genomeboy.com

I’m having trouble getting my head around the idea that this happened 50 years ago.

How will the poem be encoded?

The poem can be most easily encoded by assigning a short, unique sequence of nucleotides to each letter of the alphabet, as Wong has done. But I want my poem to cause the organism to make a protein in response — a protein that also encodes a poem. I am striving to engineer a life form that becomes a durable archive for storing a poem, and a machine for writing a poem — a poem that can survive forever.

Despite my snarky title,  I love that the poet Christian Bök is doing this (subscription only). Anything that defies people’s deterministic ideas about DNA and serves as a bridge between the two cultures is something we should be open to. That said, once this microorganism mutates for a few zillion generations, Bök’s poem could become gobbledygook…or worse.

Bob, who’s owned wild animals all his life, admits Higgins has not always been a model pet. When Higgins was 3, he slept with the couple, often awakening Bob in the morning by climbing to the bedroom rafters and dropping onto Bob’s stomach. On one occasion, they got in a wrestling match, and Higgins put one of his “steel-like fingernails” through Bob’s scrotum.

Bob has considered moving him to a sanctuary, but “I’m just too attached to him,” he says.

…

Bob has been bitten several times by Higgins, who now weighs 50 pounds and has large incisors. Once, when Bob was leading him from an outdoor enclosure back to his cage in the house, Higgins exploded and the two got into a battle so ferocious that despite the steel mesh glove Bob was wearing, he screamed for Carlie to get his .22 rifle and put a bullet in Higgins’s head. She got Higgins a slice of raisin bread instead, quickly defusing the fight. But Bob accepts it: a wild animal will never be domesticated, he says.

…

“He shivered and I leaned over and said, ‘Come here, baby, are you cold?’ and he exploded,” Ms. Bowers says. “He started biting and screaming at me, biting any place he could touch. It was a nightmare. We tipped over furniture, I would have killed him if I could. But he was so strong. I tried to choke him to make him stop. We fought for I don’t know how long. I was trying to hold him so he couldn’t bite me. I took one of my big fabric books and held it on his throat.”

…

JUDIE HARRISON, 50 and three times married, is an extreme example of monkey love. She once demanded that her 15-year-old son give up his bedroom for a chimp, and today she is estranged from all three of her children because she put the primates first. Her passion also cost her her home.

Words fail. 

Seemed like an appropriate sentiment for the end of 2008…

Genetic Scientists Develop Sheep With Brain Of A Goat

“Dog Breeders Unveil New Mastiffeagle.” The Onion must be stopped.

From the incomparable Stuff White People Like:

Some white people decide to pull the ultimate move. Prius, Apple Sticker on the back, iPod rocking, and Democratic Candidate bumper sticker. Unstoppable!

There are a few ways you can use this to your advantage. If you are carpooling to an event or party you can always say “can we take your Prius? my car doesn’t get good mileage and I feel guilty driving it.” And bam! Free ride!

I heard this on NPR morning and it inspired me. In this space from time to time I hope there will be something called Hybrid Vigor, that is, unlikely but somehow complementary collaborations that speak to the power of heterogeneity. First up is what caught my attention on the radio today, two giants who’ve left us within the past 15 months: the late great Luciano Pavarotti and the one and only Godfather, James Brown. Behold.