Most Popular Human Cell In Science Gets Sequenced 63
ananyo writes "The research world's most famous human cell has had its genome decoded, and it's a mess. German researchers this week report the genome sequence of the HeLa cell line, which originates from a deadly cervical tumor taken from a patient named Henrietta Lacks (Slashdot has previously noted a film made about the cells and there's a recent mutli-award winning book on Lacks). Established the same year that Lacks died in 1951, HeLa cells were the first human cells to grow well in the laboratory. The cells have contributed to more than 60,000 research papers, the development of a polio vaccine in the 1950s and, most recently, an international effort to characterize the genome, known as ENCODE. The team's work shows that HeLa cells contain one extra version of most chromosomes, with up to five copies of some, and raises further questions over the widespread use of HeLa cells as models for human cell biology."
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Editor must be from Pittsburgh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe he speaks to many live, educated, human beings.
Yes, the zeitgeist is for intelligent people to drop in a few bon mots of another language. In fact, I'd say it's a sina qua non, a very important shibboleth that distinguishes the literate from the phillistine.
And as the partially-agentive-passive (get done etc) isn't a direct analogue of a classical Latin form, it's obviously stupid.
Seriously, when we stop pegging people as stupid simply because they speak actual real-life English, we'll find that the world contains far more people of intelligence than you ever imagined.