Part 92 (1/2)

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, /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