One of the major concerns about engineered organisms: the fear that they could escape scientists' control, with unknown repercussions. The genetic networks they built could provide a way to keep tabs on - and control of....
Does it even matter what?
James Collins, an author of the paper and professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University:
"There's growing worry as we engineer these organisms and put them in the body or the environment. What do you do once you have them out there? Wouldn't it be interesting if you could engineer a circuit that you could program into a microbe such that after some number of cell divisions or days, the organism was programmed with a natural expiration date?"
The gene network could be built.... Researchers are beginning to think about possible applications that range from environmental sensors to medicine. If a cell counts pulses of an environmental toxin, for example, it could be programmed to glow a certain color as an alert that pulses of some toxin had been released into the environment.
A medical therapy that involved giving a patient cells could potentially be made safer if the cells were programmed to self-destruct if it divided too many times, as cancer cells do. An engineered organism used to clean up toxic waste, or that inadvertently spread in the environment, could have a counter linked to a light sensor, causing the cell to kill itself automatically after a set number of days.
Yeah, it'll all be good -- like the ethanol and other disastrous policies.
Tom Knight, a senior research scientist at MIT who was not involved in the research:
"It's extremely important to develop technology that allows us to put small amounts of computation inside of living cells. Conventional computers are not able to sense or to change the chemical environment very well at all . . . But living cells are inherently very good at both detecting and influencing the chemical world, and having small amounts of computation allows us to take control over those systems."
Christina Smolke, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University not involved in the research;"One of the next challenges is taking some of these model circuits and moving them into real applications. I think this represents a very important step and a significant one in building the first example of a complex biological processing system that the field has been talking about for awhile."
--more--"Looks like we got some skin jobs walking the streets, Deckard....
"Android phones show the way to the next advertiser
Android phones are about to become the premier platform for people in search of a good time. HTC, Motorola, and General Mobile are among the phone makers expected to release new devices this year that run on the Google operating system.
And developers are preparing to harness the Android phones' GPS transponders, accelerometers, and compasses to create new locative applications. Most of the locative apps deliver information that relates to the spot you are standing on. They tap your phone's GPS coordinates and distances from cell towers and WiFi sources to help you find taxi stands, nightclubs, or a room for the night.
The apps will also help advertisers pester you....
It ALWAYS COMES BACK to THAT no matter how much they say they are "helping you," doesn't it?
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