A glowing future . . .

THE GENIE IS OUT OF THE BOTTLE with DNA, and Martin Lukacs, who posts on the TRUE NORTH blog created by The Guardian, is rightly concerned, with a post, “Kickstarter must not fund biohackers' glow-in-the-dark plants” about what is called biohacking, in this case, a Kickstarter effort to get fluorescent plants created. But the US Department of Agriculture says it's OK, so fasten your seatbelts. Martin's right, but unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle, no pun intended. Even if crowd-funding sites refuse "biohacking", the cost of engaging in it as a pastime has dropped and will continue, for precursor materials and equipment and computers. The future could be very funky . . . this is just about futzing with fluorescence.

According to a post on NATURE, “Glowing plants spark debate” the biohackers are just one of a number of visible efforts:

The Glowing Plant project is not the only foray into publicly available genetically modified organisms. Transgenic zebrafish (Danio rerio) that produce a fluorescent protein have been on the market since 2003, although their sale is not permitted in the European Union, Canada, Australia or California. And BioGlow, a commercial venture in St Louis, Missouri, informed the US agriculture department last year of plans to produce light-emitting plants, but the company has made few details public.

Google is our friend, and voila! — GloFish®. Fluorescent fun for the whole family, I suppose. Like they exhort, Experience the Glo!®.

— Starfire Red® DANIOS by GloFish® —

  — GloFish® TETRAS —

Surprise, surprise . . .

io9 has a fascinating report by Alasdair Wilkins, "Native Americans visited Europe 1000 years ago". Really. This tale of tail has science behind it.

Five centuries before Columbus reached the Americas, Vikings briefly settled on the northern tip of Newfoundland. Now the DNA of four Icelandic families reveals it wasn't just Europeans traveling to the Americas...at least one Native American went back with them.

Genetic Surveillance for All

SLATE has a rather disturbing article by Jeffrey Rosen. What if the FBI put the family of everyone who has ever been convicted or arrested into a giant DNA database? Worth the read, because our own taser terrorists will probably want a ring-side seat.

Specific Gene Found In Adolescent Men With Delinquent Peers

From ScienceDaily:

Birds of a feather flock together, according to the old adage, and adolescent males who possess a certain type of variation in a specific gene are more likely to flock to delinquent peers, according to a landmark study led by Florida State University criminologist Kevin M. Beaver.

But the study led by Beaver is the first to establish a statistically significant association between an affinity for antisocial peer groups and a particular variation (called the 10-repeat allele) of the dopamine transporter gene (DAT1).

This could be dangerous. Welcome to biosocial data analysis by those who can, and possible infringement of access to areas of our society because your DNA makes somebody think you might not be trustworthy.

Grief goes better with milk.