Word: coli
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...parcel of protoplasm has now become the center of a stormy controversy that has divided the scientific community, stirred fears-often farfetched-about tampering with nature, and raised the prospect of unprecedented federal and local controls on basic scientific research. Last week the bacterium known to scientists as Escherichia coli* (E. coli, for short) even became a preoccupation at the highest levels of government...
Appearing before a Senate subcommittee on behalf of the Carter Administration, HEW Secretary Joseph Califano asked Congress to impose federal restrictions on recombinant DNA research, a new form of genetic inquiry involving E. coli. The urgency of Califano's request underlined the remarkable fact that a longtime dream of science, genetic engineering, is at hand -and, some fear, already out of hand. In laboratories across the nation, scientists are combining segments of E. coli's DNA with the DNA of plants, animals and other bacteria. By this process, they may well be creating forms of life different from...
Opponents of the new research acknowledge its likely bounty, but fear that those benefits might be outweighed by unforeseeable risks. What would happen, they ask, if by accident or design, one variety of re-engineered E. coli proved dangerous? By escaping from the lab and multiplying, their scenario goes, it could find its way into human intestines and cause baffling diseases. Beyond any immediate danger, others say, there are vast unknowns and moral implications. Do not intervene in evolution, they warn in effect, because "it's not nice to fool Mother Nature." Caltech's biology chairman, Robert Sinsheimer...
...EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" exclaimed Whacker, his breath heavy on my neck. "What?" I queried. "EEEEEEE-coli!" Whacker rejoined. "My little buddies--not so little any more...
...With recombinant genes on our side, we're gonna do great things, great things, yep, yep. Drop a bucket of these little coca coli on the Mexican countryside, and you'll have big meatless enchiladas running around, terrorizing people. And there's another big plus...