Creation (27 page)

The first album to be constructed entirely from samples is
Endtroducing
(1996) by DJ Shadow, which uses at least ninety-nine samples over the eighteen tracks, from films including
Silent Running
(1972) and
Prince of Darkness
(1987), and bands including Queen, Metallica, Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk, and Nirvana. Craig Venter's bacteria nicknamed Synthia is probably the closest to a fully sampled living cell, though
Endtroducing
is more culturally relevant and much more exciting.

The edge-detecting synthetic bacteria that spelled out the simple coder's test message “Hello world”: Anselm Levskaya
et al., “Synthetic Biology: Engineering
Escherichia coli
to See Light,”
Nature
438 (November 24, 2005), pp. 441–42 (doi:10.1038/nature04405).

Three months of measuring the wings and eyes of several thousand stalk-eyed flies (
Cyrtodiopsis dalmanni
), after breeding and raising them in liquefied rotting sweet corn—happy days: P. David, A. Hingle, D. Greig, A. Rutherford, A. Pomiankowski, and K. Fowler, “Male Sexual Ornament Size but Not Asymmetry Reflects Condition in Stalk-eyed Flies,”
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
265 (1998), p. 2211 (doi:10.1098/rspb.1998.0561).

The beginnings of the biocementation process that the Brown-Stanford iGem team would use to look at RegoBrick formation for terraforming: S. S. Bang and V. Ramakrishnan, “Calcite Precipitation Induced by Polyurethane-immobilized
Bacillus pasteurii
,”
Enzyme and Microbial Technology
28 (2001), pp. 404–9.

Two useful reviews of patents in genetics and synthetic biology: Arti Rai and James Boyle, “Synthetic Biology: Caught between Property Rights, the Public Domain, and the Commons,”
PLoS Biology
5 (2007), p. e58 (doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050058); Berthold Rutz, “Synthetic Biology and Patents: A European Perspective,”
EMBO Reports
10 (2009), pp. S14–S17 (doi:10.1038/embor.2009.131).

The European patent for the
OncoMouse
:
http://register.epoline.org/espacenet/application?number=EP85304490.

President Obama's
National Bioeconomy Blueprint
: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/national_bioeconomy_blueprint_april_2012.pdf.

Chapter 11: The Case for Progress

The science writer Martin Robbins, along with many supporters of the scientists, attended Take the Flour Back's planned attack on the Rothamsted GM fields, “‘HULK SMASH GM'—Mixing Angry Greens with Bad Science,” May 30, 2012, www.guardian.co.uk.

Here are several papers on specific aspects of genetic modification that are cited in the first few pages of chapter 11: Sophie Vandermoten, “Aphid Alarm Pheromone: An Overview of Current Knowledge on Biosynthesis and Functions,”
Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
42 (2012), pp. 155–63; G. Kunert, C. Reinhold, and J. Gershenzon, “Constitutive Emission of the Aphid Alarm Pheromone, (E)-β-farnesene, from Plants Does Not Serve as a Direct Defense Against Aphids,”
BMC Ecology
, 10 (2010), p. 23 (doi:10.1186/1472-6785-10-23); L. G. Firbank et al., “Farm-Scale Evaluation of Genetically Modified Crops,”
Nature
399 (1999), pp. 727−28; J. N. Perry et al., “Ban on Triazine Herbicides Likely to Reduce but Not Negate Relative Benefits of GMHT Maize Cropping,”
Nature
428 (18 March 2004), pp. 313–16 (doi:10.1038/nature02374); M. S. Heard et al., “Weeds in Fields with Contrasting Conventional and Genetically Modified Herbicide-Tolerant Crops. 1. Effects on Abundance and Diversity,”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
358 (2003), pp. 1819−32; J. N. Perry et al., “Design, Analysis and Power of the Farm-Scale Evaluations of Genetically Modified Herbicide-Tolerant Crops,”
Journal of Applied Ecology
40 (2003), pp. 17−31; Chelsea Snella et al., “Assessment of the Health Impact of GM Plant Diets in Long-term and Multigenerational Animal Feeding Trials: A Literature Review,”
Food and Chemical Toxicology
50 (2012), pp. 1134–48;

Take the Flour Back's website: http://taketheflourback.org/.

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues' recommendations on synthetic biology, 2010: “New Directions: The Ethics of Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies,” http://bioethics.gov/cms/synthetic-biology-report.

