Word: bacteria
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...Johns Hopkins Nobelist Hamilton Smith challenged Venter to do more. At the time, Venter was using a technique called shotgunning. In essence, shotgunning amounts to putting DNA into a chemical Cuisinart. High-frequency sound waves shred the long stringy molecule into tiny fragments. The fragments are cloned in bacteria, and then, following what has become standard gene-mapping procedure, the bugs are ripped open and their DNA is run through a gene-sequencing machine...
Because their cells naturally produce large quantities of protein, potatoes and tomatoes seem for now to be the most efficient vehicles for the new approach. Instead of mixing viral or bacterial DNA in a formula for injection, for example, scientists could insert it into soil bacteria. When the bacteria are taken up by the plant, therapeutic DNA material is stitched into the plant's genome. Another method of getting genes into plants is to coat tiny particles of tungsten or gold with foreign DNA, then shoot the particles directly into plant cells. Either way, the plant's cells start...
There is lots of zip in DNA-based biology today. With each passing year it incorporates an ever increasing fraction of the life sciences, ranging from single-cell organisms, like bacteria and yeast, to the complexities of the human brain. All this wonderful biological frenzy was unimaginable when I first entered the world of genetics. In 1948, biology was an all too descriptive discipline near the bottom of science's totem pole, with physics at its top. By then Einstein's turn-of-the-century ideas about the interconversion of matter and energy had been transformed into the powers...
...where have these good germs been lurking all your life? In your intestines, especially the lower section called the colon, which harbors at least 400 species of bacteria. Which ones you have depends largely on your environment and diet. An abundance of good bacteria in the colon generally crowds out stray bad bacteria in your food. But if the bad outnumber the good--for example, after antibiotic treatment for a sinus or an ear infection, which kills normal intestinal germs as well--the result can be diarrhea...
...people have restored the balance by eating yogurt, buttermilk or other products made from fermented milk. But nowadays, you can also down a few pills that contain freeze-dried germs. These preparations are called probiotics to distinguish them from antibiotics. Unfortunately, you can't always be sure that the bacteria in the products you buy are the same strains as those listed on the label or even that they're still alive. Probiotics are usually sensitive to both heat and moisture...