Biologists Create Cells With 6 DNA Letters, Instead Of Just 4

Biologists Create Cells With 6 DNA Letters, Instead of Just 4

Scientists have created cells with an expanded genetic alphabet that includes two more letters.

“We now have a cell that survives and lives with more information in its genome,” said Floyd Romesberg, the synthetic biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California who led the work.

Romesberg and colleagues managed to coax E. coli bacteria into taking up their six-letter DNA and making copies of it. The cells’ enzymes copied the two new letters, which the scientists call X and Y for short, along with the usual four. The cells grew a little more slowly than normal, but otherwise seemed no worse for wear, the team reports today in Nature.

Cells with an expanded genetic alphabet could potentially make a wider range of proteins. Image: Synthorx

I could not agree more. And I feel so guilty. :(

http://spacegenius.tumblr.com/post/85429616272/after-years-i-learned-that-theres-no-point-in

After years, I learned that there’s no point in trying to settle because no one ever sticks around. I learned how to live alone, and not to care anymore. Because these people, they’ll feed off your time and effort, abuse your hospitality, make use of your kindheartedness and when you’re washed...

MY HEART IS RIPPLING SEND HELP OHMYGOD

(x)

"I don’t think you can make love do anything. Love, like the water, has action due to choice. And choice can only be made due to the human spirit; what is felt. And human spirit is uncontrollable.

My choice? Feel this uncontrollable mess, as much as I can. Embrace my choice to love with no guarantee of reciprocity. Conjure up the uncontrollable spirit, and spin it into choices far beyond what the world and its intensities have conjured up for me."  - Thought Catalog