Also, the response from Friends of the Earth and the ETC: http://www.foe.org/news/blog/2010-12-groups-criticize-presidential-commissions-recommenda.

The Obama administration's
National Bioeconomy Blueprint
: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/04/26/national-bioeconomy-blueprint-released.

And the response from Friends of the Earth and the ETC: “Principles for the Oversight of Synthetic Biology,” http://www.foe.org/projects/food-and-technology/blog/2012-03-global-coalition-calls-oversight-synthetic-biology.

This classic paper was the first real instance of genetic modification, by Paul Berg and his team: D. A. Jackson, R. H. Symons, and P. Berg, “Biochemical Method for Inserting New Genetic Information into DNA of Simian Virus 40: Circular SV40 DNA Containing Lambda Phage Genes and the Galactose Operon of
Escherichia coli
,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA
69 (1972), pp. 2904–9.

The post-Asilomar schism reported: “Environmental Groups Lose Friends in Effort to Control DNA Research,”
Science
202 (1978), p. 22.

ETC's analysis of the bio-based economy: “The New Biomasters: Synthetic Biology and the Next Assault on Biodiversity and Livelihoods,” http://www.etcgroup.org/content/new-biomassters.

The
Guardian
's stunt to assemble parts of the smallpox genome by mail order: James Randerson, “Revealed: The Lax Laws That Could Allow Assembly of Deadly Virus DNA,”
Guardian
, June 14, 2006.

The 2002 construction of the virus that causes polio by taking its genome sequence from publicly available databases: Jeronimo Cello, Aniko V. Paul, and Eckard Wimmer, “Chemical Synthesis of Poliovirus cDNA: Generation of Infectious Virus in the Absence of Natural Template,”
Science
297 (August 9, 2002), pp. 1016–18 (doi:10.1126/science.1072266).

And of the 1918 flu: Terrence M. Tumpey et al., “Characterization of the Reconstructed 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic Virus,”
Science
310 (2005), pp. 77–80 (doi:10.1126/science.1119392).

The two experimental flu papers, one by Kawaoka in
Nature
and the other by Fouchier in
Science
, both finally published in full in June 2012 after much deliberation and debate, and an earlier editorial from
Nature
: Masaki Imai et al.
,
“Experimental Adaptation of an Influenza H5 HA Confers Respiratory Droplet Transmission to a Reassortant H5 HA/H1N1 Virus in Ferrets,”
Nature
486 (June 21, 2012), pp. 420–28 (doi:10.1038/nature10831); Sander Herfst et al., “Airborne Transmission of Influenza A/H5N1 Virus Between Ferrets,”
Science
336 (June 22, 2012), pp. 1534–41 (doi:10.1126/science.1213362); “Publishing Risky Research,”
Nature
485 (May 3, 2012), p. 5 (doi:10.1038/485005a).

Though somewhat dated, this is a useful review of actions for biologists to take to restrict bioterrosim: Claire M. Fraser and Malcolm R. Dando, “Genomics and Future Biological Weapons: The Need for Preventive Action by the Biomedical Community,”
Nature Genetics
29 (2001), pp. 253–56 (doi:10.1038/ng763).

Gilles-Eric Séralini's controversial study on the negative effects of GM crops in rats' diets: Gilles-Eric Séralini et al., “Long term Toxicity of a Roundup Herbicide and a Roundup-Tolerant Genetically Modified Maize,”
Food and Chemical Toxicology
50 (2012), pp. 4221–31.

And two months later, a damning review by the European Food Safety Authority: European Food Safety Authority, “Final Review of the Séralini et al. (2012a) Publication on a 2-year Rodent Feeding Study with Glyphosate Formulations and GM Maize NK603 as Published Online on 19 September 2012 in
Food and Chemical Toxicology,
”
EFSA Journal
10 (2012), p. 2986.

On the creation of artemisinin: Dae-Kyun Ro et al., “Production of the Antimalarial Drug Precursor Artemisinic Acid in Engineered Yeast,”
Nature
440 (April 13, 2006), pp. 940–43 (doi:10.1038/nature04640); P. J. Westfall et al., “Production of Amorphadiene in Yeast, and Its Conversion to Dihydroartemisinic Acid, Precursor to the Antimalarial Agent Artemisinin,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA
109 E111-8 (January 12, 2012); Declan Butler, “Malaria Drug-makers Ignore WHO Ban,”
Nature
460 (July 14, 2009), pp. 310–11 (doi:10.1038/460310b); Melissa Lee Phillips, “Genome Analysis Homes In on Malaria-Drug Resistance,”
Nature News
(April 5, 2012) (doi:10.1038/nature.2012.10398).

