Japanese create artificial DNA molecule

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I’d just finished looking at Science Daily’s Martian life article when this thing popped up at me from another site linking back to it.

The article is staggeringly brief, it’s revolutionary news, and the science works.

The DNA molecule has attracted a lot of interest from people who wouldn’t normally be interested in mere biology. It’s a huge, versatile, molecule, and it can do things that other molecules wouldn’t dream of doing.

Some years ago, it was proven that circuits can be made, in fact literally grown, using DNA. That was enough to get the rest of the scientific wolf pack howling after the possible non-biological applications of DNA.

Information storage is one of those applications, so you can guess this isn’t being done purely out of curiosity.

So this bit of information is more than just significant.

It’s a whole new level of possible technologies:

As the genetic blueprint of all life forms, DNA uses the same set of four basic building blocks, known as bases, to code for a variety of proteins used in cell functioning and development. Until now, scientists have only been able to craft DNA molecules with one or a few artificial parts, including certain bases.

The researchers used high-tech DNA synthesis equipment to stitch together four entirely new, artificial bases inside the sugar-based framework of a DNA molecule. This resulted in unusually stable, double-stranded structures resembling natural DNA.

The thing can also make triple stranded combinations, one more than lazy ‘ol Homo Sap seems to have managed. The triple strand versions are “extremely stable”, meaning that yet another scientific race has begun in earnest.

Answers to the umpteen billion questions that the new molecule raises will presumably be in the release of the papers by the Japanese researchers on July 23 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. They're definitely not in the few hundred words on the various scientific sites running the story.

Maybe I should blink more often.

I wonder if I can make a cup of tea before they invent faster than light travel?

Not that I'd mind...