- http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/craig_venter_is_on_the_verge_of_creating_synthetic_life.html
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Biography:
Craig Venter was born on October 14th, 1946. He was not the best student in school, in middle school all his grades were C’s and D’s. Venter was drafted into the Vietnam war, even though he was not in favor of the war. He worked in the intensive care ward of a field hospital. While working there, and seeing wounded soldiers, it inspired him to start studying medicine. Craig Venter later went on to graduate from community college with a Bachelor degree in Science, and then went on and continued his education at the University of California. Venter is most famous for starting the private company Synthetic Genomics. His companies main goals were to synthesize and assemble synthetic microorganisms. His hope was that these will produce alternative fuels, like ethanol or hydrogen. Craig Venter’s highlight was being #14 on the 2007 Time Magazines Most Influential People list.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter
- http://www.ted.com/speakers/craig_venter.html
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Vocab:
Digitizing - to convert (data) to digital form for use in a computer.
Cassette - a lightproof magazine for holding film or plates for use in a camera
Mycoplasma - any of numerous parasitic microorganisms of the class Mollicutes,comprising the smallest self-reproducing prokaryotes, lacking atrue cell wall and able to survive without oxygen: a commoncause of pneumonia and urinary tract infections.
Viability - capable of living.
Metabolize - to subject to metabolism; change by metabolism.
Methane - a colorless, odorless, flammable gas, CH 4 , the main constituent of marsh gas and the firedamp of coal mines, obtained commercially from natural gas: the first member of the methane,or alkane, series of hydrocarbons.
- http://dictionary.reference.com/
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Abstract
Craig Ventor is talking about the idea of creating synthetic life. He talks about how biology is becoming more digital. Craig Ventor talks about how in the next 40 years the population would increase from 6 1/2 billion to 9 billion. It will be to hard to keep track of everyones DNA and so becoming digital is one possible solution to be able to keep track of everyone. He shows screen shots of new designs on a software they are working on to improve digital biology. The main point is that you will be able to sit down and design a species on a computer.
Theme 2: Evolution
Evolution is defined as a gradual development, especially to a more complex form. This is very true in the world of biology. The very first DNA took forever to code out and was written on paper, and now, every day there are new progressions in different methods to make things easier. Craig Venter talks about his metabolic map, and how they have been able to add so many things to the original map. They could make a much more detailed one because of the evolution of synthetic life. The amount of people that are able to have their genetic code read has been increasing every year since the discovery. When people say. "Evolution accounts for the diversity of life on Earth", this rings very true in the world of Biology. The more improvements they make the more people they can hold in their system. Being able to read DNA and create synthetic life is truly the most powerful way to see the diversity of life on Earth. This makes it so we are able to see people's different codes, and be able to see the main differences between all human beings. Craig Venter is the first person to not take credit for all that we have found about the way humans are made up. He says that, “This is not genesis; this is building on three and a half million years of revolution.” He admits that evolution is a huge role in everything that he is doing today. Craig Venter is working off what the people before him figured out and he is trying to give the next generation information to work with. Craig’s main goal is to do everything he can to revolutionize what we know about DNA and Synthetic life, and to also leave a clear map for what next generations can do to add to his work.
Technology is one of the most important things in the improvement of life that has ever occurred. The beginning and improvement of technology has had an innumerable impact on everyday life. Nowhere has technology improvement played a bigger part than in the world of Biology. My video’s main focus is talking about the digitizing of biology and technology played a huge role in it. Craig Venter is trying to progress from having a digital code, to designing and synthesizing life. Craig Venter and his staff started over 15 years ago and were able to get as far as they have because of the improvement of technology. There are tens of thousands of machines around the world that make small pieces of DNA. It’s a degenerate process so the longer you make the code the more errors there will be. The numbers of errors have juristically gone down in recent years because of the advancements in the system. Craig Venter’s main goal is to have a directory of many different types of DNA and to be able to design and edit different human codes. This would all be done digitally on a database system he has created. If he succeeds at his goal, it would be easier to see different types of DNA and also easier to find cures to diseases. Craig would show how designing synthetic life could be used to test different medicines and how being able to create life with different codes could help out so much in many different aspects of science. Once this project is done, it will affect society in a very positive way. It will help people see there DNA and also give them a better chance of survival if they happen to have a rare disease. Overall, in the world of digital synthetic life, technology has been nothing but a help and will continue to improve and effect in a positive way.
I found this video very relevant to what we are learning; whether it is ethical or not is not as simple. Our classroom vocabulary is very helpful to understand the concepts of the video. They are obviously to be taken seriously because they are published even though genetically creating a clone is very obscure. They are indeed moving along evolution, it is very needed and will effect our future.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this topic relates best with mine. My video is about turning DNA into digital technology, which Craig claims to be trying to to in the begining of the video. I find it insane that he wants to creat nwew life by using this technology,the same with my person , Paul Ruthemund. I think that the idea of knowing at all times what will happen toyou based on knowing your DNA will be very helpful and can make technology skyrocket into the future.
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