Synopsis:
4. biotech:
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These cities of the sea could use algal biofuel production and store energy from wind and the Sun. As designs improve oe
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The practice of biomimicry already taps into nature's ingenuity oe for example, the famous hexagonal skin of Norman Foster's Gherkin was inspired by the Venus Flower Basket sponge,
biotechnology has revealed that multicellular organisms can perform similar processes oe but even more powerfully. Although these creatures cannot be seen with the naked eye,
For example, Alberto Estevez's Genetic Barcelona proposes using synthetic biology techniques -which enables us to grow organisms that do not exist in nature by manipulating their DNA oe to create trees that produce a natural light-producing protein usually found in jellyfish.
improve water quality and increase biodiversity. Â These developments in living technology suggest that we will evolve solutions using the transformational properties of natural systems.
Importantly, since biology is everywhere, these approaches are confined not to Western societies. Increasingly DIY bio communities are learning how to hack natural systems
and diversify living technology applications. This may streamline global human development with such natural processes so that our lifestyles are more sustainable,
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 Then, in 2008, they got talking to a biologist colleague at the University of Central Florida where they worked.
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and use a fraction of the biogas to run the milk chiller. The rest could be used for cooking or lighting.
the slurry that comes out of the biogas can be used to fertilize grass and crops, he says.
Kisaalita found that farmers were convinced not that converting the biogas was worth the money. As an alternative, he developed a milk chiller that runs on propane,
now build me a biogas version, and wean me off of propane.''He now has a pilot up
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 says Harvard Medical school geneticist George Church. And then European settlers arrived. Mass hunting and habitat loss rapidly reduced their numbers until on 1 september 1914, Martha,
 Armed with new reproductive biology and genome engineering technologies, he and other scientists are dreaming up ambitious plans to resurrect long-dead animals from pigeons to Tasmanian tigers and wooly mammoths.
 The same technologies could also prevent endangered species from going the way of the dodo oe or the passenger pigeon.
In 1972, Oliver Ryder, a geneticist at the San diego Zoo, had the visionary idea of freezing skin samples from endangered animals in the hope they might help protect these species in the future.
Many captive animals suffer from genetic abnormalities and inbreeding, and Ryder imagined that his repository of animal cells could be used long after their donors died to help zoo veterinarians manage captive populations.
Scientists at the American biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technologies who had helped pioneer cloning in cattle,
 says William Holt, a reproductive biologist at the Zoological Society of London, who in a 2004 review paper called the prospect of cloning highly endangered species"hopelessly optimistic Â. Reverse switch But another scientific breakthrough,
With extinct animals, scientists need to take more involved measures to recover the complete DNA sequence oe its genome.
Armed with this code, they then need to find a way of engineering a regular pigeon's stem cells into behaving like a passenger pigeon's stem cells by mutating the genome.
Church says the complete genome of the passenger pigeon from museum specimens will soon be published and researchers are beginning to alter the genetic make-up of a more familiar bird oe the chicken oe to practice their techniques."
"What you can do for chicken you should be able to do for pigeon, and that can include creating DNA that you haven't seen alive for a 100 years,
But even if Church has the passenger pigeon's full genetic code, which he expects to recreate within a decade,
Church admits that bringing it back to life requires a significant improvement in existing genome engineering technologies.
To endow ordinary lab mice with these traits Church will try to partially rewrite the genomes of mouse stem cells.
Hendrik Poinar, a palaeo-geneticist at Mcmaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and his team have uncovered similarly well-preserved mammoth bones and never found viable cells or nuclei."
 Poinar says that genome engineering offers a more realistic shot at resurrecting woolly mammoths and other long-extinct species. Ten thousand-year-old cells and their nuclei may be degraded too to be used in cloning,
but they still contain the animal's genetic code. This genome is shredded into short fragments,
but DNA sequencing machines can read these shards and powerful computers can stitch them into a genome sequence.
Scientists published a 80%complete version of the mammoth genome in 2008 and more ancient animal genomes are on the way,
such as the Tasmanian tiger. These genomes exist in the form of computerised data, but they could serve as a blueprint for altering the DNA of a cell from a closely related species. For instance,
the code of a woolly mammoth's genome differs from an African elephant's by roughly 240,000 DNA letters out of a total of 4 billion,
though most of these changes are not likely to have a biological effect. An elephant ips cell engineered to contain those mutations would theoretically be capable of producing woolly mammoth sperm.
