Chapter 92
92 "a new wave of organisms, an artificially provoked neo-life"
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 250.
93 who had already made history by sequencing his own genome
Emily Singer, "Craig Venter's Genome," Technology Review, September 4, 2007, http://www.technologyreview.com/news/408606/craig-venters-genome/.
94 first live bacteria made completely from synthetic DNA
Joe Palca, "Scientists Reach Milestone on Way to Artificial Life," NPR, May 20, 2010.
95 Venter had merely copied the blueprint of a known bacterium
Clive Cookson, "Synthetic Life," Financial Times, July 27, 2012.
96 used the empty sh.e.l.l of another as the container for his new life-form
Clive Cookson, "Scientists Create a Living Organism," Financial Times, May 20, 2010.
97 others marked it as an important turning point
Stuart Fox, "J. Craig Venter Inst.i.tute Creates First Synthetic Life Form," Christian Science Monitor, May 21, 2010.
98 free-living microbe known as Mycoplasma genitalium
John Markoff, "In First, Software Emulates Lifespan of Entire Organism," New York Times, July 21, 2012.
99 minimum amount of DNA information necessary for self-replication
Cookson, "Synthetic Life."
100 "if there had been one," Venter said
Ibid.
101 "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves"
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, 1.2.14041.
102 E. O. Wilson, has been bitterly attacked
Jennifer Schuessler, "Lessons from Ants to Grasp Humanity," New York Times, April 8, 2012; Richard Dawkins, "The Descent of Edward Wilson," Prospect, May 24, 2012.
103 Wilson, who was but is no longer a Christian
Donna Winchester, "E.O. Wilson on Ants and G.o.d and Us," Tampa Bay Times, November 14, 2008.
104 "decade by decade, century by century"
"The 'Evidence for Belief': An Interview with Francis Collins," Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, April 17, 2008, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/805/the-evidence-for-belief-an-interview-with-francis-collins.
105 "then we can decide what metabolism we want it to have"
Cookson, "Synthetic Life."
106 breakthroughs in health care
Warren C. Ruder, Ting Lu, and James J. Collins, "Synthetic Biology Moving into the Clinic," Science, September 2, 2011.
107 energy production
Cookson, "Synthetic Life."
108 environmental remediation