The United Kingdom's chief scientific adviser on GM foods: “GM Food Needed to Avert Global Crisis, Says Government Adviser,”
Telegraph
(January 24, 2011).

“Meanings of ‘Life,'”
Nature
447 (June 28, 2007), pp. 1031–32 (doi:10.1038/4471031b).

Written by some of the giants of the first wave of genetic modification, the recommendations following the Asilomar summit. Paul Berg, David Baltimore, Sydney Brenner, Richard O. Roblin III, and Maxine F. Singer, “Summary Statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA
72 (1975), pp. 1981–84.

A major public assessment of how various publics view synthetic biology in the United Kingdom: “BBSRC Synthetic Biology Dialogue,” www.bbsrc.ac.uk/web/FILES/Reviews/synbio_summary-report.pdf.

Afterword

Babel, Esperanto, Klingon, Babm, Blissymbolics, Loglan, and Lojba—see Arika Okrent's wonderful book on the stories of how we have started nearly nine hundred new languages:
In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language
(Spiegel & Grau, 2009).

On Steve Benner's addition of
Z
and
P
to the natural bases
A, T, C,
and
G:
Z. Yang, F. Chen, et al.,
“
Amplification, Mutation, and Sequencing of a Six-Letter Synthetic Genetic System,”
Journal of the American Chemical Society
(2011) (doi:10.1021/ja204910n).

On XNA and the birth of synthetic genetics: Vitor B. Pinheiro et al., “Synthetic Genetic Polymers Capable of Heredity and Evolution,”
Science
336 (April 20, 2012), pp. 341–44 (doi:10.1126/science.1217622).

On the creation of unnatural amino acids: Lloyd Davis and Jason W. Chin, “Designer Proteins: Applications of Genetic Code Expansion in Cell Biology,”
Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology
13 (February 2012), pp. 168–82 (doi:10.1038/nrm3286); Jason W. Chin et al., “Addition of a Photocrosslinking Amino Acid to the Genetic Code of
Escherichia coli
,”
PNAS
99 (2002), pp. 11020–24 (doi:10.1073/pnas.172226299).

On ancient DNA: one of the most surprising interviews I have done, for the
Nature Podcast,
was with Stephan C. Schuster, the lead researcher on the sequencing of the mammoth genome, on November 20, 2008:

SCHUSTER:
Once we realized that there might be the possibility that the hair shaft contained actual DNA, we went out and tried to find sources of DNA that we could reliably step into. And the way I do this, I started searching for them on eBay and when I immediately found that there are zillions of hairs available, we contacted the seller and then, together with authorities of the university, we made sure that there were proper import permits, and we also had paleontologists and museum curators in Russia to check on the sources of that because we were very worried that some of those hairs and fossils might have illegally been sold outside Russia. And after we verified that all of this was taken care of and there is a clean record, then we started buying hair in a larger supply from that source.

AR:
Some of these details aren't mentioned in the methods section of the paper. Can I just get you to say that again: You bought these hairs off eBay? What was the successful bid?

SCHUSTER:
For a handful of hair, I think it cost me something like 132 bucks.

On the wooly mammoth genome sequence: Webb Miller
et al., “Sequencing the Nuclear Genome of the Extinct Wooly Mammoth,”
Nature
456 (November 20, 2008), pp. 387–90 (doi:10.1038/nature07446).

An assessment of sequencing DNA from long-dead specimens: S. Pääbo et al., “Genetic Analyses from Ancient DNA,”
Annual Review of Genetics
38 (2004), pp. 645–79 (doi:10.1146/annurev.genet.37.110801.143214).

On very old human DNA: Richard E. Green et al., “A Draft Sequence of the Neanderthal Genome,”
Science
328 (May 7, 2010), pp. 710–22 (doi:10.1126/science.1188021).

On exceedingly old plant DNA: Eske Willerslev et al., “Ancient Biomolecules from Deep Ice Cores Reveal a Forested Southern Greenland,”
Science
317 (July 6, 2007), pp. 111–14 (doi: 10.1126/science.1141758).