Better yet the woolly mammoth stem cells could be implanted besides an elephant embryo early in development,
producing a chimera animal with some tissues made from elephant cells and others from mammoths.
or indeed any extinct species would require a dizzying list of technological leaps in genome engineering, reproductive biology,
Basic genetic principles may carry over to more exotic animals but many steps will not, particularly those involving reproduction and development.
 Ewen Callaway writes about biology and medicine for Nature Newsif you would like to comment on this story
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And when you factor in climate change, limited fresh water supplies and competition for harvests from biofuel makers, it is clear the world faces a major challenge.
the machinery sowing this new revolution includes supercomputers, molecular biology and arrays of sensors. Here, BBC Future profiles four areas of research to discover how close they are to feeding the coming nine billion.
so the team set about looking for the genetic switches that could mimic the action and ramp up the plant's ability to harness the sun. That is easier said than done.
However, this is not the only way of increasing photosynthesis. Scientists are also exploring the idea that genes from the ancestors of modern-day plants might boost the ability of crops to harness the sun. It is well known that primitive plants known as cyanobacteria have a talent
they achieved a 20%increase in tobacco plants after adding a single cyanobacteria gene called inorganic carbon transporter B (Ictb.
and colleagues from the University of Nebraska have carried out some initial tests on soybeans transformed with the same gene,
There is huge opposition to genetically modified crops in many countries, with some groups citing safety concerns and others ethical, arguing that the developing world should not be used as a laboratory to test such crops.
"The cost of meeting global regulatory requirements for a single gene engineered into a crop can run into many millions,
Using genetic techniques unavailable to Borlaug, they then crossed this flood-tolerant strain with a high-yield strain of rice."
which has been engineered with genes from daffodils and bacteria to produce beta-carotene, a nutrient that the body can convert into Vitamin a.
But rather than importing genes from another organism researchers are now trying to find maize strains that naturally produce high levels of beta-carotene.
They then looked for any genes in these maize strains that resembled genes linked to high beta-carotene levels in other plants."
which carry a gene variant that slows down the conversion of beta-carotene to other substances,
As important, they also found a genetic marker that signals when this sought-after gene variant is in place.
Plant breeders are using the naturally occurring maize plants and those markers to breed new plants.
In 2011 more corn went to biofuel than to feed for the first time in the US. Another big pressure is climate change.
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a government agency that protects and conserves the countrys biodiversity, and struggled to find enough resources to cope with last years fires. oewhat is most frustrating is that
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and oxygen levels in the air to genetic manipulation according to approved safety guidelines. The regulatory system for insuring ultra-safe food supplies will be monitored constantly through automated data feeds at each step of the supply chain.
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such as solar thermal power, modern biomass production and the Seawater Greenhouse. The resulting synergies enable restorative growth in the worlds most arid regions.
Can you imagine producing a sustainable biofuel that doesnt impact on world food supplies? Charlie Paton, Michael Pawlyn and Bill Watts can
which can be turned into biofuel for transportation and other needs. Commercial Synergies The Sahara Forest Project team tell us that the innovative interaction between the two technologies helps each to function more efficiently:
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Executioners for Virus-Builders In the future, virus-builders who get caught will have a choice. They can either go to the electric chair,
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but now a team from Germany s Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB has developed a way to print capillaries with a 3-D printer.
and consumer demand will be driven by biological relevancy. We will be transitioning from a distinct set of crop options in the past to an unlimited number of food options in the future.
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According to Nutt, the alcohol substitute would be a flavorless additive that you could put in a nonalcoholic drink.
Ridge Diagnostics has started also to roll out a test analyzing 10 biomarkers linked to depression in adults.
#says a Harvard bioengineer named David Edwards . And so he has devised a way to convert foods into shell-like containers and films that he calls Wikicells.
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all discussing genetically modified crops and starkly different versions of the future of food. One one hand we have the state of affairs in the US.
farming in the US heartland can be pushed toward a model based on biodiversity over monocropping, farmer skill in place of brute chemicals,
About 80 percent of canola growing along roadsides in North dakota contains genes that have been modified to make the plants resistant to common weed-killers.
80%of canola growing along North dakota roadways actually contains genetically modified genes. Eighty percent. It was hoped this wouldn t happen.
that he finds it ironic that most people who oppose genetic engineering in plant breeding live in rich nations that he believes are responsible for global climate change that will lead to more starvation and malnutrition for the poor.
#That most people#who oppose GM CROPS live in rich nations is a dubious assumption at best. In fact, some of the most vocal critics of GM CROPS come from the Global South.
