Word: virus
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...major institutions of post-industrial society-corporations, unions and governments-will probably not escape the virus of what Herbert Marcuse calls "the absolute refusal." Eventually, the nation may find civil service bureaucrats ignoring policy decisions they disagree with; reporters and editors may seek veto power over editorial decisions, as has happened in Europe; factory workers will reject the monotony of the assembly line. Employees at all levels will demand that corporate goals mesh with their personal goals, and socially irresponsible companies will not be able to attract talent. "People will have to be recognized as individuals," says French Futurist Bertrand...
...answer such questions, a Harvard team led by Jonathan Beckwith, 33, turned to the virus, which consists simply of a single DNA molecule sheathed in a thin coating of protein. Most viruses multiply by entering a living cell, taking control of it and then ordering it to produce carbon copies of the invading virus. Eventually the cell bursts, releasing a host of new viruses. Some strains of invading viruses, however, incorporate several of the cell's genes into their own DNA molecule before they depart. There are two different viruses, the Harvard researchers knew, that invade an intestinal bacteria...
Stray Tails. Therein lies the key to the elegant experiment reported last week in Nature. Once the two strains of virus had finished raiding the bacteria, the experimenters dissolved their protein sheaths, exposing their raw DNA molecules (Step 1 in diagram). Next, the scientists heated the dissimilar DNA molecules, causing each double helix to unwind and separate into one lighter and one heavier strand. Taking only the heavier strand from each virus, the researchers placed them in the same test tube, reheated them and then cooled them slowly, a process that causes two chemically complementary strands of DNA to combine...
...treating the DNA with a special enzyme that dissolves single-stranded DNA but does not effect double strands, the three researchers were able to separate the bacteria's lactose gene from the virus...
They then combined a single piece of DNA from one virus with another strand from the other virus type...