Researchers de-extincted a killer Pox virus for $100k using mail order DNA
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Extinction is no longer for life, and being able to bring back extinct killer viruses or create new ones is both exciting and terrifying. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, enjoy exclusive content, future proof yourself with XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Eradicating smallpox, one...
Genetically engineered cattle only produce male offspring to save the world
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF DNA is the software of life, and our ability to code it is getting exponentially better – for better and worse. Interested in the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from our XPotential Academy, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. In spite of the...
A brain switch helped put mice into suspended animation, could do same for humans
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Putting humans into suspended animation would give surgeons more time to operate on critical patients, and help us colonise far off worlds, and we’re getting closer to it. Interested in the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. As humanity continues to look...
Squids help researchers genetically engineer human cells and turn them invisible
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Squid have a huge number of secret skills, and now thanks to genetic engineering humans could one day have those same skills too. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. People everywhere want superpowers – even though their own...
Forget lockdown HIT, these mice got totally ripped with gene therapy
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Of course ethically there will never be any substitute for real exercise, but new gene therapies are pushing our thinking and could benefit people who can’t exercise. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. The current Coronavirus pandemic, Covid-19,...
New tests prove Covid-19 virus wasn’t made by humans in a lab
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As our mastery of synthetic biology improves so too does our ability to create new types of artificial bio-weaponry, and it’s freaking governments out. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. A decade or so ago the mere thought...
Stanford developed a gene editing tool that identifies and de-bugs faulty genes
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the technology of the future increasingly looks like it will be biological based we’ll need more “biological debuggers” like this one that can debug it. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. This is a good example of...
Genetically engineered male moths programmed to kill off females released into the wild
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Genetic engineering is the ultimate Pandora’s Box, and the lid’s coming off as companies discover new ways to control and kill pests in the wild. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Let’s play a game… what’s the most...
Researchers made networks out of bacteria to make DNA storage more efficient
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF DNA storage holds huge amounts of promise but getting information into DNA and then getting it back out again has been problematic. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Humanity is creating information at an unprecedented rate, and I’m...
Scientists get closer to creating synthetic cells that can replicate themselves
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As our grasp of synthetic biology improves we’re nearing the point where we can create completely synthetic, unnatural cells not found anywhere in nature, and get them to replicate. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. It’s one thing...
DARPA wants to genetically engineer soldiers to protect them from biological and chemical weapons
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As our understanding of how to manipulate the genetic code improves we’re slowing unlocking a whole new world of possible use cases. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. The US Pentagon’s bleeding edge research arm DARPA, whose crazy...
Scientists use CRISPR to alter the genomes of fruit flies so they can eat poison
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As your understanding of genetics improves we have now reached the point at which we can cause mass extinctions, and change the ecology of the planet in one stroke. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Nature is a...
Bioengineering breakthrough paves the way for tomorrow’s superplants
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Plants face a variety of stresses, whether it’s crops suffering as a result of climate change, or our new need to grow food on other planets, and this breakthrough makes engineering new plants faster. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote,...
Colorful bio-engineered bacteria could end fashions obsession with toxic dyes
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The dye in your jeans, and most of your clothes, comes from countries whose dead rivers run red and blue, but now there’s a way to put an end to it, for good. Throughout the fall of 2012, Marie-Sarah Adenis and Thomas Landrain toiled...
Scientists hunt for “Kryptonite to stop CRISPR,” the world’s most powerful gene editing tool
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In time the cost and ease of modifying any living organisms genome and genetic makeup, for better and worse, will fall to almost zero, and as gene editing tools become democratised and sought after by Bio-Terrorists, researchers are trying to find the technology’s Kryptonite –...
Scientists have unlocked the secret to whole body regeneration
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Humans genetic ability to regenerate body parts naturally was “turned off” millions of years ago, but now scientists have found a switch that turns it on – in worms. When it comes to regeneration some animals are capable of amazing feats. For example, if...
World first as scientists get the “Extinction Gene” to work in mammals
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Gene drives over rule the laws of genetic inheritance, which means you can cure inherited genetic diseases forever, wipe out the entire human population, and everything in between. The phrase Gene Drive often sends a shudder down a scientist’s spine, one of awe and...
Genetic engineering breakthrough turns chickens into egg laying medicine factories
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to produce drugs and medicines cheaply is important, and this breakthrough breaks grounds on all kinds of fronts. Ordinarily, when scientists want to produce proteins to use in medicine they have to use techniques that are costly and complex. Recently, however, in...
Scientists fix a genetic flaw to boost crop yields by 40 percent
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF By 2050 we will need to feed 10 billion people, but increasingly we have the technology to ensure noone goes hungry. Scientists keep playing about with the process of photosynthesis, such as removing it’s natural sunblock, to boost crop yields by up to 30...
RNA breakthrough makes it possible to cure Cystic Fibrosis with an inhaler
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF A revolutionary new way to deliver mRNA into the body in aerosol form makes genetically editing faulty genes easier than ever before. Recent there have been some almost miraculous medical breakthroughs, from treating patients with inherited genetic diseases with in vivo gene therapy treatments...
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