GM Watch has gone just into more detail on this point, that people in developing nations want genetically modified crops.
In 1998, African scientists at a United nations conference strongly objected to Monsanto s promotional GE campaign that used photos of starving African children under the headline Let the Harvest Begin.#
and hunger, said gene technologies would undermine the nations capacities to feed themselves by destroying established diversity, local knowledge and sustainable agricultural systems.
which give biotech firms the power to criminalize the age-old practice of seed-saving as patent infringement.#
Part of that delusion is not realizing that for opposition to GM CROPS often doesn t stem from opposition to new technology at all.
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or depressed would be a welcome addition to most clothing lines. 2.)Organ-View Clothing As part of our ongoing effort to monitor our own biological functions,
Shown here is Life science s Benchtop Genome Center 21. Gene therapy-Gene therapy is the use of DNA as a pharmaceutical agent to treat disease,
with the most common form involving DNA that has been encoded with a functional fix to replace a mutated one.
000) human genome and human exome sequencing. On the first day of CES, the X-Prize Foundation announced the Qualcomm Tricorder challenge to build a tool capable of capturing key health metrics and diagnosing a set of 15 different diseases.
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phasing out the crude genetic modification. This technology decouples food production from the availability of natural resources.
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#Companies rush to build bio-factories for a wide range of products Vials of genetically engineered life-forms.
Newman s biotech company is creating new organisms, most forms of genetically modified yeast, at the dizzying rate of more than 1, 500 a day.
And still others make biofuel, a renewable energy source usually made from corn.##oeyou can now build a cell the same way you might build an app for your iphone,
The rush to biological means of production promises to revolutionize the chemical industry and transform the economy,
and biosecurity and revives ethical debates about#oeplaying God.##Hundreds of products are in the pipeline.
Proponents characterize bio-factories as examples of#oegreen technology#that are sustainable and immune to fickle weather and disease.
They compare the spread of bio-factories to the large-scale burning of coal at the turn of the 20th century#a development with implications for carbon dioxide emissions
Much of the early hype surrounding this technology was about biofuels#the dream of engineering colonies of yeast that could produce enough fuel to power whole cities.
and so far the biofuels have been used only in smaller projects, such as local buses and Amyris s experiment with GOL s planes.
biosensors that light up when a parasite is detected in water; goats with spider genes that produce super-strength silk in their milk;
and synthetic bacteria that decompose trash and break down oil spills and other contaminated waste at a rapid pace.
Revenue from industrial chemicals made through synthetic biology is already as high as $1. 5 billion,
Amyris has become a legend in the field that sits at the intersection of biology and engineering,
Unlike traditional genetic engineering, which typically involves swapping a few genes, the scientists are building entire genomes from scratch.
Keeping bar-code-stamped vials in giant refrigerators at minus-80 degrees, the company s repository in Emeryville, Calif.,is one of the world s largest collections of living
organisms that do not exist in nature. Ten years ago, when Newman was a postdoctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley,
Newman was working in a chemical engineering lab run by biotech pioneer Jay Keasling and helping conduct research on how to rewrite the metabolic pathways of microorganisms to produce useful substances.
Could they tinker with some genes in the yeast to create a biological machine capable of producing medicine?
Jim Thomas, a researcher for the ETC Group, said there is a larger issue that applies to all organisms produced by synthetic biology techniques:
Other biotech executives say they are sympathetic, but that it is the price of progress.
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and to provide heat during the regeneration process that extracts the moisture from the desiccant
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when not in use and is considerably harder to damage than an ordinary phone. 6. Tooth Regeneration Regeneration of body parts in humans seems permanently consigned to the realm of science fiction,
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A 1973 NASA document summarizing the biological effects of vacuums on mammals gives you 10 seconds of consciousness
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there s no guarantee of success. India s Emami Biotech had grand plans to open a US $80 million biofuel plantation in Ethiopia,
aims to raise cassava productivity through genome-based breeding, looking at the variations in the plant s DNA to more quickly identify those strains and traits with the potential to boost yields.
For years African governments opposed the genetic modification of crops, but recently some have backtracked and now promote its adoption, starting with a nonfood crop#otton.
Whether African farmers can grow GM CROPS#s American farmers do on a massive scale#emains#oemired in controversy,#according to an authoritative study of the subject by Amy Orr and Sakiko Fukuda-Parr PDF.
such as the Gates Foundation, have been reluctant to promote the bioengineering of African crops. Yet because such crops require less water, fertilizer,
The case of cotton in Burkina faso highlights biotechnology s potential. Breaking ranks with other governments in the region, Burkina approved genetically modified cotton several years ago,
and by 2011 about half of the cotton grown in this West african country was bioengineered. Yields went up,
according to climate scientist Andy Jarvis, lead author of a 2012 paper in the journaltropical Plant Biology.
