RTFA: http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn13252…

Two artificial DNA “letters” that are accurately and efficiently replicated by a natural enzyme have been created by US researchers. Adding the two artificial building blocks to the four that naturally comprise DNA could allow wildly different kinds of genetic engineering, they say.

Eventually, the researchers say, they may be able to add them into the genetic code of living organisms.

The diversity of life on earth evolved using genetic code made from arrangements of four genetic “bases”, sometimes described as letters. They are divided into two pairs, which bond together from opposite strands of a DNA molecule to form the rungs of its characteristic double-helix shape.

The unnatural but functional new base pair is the fruit of nearly a decade of research by chemical biologist Floyd Romesberg, at the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, US.

Romesberg and colleagues painstakingly created a library of nearly 200 potential new genetic bases that are slight variations on the natural ones. Unfortunately, none of them were similar enough in structure and chemistry to the real thing to be copied accurately by the polymerase enzymes that replicate DNA inside cells.

Erm… the horror? As in: oh shit chaos? Yes?

RTFA: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN007…

America COMPETES Act or America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act – Division A: Commerce and Science – American Innovation and Competitiveness Act – Title I: Office of Science and Technology Policy; Government-Wide Science – (Sec. 1101) Directs the President to: (1) convene a National Science and Technology Summit to examine the health and direction of the United States’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics enterprises; and (2) issue a report on Summit results. Requires the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to report annually to Congress on recommendations for areas of investment for federal research and technology programs.

This is a really strange bill. It appears to increase funding for science education and research, which would otherwise be pretty great. The overt war against science, waged through trusted channels of mass communication, has been wildly successful, much to the disappointment of the US military industrial complex.

The fundamental problem with “defeating scientific materialism” is that the United States has always relied on science for industry and military superiority. I assure you the multi-billion dollar US bioengineering industry doesn’t squabble over the existence of evolution. I can assure you that, in the aftermath of Sputnik, the US military permanently answered the flat Earth/round Earth problem… by looking at our planet from satellites. Scientific Materialism, in other words, answered evolution and flat-earth.

The proof of the success of Scientific Materialism is that it’s profitable. I’m not aware of a “young-Earth bioengineering” company; the suggestion is pretty oxymoronic. I don’t think they could be competitive against a bioengineering company that used the science of evolution. As a result, evolutionary bioengineering gets all of the money, and young-Earth bioengeering gets none.

This might be fine if the US bioengineering industry existed in a national vacuum, but it exists within a greater global context. Competing countries (e.g. France, South Korea) have made it attractive to conduct bioengineering research within their borders, thereby conferring an advantage to any company that conducts business in those countries. The national policy of a country can make its businesses more competitive, which “trickles up” to make the nation more competitive, completely turning Reaganomics on its head.

The war against scientific materialism has been much too effective, and by passing the America Competes Act, Congress expresses the sense that fundamentalist dogma isn’t very profitable.

The only hesitation I have regarding the America Competes Act relates to the way in which this money confers greater power to Congress to direct the course of science in the United States. In the future, Congress will be able to exert influence over the scientific institutions that depend on the funding provided by the America Competes Act. This will enable unscrupulous politicians to juggle research funds during election seasons to appeal to various rhetorically-influenced local populations.

In the short term, I think the America Competes Act makes obvious sense to the business-oriented people in the United States. “Business-oriented” used to refer to the Republicans, but their party has been co-opted by strange interests and subverted towards less profitable ends. Therefore, it’s not clear which party, exactly, this bill appeals to, because it was solidly bi-partisan in the composition of its congressional sponsorship.

I think everyone needs to proceed with caution.