There's a new bacterium in Craig Venter's lab. Its mom is a computer and its midwife is a goat. In a years-long, $40 million project, Venter and his team inserted an artificial genome made from artifical DNA into a bacterium that naturally infects goats. Maybe you recognize it in the photo to the right. The team bought strings of artificial DNA from a company called Blue Heron (http://www.blueheronbio.com/services), then, following a computer-generated sequence, combined them into a genome some 750,000 units long. (I'm not sure how long a "unit" is but I'm guessing it's a bit less than an inch.) Before they actually transformed the goat bacterium into what Venter is calling a new self-replicating life form, the team removed 14 pathogenic genes in case the new life crashed out of the lab and started chasing goats. Some people, like the Pope, think Venter is trying to play God. And President Obama wants a report on his desk within six months that will tell him whether or not the general populace needs to worry about new life forms, considering, perhaps, the problems we have with the current ones. Venter's news has caused hope in some quarters, despair in others, according to this report in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/science/21cell.html.
     Venter says he doesn't want to play God, all he really wants to do is make gas from algae. Part of the news the Times didn't see fit to print was the fact that the researchers actually encoded words into their genome, words like the names of all 46 researchers in the project along with quotes from James Joyce and others. Nice to know that scientists playing God can have a sense of humor. I've often thought that if I hadn't ventured into factory work and journalism, I, myself, might have been a scientist. And, light years ahead of Venter, I've been converting frijoles into gas ever since I can remember.

     Sod in a week? Seed to grass? You betcha! If you could cut a year out of the time it takes to grow 200 square feet of sod, and reduce the weight of the final product by more than a ton, you'd think the world would be beating a path to your greenhouse door. But Jim Anderson, a Utah landscaper who has more than two decades of experience with the heavy stuff, is finding it a challenge to convince the market of the merits of his roots-and-blades-only product. That's it, in the photo, ready to roll. The sod is grown on trays in greenhouses, ready to be rolled up and put down in about a week. Regular sod takes a year to produce. Lancaster Farming staff writer Chris Torres visited Marvin King, a Manheim, Pa., farmer who is currently working with Anderson to perfect the growing technique and to devleop a local market. You can read the report in Saturday's edition, or you can check it out here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2969


     I don't know why this reminds me of a prom date. None of mine, of course. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/watch-man-and-gorilla-s-amazing-reunion/621j9tf