Gene Expression: And you shall be as the gods....

Scientists Create Brand New Organism. The story is a bit less interesting to the lay person on closer inspection-it's a form of e. coli that synthesizes a strange amino acid, but hey, the building blocks of life....

All living things use the same 20 amino acids to build all of the proteins that make up all living cells.

eh, not really true - there's several boutique amino acids (e.g. selenocysteine comes to mind). Article should have said "mostly" the main 20 amino acids. And of course in eukaryotes many of those starting 20 are *heavily* post-translationally modified (they are in prokaryotes too, e.g. N-formyl methionine, but it's thought to be less ubiquitous).

Posted by: biochemist at January 15, 2003 07:10 PM

Haven't they also created fake meat?

Posted by: Diana at January 15, 2003 07:46 PM

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January 15, 2003 And you shall be as the gods.... Scientists Create Brand New Organism. The story is a bit less interesting to the lay person on closer inspection-it's a form of e. coli that synthesizes a strange amino acid, but hey, the building blocks of life.... Posted by razib at 12:52 PM All living things use the same 20 amino acids to build all of the proteins that make up all living cells. eh, not really true - there's several boutique amino acids (e.g. selenocysteine comes to mind). Article should have said "mostly" the main 20 amino acids. And of course in eukaryotes many of those starting 20 are heavily post-translationally modified (they are in prokaryotes too, e.g. N-formyl methionine, but it's thought to be less ubiquitous). Posted by: biochemist at January 15, 2003 07:10 PM Haven't they also created fake meat? Posted by: Diana at January 15, 2003 07:46 PM	Razib also blogs at..... Recent Entries New URL! What's wrong among the elites? Why Iran Must Not Be Invaded Culture Contact/Conflict Second front: Rise of the GNGO:s New index page.... Blogger/w.bloggar question Interesting choice of words No more posting for a bit.... Killing democracy softly Search this site: Simple reading View all entries Who is linking to us?