient art, ROBOBEES, investing in yourself, knitting needles and water bubbles and space, quantum computing for beginners, sequencing genomes on a USB stick-sized device [...] … Read More
Peter Griffin • May 23, 2010 •
Peter Griffin • May 22, 2010 •
I’ve been scanning newspapers to see how the Science paper by Venter et al. was covered around the world. It isn’t surprising that many newspapers turned to infographics, with varying degrees of success, to try and explain what Venter’s team achieved. Here’s one of the better ones I saw, which British paper The Independent ran… Source: The … Read More
Peter Griffin • May 21, 2010 •
Whenever geneticist Dr Craig Venter outlines new research he is involved in the whole world listens. Source: Science That’s because Venter was involved in one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs of the last 20 years – the sequencing of the human genome. The implications of that advance for the field of genetics has been huge and helped … Read More