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#Transgenics next wave of genetically modified crops could ease concerns over Frankenfoods Transgenic canola When the first genetically modified (GM) organisms were being developed for the farm,
says Bodnar, a biotechnologist with Biology Fortified, a nonprofit GM-organism advocacy organization in Middleton, Wisconsin.
And at worst, they have helped to fuel the rage of opponents of genetic modification, who say that transgenic crops have concentrated power and profits in the hands of a few large corporations,
and are a prime example of scientists meddling in nature, heedless of the dangers. But that could soon change,
thanks to a whole new generation of GM CROPS now making their way from laboratory to market.
Other next-generation crops will be created using advanced genetic manipulation techniques that allow high-precision editing of the plant s own genome.
Such approaches could reduce the need to modify commercial crops with genes imported from other species#one of the practices that most disturbs critics of genetic modification.
#The first wave of GM CROPS was marketed mainly to farmers, with the goal of making their jobs easier, more productive and more profitable.
In 1996, for example, biotechnology firm Monsanto of St louis, Missouri, introduced the first of its popular Roundup Ready products:
a soya bean equipped with a bacterial gene that allows it to tolerate a Monsanto-made glyphosphate herbicide known as Roundup.
Other GM CROPS soon followed, including Monsanto s Bt cotton: a plant modified to produce a bacterial toxin that discourages destructive bollworms and cuts down on the need for pesticides.
Putting the genes for this defense into wheat has created a crop that could trick the insects into thinking that they are in peril and drive them away.
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called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), involves taking the genetic material from the adult cell and placing it in the nucleus of an egg that has had its own genetic material removed.
After Dolly scientist have used SCNT to clone other mammals including cat, dog, deer, horse, mule, ox, rabbit and rat.
For several years now attempts have been made to derive as many clones as possible from that one original piece of genetic material.
Epigenetic regulation refers to the turning on and off of genes by molecules not the genes themselves.
Any random cell could reasonably be expected to have some epigenetic abnormalities, but when all of the organism s cells are derived from the same cell,
For example, a series of cloned mice were shown to express an RNA molecule that inactivated one of the female s X chromosomes.
The study, led by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Japan,
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#New protein discovery could change biotech forever The quest started with trying to make better yogurt.
Bacteria that uses a tiny molecular machine to kill attacking viruses could change the way that scientists edit the DNA of plants,
animals and fungi, revolutionizing genetic engineering. The protein, called Cas9, is quite simply a way to more accurately cut a piece of DNA.#
#oethis could significantly accelerate the rate of discovery in all areas of biology, including gene therapy in medicine, the generation of improved agricultural goods,
and the engineering of energy-producing microbes, #says Luciano Marraffini of Rockefeller University. The biotech revolution that created drugs like EPO for anemia
and interferon for multiple sclerosis and crops like Monsanto s Roundup Ready soybeans was based on relatively crude methods for inserting a gene from one organism into another.
For a decade some biologists have been touting a new approach, dubbed synthetic biology, that makes more genetic alterations
in order to treat living things more like machines that can be engineered. The ability to make modular changes in the DNA of bacteria
and primitive algae has resulted in drug and biofuel companies such as Amyris and LS9. But figuring out how to make changes in the genomes of more complicated organisms has been tough.
Although it s possible to insert a single gene from one species into another, it s much harder to cut the genetic code in specific places to make real copy-editing possible.
Two techniques for doing so were placed among the top innovations of 2012 by Science, and NIH director Francis Collins wrote in a blog post that they are#oerevealing tantalizing new possibilities for treating human diseases#in a blog post.
But one zinc finger nucleases, can cost $6, 000 per edit, and a second, Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases (TALENS), appears only a fifth as efficient as Cas9.#
#oeit is spreading like wildfire from everyone who knows about it and it certainly is very tantalizing,
#says George Church of Harvard university.##oeit s easy to get in and start doing lots of experiments.#
The bacteria used to culture milk are particularly prone to becoming infected with viruses that kill them, lowering productivity.
