August 2022

Life and Earth Sciences

Synthetic Embryo, sans Egg & Sperm: Index #64

ByadminAugust 30, 2022

Two studies this month have reported synthetic mouse embryos that can grow for 8.5 days without using eggs or sperm. News coverage has been surprisingly sparse (outside of the science journals), considering the massive implications and ethical consequences of this work. The

Philosophical studies

Sleep problems: When a good night’s sleep is just a dream

ByadminAugust 25, 2022

Many of us find sleep tricky. Whether we’re too busy to go to bed on time, frequently lie awake until the early hours, or have a toddler who apparently thinks 3am is morning, sleep problems can be a real struggle. In fact, in 2020, the Mental Health Foundation found that 48%

Life and Earth Sciences

Two Years of Codon – by Niko McCarty

ByadminAugust 24, 2022

This month marks two years of writing this newsletter. And each year, I ask myself some variation of the Hamming Question: “What are the important problems in your field, and why aren’t you working on them?” My honest answers for biotechnology: Scaling biology and preventing

Life and Earth Sciences

CRISPR Can Cut Proteins, Too: Index #63

ByadminAugust 21, 2022

Never thought I’d write that headline. But a recent preprint shows that Cas7-11, in complex with a protein called Csx29, acts as an RNA-guided protease, meaning it can cleave other proteins. The results, which appeared last week on bioRxiv, will inevitably be adapted for

Life and Earth Sciences

Plant Engineering Lags A Decade Behind: Index #62

ByadminAugust 15, 2022

Many of the world’s greatest artists — Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse — died at the age of 27. Today, I turn 28. Plant synthetic biology is at least a decade behind. We’ve been building complex genetic circuits in

Life and Earth Sciences

Hacking Photosynthesis – by Niko McCarty

ByadminAugust 10, 2022

A couple of miles south of the University of Illinois is an area roughly the size of Central Park. Corn, soybeans, and cowpeas grow in abundance. Though it looks much the same as the surrounding fields, this is not just another farm: it’s the oldest continuously run

Life and Earth Sciences

Recoding the Human Genome for Viral Resistance: Index #61

ByadminAugust 8, 2022

I’m writing and editing weekly essays about science — history, problems with academia, alternative models — together with scientists, VCs, and entrepreneurs for New Science. I hope you’ll read them. You can subscribe here: newscience.substack.com. Also, thanks to everyone

Life and Earth Sciences

Journalists Miss on AlphaFold News

ByadminAugust 2, 2022

A small cadre of private equity firms (like Alden Global Capital) and media conglomerates (like Hearst Communications) own hundreds of news outlets. Hearst alone owns HGTV Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, and dozens of local news channels, newspapers, and radio

Life and Earth Sciences

Prime-Edited Labrador Retrievers: Index #60

ByadminAugust 1, 2022

I’m writing this newsletter from Acadia National Park. Or, specifically, I’m sitting in an 1840s-era hotel with garish, floral, Victorian wallpaper. There are strange paintings in my room of children wearing old-fashioned gowns with those white, frilly things around the