dna 5

We are the final frontier. The Guardian asks leading scientists what they think will be the next revolution in science. (It’s almost a trend, spawning books like The Next Fifty Years.) First came the Copernican revolution in the 16th century. The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus argued that the Earth was not at the centre of the solar system. Charles Darwin got personal more than 300 years later by implying that humans weren’t special either. With the publication of On the Origin of Species, Darwin promoted his theory of evolution via natural selection. Nearly a century later, two Cambridge-based scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick, unravelled the structure of DNA. So what’s next? What will be the fourth revolution? ...

An animated description of how DNA gets converted to proteins.

The Japanese are creating new forms of life. (OK, they just created new bases.)

If you thought HAL and IBM in 2001: A Space Odyssey was clever, you should read this article to learn out about the pun in Gattaca.

And now you can send out your genes into space. You write a poem on your photo, stick your hair on it, and they’ll throw it into space. Read the FAQ. Oh, and by the way, it costs $50. If they can store 4.5 million submissions, and get $30 per submission (after discounts), they still make $135 million. Plus merchandise, advertising, etc. How much does it cost to launch a spacecraft? (NASA lets you send your name to Mars for free, though. I signed up and got a certificate.)