The bacteria were keeping track of telltale bits of genetic code from viruses that might try to infect them,
and, somehow, they were using these codes to kill those viruses when they attacked. CRISPR was a primitive immune system.
somehow the bacteria had the ability to target specific bits of genetic code. If scientists could harness that,
a protein that had the ability to cut genetic material. Emmanuelle Charpentier of Umea University of Sweden had picked up hints of one likely protein.
they found that the bacteria combined Cas9 with genetic material to create#oehoming molecules#that attack viruses.
Bacteria, like human beings and almost every other living thing, keeps its genetic code in a library of DNA molecules.
That kills viruses but scientists use it to cut DNA in exactly the place they want.
Caribou Biosciences, to commercialize her work. In the short term, Church says, the potential of cas9 is that it could be used to study genetics in a way that was heretofore impossible.
Let s say there are three changes in the DNA in or around a gene that might cause a disease.
Right now, it s hard to study them directly. But now, Church says, you could take a cell from a person who has had already their DNA sequenced,
as he is doing with his Personal Genome Project. Then you d create what s known as an induced pluripotent stem cell
this could be done by changing the genes of a human stem cell (in the case of a Neanderthal)
Sangamo Biosciences has been working to commercialize the earlier zinc finger nuclease technology as a form of medicine for more than a decade.
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biotech is currently accelerating four times faster than digital technology, and the revival of extinct species is
To preserve biodiversity and genetic diversity. To undo harm that humans have caused in the past. To restore diminished ecosystems.
Will the genetic differences be too great for them to survive, or will those differences make them ultra-adaptable where they will thrive to the point of becoming a pest to their surroundings.
some pregnancies produce living offspring of the extinct species. 3.)Allele replacement for precision crossbreeding of a living species with an extinct species is a new genome-editing technique developed by Harvard
geneticist, George Church. If the technique proves successful (such as with the passenger pigeon), it might be applied to the many other extinct species that have left their#oeancient DNA#in museum specimens
or top scientists, how many would be willing to pay for genetic material from the likes of Abraham lincoln, JFK, Paul mccartney, Richard Branson, or Steve jobs?
Genetic research like this is very expensive, and this recent awareness campaign will undoubtedly draw in millions.
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I m just a dumb biologist so#Diagram showing how directional virtual fencing operates. The black-and-white dashed line (8) shows where a conventional fence would be placed.
and Polypay genetics, were basically right-handed. You ll want to take a look at the data, of course, but, basically, animals are no different than you and
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Food may benefit directly from genetic tailoring and potentially from producing meat directly in a lab. Automation will help agriculture via large-scale robotic
Of particular interest will be synthetic biology, which allows efficiently reprogramming unicellular life to make fuels, byproducts accessible from organic chemistry and smart devices.
Livestock biometrics: Collars with GPS, RFID and biometrics can automatically identify and relay vital information about the livestock in real time.
Scientifically viable in 2017; mainstream and financially viable in 2020. Crop sensors: Instead of prescribing field fertilization before application,
The creation of entirely new strains of food animals and plants in order to better address biological and physiological needs.
Synthetic biology: Synthetic biology is about programming biology using standardized parts as one programs computers using standardized libraries today.
Includes the broad redefinition and expansion of biotechnology, with the ultimate goals of being able to design,
build and remediate engineered biological systems that process information, manipulate chemicals, fabricate materials and structures,
produce energy, provide food, and maintain and enhance human health and our environment. Scientifically viable in 2013;
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Bio-Waste Optimizers 31. Guardians of Privacy Future Sports Sports have become the ultimate form of storytelling.
Genetic Modification Designers and Engineers 34. Body modification Ethicists 35. Athlete Qualification Analyzers 36. Cradle to Grave Lifecycle Managers 37.
Bio-Factories Based on using living systems bio-factories represent a new process for creating substances that are either too tricky
or too expensive to grow in nature or to make with petrochemicals. The rush to develop bio-factories as a means for production
not only promises to revolutionize the chemical industry but also transform the economy. Hundreds of products are already in the pipeline. 110.
Bio-Factory Doctors Strategists, and Developers 112. DNA Scientists 113. Gene Sequencers 114. Treatment Monitors Micro-Colleges The systems used to create colleges centuries ago seems justifiably primitive by today s standards.
Learning formulas for nearly every degree are based on hours, one of the least important considerations when it comes to assessing talent.
Bio-Meat Factory Engineers 131. Supply Chain Optimizers 132. Urban Agriculturalists Why ship food all the way around the world when it can be grown next door 133.
Biohacking Inspectors and Security 134. Swarmbot and Drone Operators and Managers 135. Plant Educators An intelligent plant will be capable of re-engineering itself to meet the demands of tomorrow s marketplace.
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