The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition brings undergraduates from around the world to MIT's campus to share the results of a summer's worth of synthetic biology research. Each team tries to create the best synthetic organism. Here you can see the iGEM participants (photo courtesy of David…
As a scientist I have mixed feelings about SF-oriented horror, which tends to show my lab coat-wearing brethren as myopic, obsessive, morally challenged individuals or as humorless skeptics. When Fringe needed a scientist for its team of white hats, the best they could come up with was a former, vaguely repentant mad…
Reader Wendy asks: When will nanobots clean out my arteries? While medical molecular machines are not likely to appear in the clinic soon, there's a decent amount of research going into the development of nanoscale robotics, and not only for therapeutic use. One could easily imagine these widgets appearing in…
I talked about the importance of early cancer diagnosis in a previous post, and reader Ian wrote back to ask for more detail. Early detection can be life-saving, but accuracy in these tests is also a serious problem - a test that misses existing cancers is obviously bad, but one that detects cancers that aren't there…
Welcome back to Ask a Biogeek, a column where biology researcher Terry Johnson answers questions about biology — no matter how weird. Back when I discussed our unlikeliest futures as a species, one commenter added to the list of improbabilities our eventual transcendence into a non-corporeal form. That's hardly the…
Welcome back to Ask a Biogeek, a column where you ask biology researcher Terry Johnson any question you want - no matter how weird. Reader Charlie writes:
Welcome to Ask a Biogeek, a column where you ask UC Berkeley researcher Terry Johnson any question you want - no matter how weird. Reader Matthew asks:
Welcome to Ask a Biogeek, a column where you ask UC Berkeley researcher Terry Johnson any question you want - no matter how weird. There seems to be a strong correlation between my posting an article on a subject, and my RSS feeds filling up with exciting new research, which I then wish I'd been able to include. The…
Welcome to Ask a Biogeek, a column where you ask UC Berkeley researcher Terry Johnson any question you want — no matter how weird.
Reader Mairi proxies the following question: My mom wants to know when we're going to get needle-less, painless injections.
While I personally covet the medical tricorder, I would almost…
Click to viewWelcome back to Ask a Biogeek, a biweekly column where UC Berkeley biology researcher Terry Johnson answers your questions, no matter how weird. Reader Mike asks:
Last week Electronic Arts was kind enough to invite me to a demonstration of Spore's creature creator. A few days ago, we told you about Spore, a video game that challenges you to guide a single cell on the bottom of the evolutionary ladder out of the ocean and into civilization. (Here you can see my creature, …
It's another installment of Ask a Biogeek, a column where UC Berkeley biology researcher Terry Johnson answers all your questions — especially the weird ones.
Reader Daniel wonders:
A reader who would like to remain anonymous asks:
Reader Karen asks:
Reader Juan asks:
Welcome to Ask a Biogeek, a column about cutting-edge biology by UC Berkeley researcher Terry Johnson. Knowing which organs you can live without is all well and good, but wouldn't you rather have replacement organs? Tissue engineers already have some pretty good ones if you happen to lose your skin or severely damage…