One of the first suggestions in the academic literature that DNA could be used as a digital storage device: Eric B. Baum, “Building an Associative Memory Vastly Larger Than the Brain,”
Science
268 (April 28, 1995), pp. 583–85 (doi:10.1126/science.7725109).

The most advanced realization of DNA as a means of storing data: George M. Church, Yuan Gao, and Sriram Kosuri, “Next-Generation Digital Information Storage in DNA,”
Science
337 (September 28, 2012) (doi:10.1126/science.1226355).

The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. To find the corresponding locations in the text of this digital version, please use the “search” function on your e-reader. Note that not all terms may be searchable.

accretion, 63

accumulation of culture, 112

Action Group on Erosion, 204

action potential, 165

acyclovir, 236

Adams, Douglas, 12

adenine (A), 36–37, 89, 101, 105, 235

Aequorea,
153

agenda politics, 217–20

Aldrin, Buzz, 67

alien code, creation of, 238–40

amber stop codon (UAG), 243

amine group, 240–41

amino acids, 38–41, 56–57, 90–93, 240–45

handedness of, 44–46

Miller's creation of, 72–74

aminoacyl tRNA synthetase, 242–44

amphioxus, 49, 55

Amyris, 157–59, 221, 224, 226, 229

ANA (arabinose), 238

AND gates, 162, 164, 167

Andromeda Strain, The
(movie), 206

animalcules, 15

Animalia
(Aristotle), 16–17

antiviral drugs, 236

apes, 48

aphids, 202

Apollo program, 66, 190

Apple, 180

aptamer, 240

archaea, 4, 52–54, 56, 58, 124, 126

Archean eon, 61

Aristotle, 16–17

Armstrong, Neil, 66, 67

artemisinin, 222–26

Asilomar meeting, 206–7, 230, 231

Asimov, Isaac, 180

assassin circuits, 166–68

astrobiology, 78–79

astrocytes, 11

astronomy, 6

ATG start codon, 41

atoms, 43–44, 82

ATP, 124, 125

Avery, Oswald, 35

bacteria, 2, 4, 27, 31, 35, 52–54, 56, 58, 124, 126, 127, 150

Bada, Jeffrey, 72, 73

Bartel, David, 98–100

bases, 37, 235

BBC, 219, 227

Beddington, John, 227–28

Benner, Steve, 236–37

Berg, Paul, 206, 214, 230, 231

Bernard of Chartres, 183

big bang theory, 6

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 224

BioBricks Foundation, 192, 197, 198, 206

BioBricks project, 185–86, 192, 196–97, 205, 215

biocapsule, development of, 177–78

biocementation, 191

biodiesel, synthesis of, 157–59, 221

biofuel projects, 156–59

biological clock, in
E. coli,
169–70

biological oscillator, creation of, 170–72

biological production line, creation of, 189–90

biology, 6–8, 13, 137–38

bioreactor, 122–23, 125, 128–29

biosensor, creation of generic, 188

bioterrorism, 209–12

bistable, 169–70

Blind Men and the Elephant syndrome, 81

blood, components of, 2

Bosman, Andrea, 224

BRCA1, 195

BRCA2, 195

Brenner, Sydney, 39–40

brewer's yeast, 157–59

brick-making bacteria, 190–92

Brown, Robert, 19, 20

Budin, Itay, 120–21

Cambridge, 36

Cameron, David, 139

cancer, 154

assassin circuits and, 166–68

Candida albicans,
32

carbolic acid, 240–41

carbon atoms, 44, 69

carbon fixation, 156–57

Carlson, Rob, 179, 211

cells, 11–24, 73–74, 136, 138

ancestry of, 47–51

cell theory, 6, 18–24, 28

deconstruction and reassembly of, 7

division, 121–22

Hooke and, 15–16

membranes, 117–22

origins of, 16–18, 47

roles of, in response to paper cut, 1–4

size of, 11–12

types and numbers of, 4–5, 11–13

van Leeuwenhoek's discovery of, 13–15, 16

cell theory, 6, 18–24, 28

Cellularpathologie, Die
(Virchow), 21–22

CeNA, 238

Cernan, Gene, 66

chaos, 84

chemistry, 105–9

chemotherapy, 168, 236

Chen, Irene, 94

Chicxulub meteorite, 67–68, 115

chimeras, 150

chimpanzees, 32, 55

Chin, Jason, 243, 244–45

chirality, 44–45

chloroquine, 222, 225

chromosomes, 34–35, 37

Church, George, 248–49

cichlid, 32

cinchona trees, 222

circadian rhythms, 170

climate change, 156

Collins, Michael, 67

colored tags, 153

Columbia livia,
147

competition, 120

complex life, 52–55, 56

complex molecules, 103–4

computers, 179–80, 196

conformity of life, 31–34

containment of living processes, 117–21

Copyright Act, 197

copyrights, 194–99

creation myths, 5

Crick, Francis, 36, 39–40, 72, 93, 94, 113, 114, 137, 244

cross-breeding

of GM and non-GM crops, 227

Mendel's, of pea plants, 33

crude oil breakdown, patenting of bacteria capable of, 195

Cryptic era, 64–65

cultural evolution, 111–12, 183–84

cuts, bodies response to, 1–4

Cynodontia,
48

cytokines, 176–77

cytosine (C), 36–37, 89, 101, 105

Daily Mail,
142

Darwin, Charles, 6, 24–27, 33, 38, 52, 70–71, 74, 86, 120, 130, 147

Darwinian behavior, as basis for defining life, 78–79

da Vinci, Leonardo, 136

defining life, 75–87

characteristics of living organisms, 75–77

Darwinian behavior as basis for, 78–79

energy and, 82–87

information transfer as basis for, 78–79

NASA's definition, 78–79

role of physics in, 82–87

Trifonov's definition, 80

“Dem Dry Bones” model, 108

deoxyribose, 105, 238

Department of Agriculture, 205, 217

descent with modification, 55

diabetes, 173, 177–78

diacritics, 89–90

Diadectes,
48

diesel, synthesis of, 157–59, 221

dinosaurs, 67

directed panspermia, 114

“Directed Panspermia” (Crick and Orgel), 114

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), 6, 35–43, 89–96, 103–9, 127, 137, 149–50, 234–37

