By Levi Novey •
May 15, 2009
Move over Hubble Telescope, the European Space Agency has launched the largest telescope ever sent to space on a mission to study how the Big Bang created the universe. This comes right on the heels of another related and exciting scientific breakthrough: for the first time ever, scientists have successfully showed us how the earliest building blocks for life on the planet probably formed from scratch. Are we on the brink of a more complete understanding of our planet’s evolution?
Details you say? Here they are. The European Space Agency’s
plan to study the Big Bang comes at a cost of $952 million. Yesterday a rocket launched from the South American country of French Guiana sent the telescope as well as a spacecraft above our atmosphere, and they both could very well soon be household names.
By Nick Chambers •
March 9, 2009
A well-known biofuels researcher at Harvard has developed a synthetic ribosome — one of the fundamental building blocks for creating artificial life — which, initially, could have major implications for the creation of designer enzymes to make cheaper and more energy efficient cellulosic ethanol.
Dr. George Church, co-founder of the next generation biofuels company LS9, made the stunning announcement in a telephone call with reporters.
“If you are going to make synthetic life that is anything like current life … you have got to have this … biological machine,” Dr. Church said in comments to Reuters.
By Jake Richardson •
March 9, 2009
Two Harvard researchers say they have successfully constructed a ribosome.
Harvard Medical School Professor Greg Church and Research Fellow Michael Jewett extracted ribosomes from E. coli bacteria, processed them, and then made new ones from the molecules.
