Scientists Create Semi-Synthetic Bacteria With Synthetic DNA. Why?Chris Carrington Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute have engineered a new code, a new base pair, and they have incorporated it into a single bacterium by supplying the building blocks in the form of a fluid applied externally to the bacterium it replicated, just as a natural organism would. The bacteria they chose for their experiments is E. coli. The research was published in the online journalNature. Preemptingthe inevitable questions about a runaway reaction and the world being faced with an entirely new, semi-synthetic organism, the researchers were quick to point out that they have to supply nutrients externally to make the bacteria replicate. Nowhere in the literature can I find any indication that they have considered mutation, adaptation or anything else that could lead to this enhanced E. coli making a break for freedom. What could be more important than tackling the problems we are encountering now? Will synthetic DNA help more people than malaria kills? Will it prevent children dying from cholera and typhoid? Surely solving these problems is more important that synthesizing DNA, which has a reasonable chance of creating quite a few new ones? Chris Carrington is a writer, researcher and lecturer with a background in science, technology and environmental studies. Chris is an editor for The Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared. Wake the flock up! 