alien bases integrated into, 236–37

as better data storage device than RNA, 94–95

coding of, 36–38, 89–93

copying errors of, and determining relatedness of species, 51–52

diacritics of, 89–90

as digital data storage device, 246–50

double helix structure of, 36–37

frozen nature of, 93, 113

how DNA work, 38–43, 89–93

identified as key component of inheritance, 34–35

major and minor grooves of, 236–37

Miescher first isolates, 136–37

origin of code of, 103–9

ownership of, 194–99

protein construction, role in, 39–43, 241

redundancy of, 90–91

restriction enzymes for cutting, copying and pasting of, 150–52, 206

right-handedness of, 46–47

RNA as forefather of, 94–96

DNA polymerases, 91–92, 236–37, 238

dogs, 32

dolphins, 32

double helix, 36–37

Dumortier, Barthélemy, 19

E. coli,
140

biological clock in, creation of, 169–70

biological oscillator in, creation of, 170–72

Eagle
(spacecraft), 190

Earth, 61–69

in Cryptic era, 64–65

dating of, 64–65

early geology of, 62–63

first life on, 68–69

formation of, 63

geologic eons, 61

Hadean, 61–69

meteorite activity and, 66–68, 108, 114–15

earthquakes, 62–63

Easter eggs, in DNA, 247–48

edge detector, 188

egg cells, 11, 48

Ehrlich, Paul, 208

electrical circuits, 161–63

electrical engineering, 163, 179

electron microscopes, 15

electrons, 43–44, 82

Elowitz, Michael, 168–69

Endy, Drew, 185–86, 198

energy, 6, 82–87, 109, 122

entropy, 83–86

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 205

enzymes, 42

EßF ((E)-ß farnesene) wheat, 202, 227

Esperanto, 234

eukaryotes, 52–53

eureka moments, 20

European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), 219

evolution

cultural, 111–12, 183–84

by natural selection, 6, 24–29, 51–54, 78–79, 93, 99, 183

Evolution from Space
(Hoyle), 129

experiment/experimentation, 23

extinction, 47

extremophiles, 57

failure analysis, 180

FANA, 238

farming, 146

farnesene, 158–59

Federal Aviation Administration, 175–76

Feynman, Richard, 138, 140, 181, 248

fibroblasts, 3

flip-flop, 169–70

flu, 212–17

Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 205

fossil fuel creation, circuit for, 188–89

Fouchier, Ron, 213, 214

frameshift mutations, 39–40

frankenfood, 203–4

Franklin, Rosalind, 35, 36, 37, 137

Freckles (goat capable of producing silk), 145–49, 152–53

Freemont, Paul, 194

French Academy of Sciences, 22

Friends of the Earth, 204, 205, 207, 208, 209

Friesian cow, 143

fruit flies, 34–35

Gardner, Timothy, 169

Gates, Bill, 180

generic biosensor, creation of, 188

genes, 33–34, 38–41, 53, 54, 95, 164–65.
See also
genetic engineering

genetically modified crops, 201–3, 227–28

genetically modified food, 217–20

genetic disease, 91

genetic engineering, 7, 137–38, 139, 145–56

activation of genes, 153–54

agenda politics and, 217–20

Asilomar meeting and, 206–7, 230, 231

experiment to determine function of human disease-causing genes, 155

Freckles (goat capable of producing silk), 145–49, 152–53

