dna on S Anand

Final Frontier of Science

Mon, 14 Feb 2005 12:00:00 +0000

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?

‘We will invent our successors’ – Seth Shostak
‘We will understand the human mind’ – John Sulston
‘The existence of parallel universes’ – Michio Kaku
‘We will change our genetic makeup’ – Norbert Gleicher
‘We will find out if we are alone’ – Colin Pillinger
‘Humans become a collective intelligence’ – John Barrow
‘We’ll understand thoughts and feelings’ – Steven Pinker
‘The end of the individual’ – Susan Greenfield
‘What if God lives in a part of our brain?’ – Nancy Rothwell
‘What it means to be a person’ – V S Ramachandran
‘Conscious machines’ – Igor Aleksander
‘Higher dimensions’ – Lisa Randall
‘Humans are less miraculous than we thought’ – Stephen Wolfram

How DNA gets converted to proteins

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 12:00:00 +0000

An animated description of how DNA gets converted to proteins.

New forms of life

Wed, 27 Feb 2002 12:00:00 +0000

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

HAL and IBM

Wed, 25 Jul 2001 12:00:00 +0000

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.

Genes into space

Fri, 15 Jun 2001 12:00:00 +0000

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.)