Software Lets Scientists Assemble DNA 149
Velcroman1 writes "Biochemical engineers can now download a piece of software and with a few simple clicks, assemble the DNA for new life forms through their laptops. 'With the proper computer tools, biologists can write their own genetic code — and then turn that code into life,' said biochemist Omri Amirav-Drory, who founded Genome Compiler Corp., the company that sells the software. He demonstrated at a coffee shop early one morning by manipulating a bacteria's genes on his laptop. The synthetic biology app is still in beta; on Jan. 15, the company added an undo feature and support for new DNA file formats. Building creatures is increasingly like word processing, it would seem. But such is the strange reality in the age of cheap genome sequencing, DNA synthesizing and 'bioinformatics.'"
Re:So -- the terrorists win in the end (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So -- the terrorists win in the end (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So -- the terrorists win in the end (Score:4, Insightful)
It takes a special kind of terrorist to deploy a bioweapon, because bioweapons don't distinguish based on religion (although you could theoretically make one that distinguishes on race, it's a bit tricky). That means it'll hit everyone indiscriminately, and not even most terrorists want that. The only ones who would use something like that are people who want to destroy everyone, and finding a large enough group of people (as you would need to create and deploy such a weapon) willing to do that is quite difficult.
Also even the most lethal bioweapons won't kill everyone, whether thanks to natural immunity or proper quarantine procedures, a lot of people will survive. Anything nasty enough to actually kill everyone will almost certainly burn out very rapidly.
epigenetics? (Score:4, Insightful)
Does the tool let people specify various epigenetic factors, such as methylation? This is a thing that's pretty important, but that a lot of people don't understand well (and some refuse to believe there's anything to understand there).
If so, wow.
If not, this is going to have some severe limits in utility. Useful, certainly, but completely incapable of producing working DNA for, say, a human being or a giraffe.
Re:So -- the terrorists win in the end (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably forever, because:
On the other hand, idiots who think other people are cartoon supervillains and appeal to that caricature to argue against new tools are certainly capable of killing millions by hindering the War on Disease. You and everyone who modded you up ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You're just as bad as the anti-vaccine people, except you don't even have misfiring parental instincts as an excuse.
Scare Quotes Not Needed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Misleading title (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole post reads like a bio version of "And then I cloud-sourced an internet to my giga-drive!"