killer flu experiments and, 212–17

mechanics of, 150–55

as next-generation farming, 149

opposition to, 201–20

restriction enzymes, role of, 150–52

tagging of genes, 153

transgenes, creating, 152

weaponizing of engineered life-forms as argument against, 209–12

genome, 37, 38–39, 42, 53

Human Genome Project, 137

logic in, 165–66

synthetic creation of, 141

Venter's synthetic creation of, 139–44, 163, 196, 204, 211, 228–29, 247

geology, 62–63

Global Fund, 224

Global Malaria Programme, 224

global warming, 156

glucose, 172–73

glycine, 241

goat, capable of producing silk (Freckles), 145–49, 152–53

golden orb-weaver spiders, 145–46

golden rice, 159

Google, 180

gorillas, 32

Gosling, Raymond, 35, 36, 37

green fluorescent protein (GFP), 153, 169, 188

Griffiths, Fred, 35

guanine (G), 36–37, 89, 101, 105

Guardian,
142, 210, 211, 212

H1N1 flu, 212

H5N1 flu, 213

H5N4 flu, 212

Hadean eon, 61–69

Haeckel, Ernst, 71

Haldane, J. B. S., 71–72, 80, 83

hammerhead ribozyme, 100–1

handed molecules, 44–46

Hannibal, 209

Harvey, William, 136

Hasty, Jeff, 170, 172

HeLa cells, 167–68

hemagglutinin (H), 212

hemoglobin, 2, 41

herpes, 236

Higgs-Boson, 6–7

hip-hop, 198

hippos, 32

HIV, 236

HMS
Beagle
(ship), 25

Holliger, Philipp, 100–1, 238

Hooke, Robert, 13, 15–16, 127

Hooker, Joseph, 70

horizontal gene transfer, 54–55

Hoyle, Fred, 129–30

Human Genome Project, 137

hydrothermal vents, 123–31

hyperthermophilic archaea, 58

impact melt rocks, 66

industrial revolution, 181

influenza, 212–17

information transfer, as basis for defining life, 78–79

inheritance, 33–34

Institute for One World Health, 224, 226

insulin, 172–73, 177–78

International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, 186–94

Internet, 180

jellyfish, 153

Jobs, Steve, 180

Johnson, Samuel, 233

Joyce, Gerald, 78, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103, 104, 130

Kawaoka, Yoshihiro, 213, 214, 216

Keasling, Jay, 157, 223, 224

Kelley, Deborah, 123

Kelwick, Richard, 193

Kings College London, 35

Knight, Tom, 185–86

Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) at Cambridge, 100

Lacks, Henrietta, 167

Lane, Nick, 55, 123–24, 125, 128–29, 130

Large Hadron Collider, 6

Last Universal Common Ancestor (Luca), 50, 51–59, 87

characteristics of, 56, 58

Martin's version of, 125–27

ribosome models of, 56–58

tree of life and, 51–55

Late Heavy Bombardment, 67, 68, 69, 70, 108, 115

Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent, 183

left-handed molecules, 44–47

Lego brick, 181, 186

Leibler, Stanislas, 168–69

lemurs, 48

Le Nouvel Observateur,
219

Lessig, Larry, 198

leucine, 90

leucocytes, 136–37

Lewis, Randy, 145–46, 149

life

defining (
See
defining life)

genetic engineering (
See
genetic engineering)

origins of (
See
origins of life)

synthetic biology (
See
synthetic biology)

Lincoln, Tracey, 97

Loftus, David, 176, 177

logic, 161–81

in assassin circuits, 166–68

in biological clock in
E. coli,
169–70