Making crops colorful for easier weeding by robots

To make weeding easier, scientists suggest bioengineering crops to be colorful or to have differently shaped leaves so that they can be more easily distinguished from their wild and weedy counterparts. This could involve ...

A microalgae–material hybrid promotes carbon neutrality

Microalgae, including cyanobacteria and green algae, represent the most important biological systems for producing biomass and high-value products. It is estimated that microalgae can fix about 90 billion tons of carbon dioxide ...

New CRISPR tool accelerates and optimizes genome editing

CRISPR/Cas systems have undergone tremendous advancement in the past decade. These precise genome editing tools have applications ranging from transgenic crop development to gene therapy and beyond. And with their recent ...

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Genetic engineering

Genetic engineering, recombinant DNA technology, genetic modification/manipulation (GM) and gene splicing are terms that apply to the direct manipulation of an organism's genes. Genetic engineering is different from traditional breeding, where the organism's genes are manipulated indirectly. Genetic engineering uses the techniques of molecular cloning and transformation to alter the structure and characteristics of genes directly. Genetic engineering techniques have found some successes in numerous applications. Some examples are in improving crop technology, the manufacture of synthetic human insulin through the use of modified bacteria, the manufacture of erythropoietin in hamster ovary cells, and the production of new types of experimental mice such as the oncomouse (cancer mouse) for research.

The term "genetic engineering" was coined in Jack Williamson's science fiction novel Dragon's Island, published in 1951, two years before James Watson and Francis Crick showed that DNA could be the medium of transmission of genetic information.

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