Wednesday, September 23, 2009
A Life of its Own: Where Will Synthetic Biology Lead Us?
The first time Jay Keasling remembers hearing the word “artemisinin,” about a decade ago, he had no idea what it meant.
The first time Jay Keasling remembers hearing the word “artemisinin,” about a decade ago, he had no idea what it meant.
There are things you should know about, just because they’re weird. Did you know that people with diabetes exhale rocket fuel? It’s true, but it’s weird, right? And spontaneous combustion. That’s true, too, apparently, albeit in a bigfoot sort of way. People just explode. Mark Roth keeps a file on them, because, well, for one thing, he’s interested in the genetics of spontaneous combustion, and, for another, he’s interested in what keeps people from exploding, like, all the time.
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