Science on the kitchen counter (Dec 26)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
Just as amateur computer whizzes of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s developed products such the Hewlett-Packard and Apple computers in their garages, so are amateur biologists tinkering away on their dining room tables with new applications for DNA.
According to an Associated Press dispatch from San Francisco, people are working on yogurt bacteria and jellyfish DNA to come up with the next generation of wonder substances.
I find this very exciting, because I also am a “biohacker,” as these pioneers call themselves.
For example, I biohacked a jar of olives, quite by accident. Mrs. Doud discovered this old jar of olives we have had around for a number of years, which got pushed to the back of our old refrigerator and forgotten about. This jar, having been discovered when we changed refrigerators, is sitting on our kitchen counter, and I’ve been trying to open it.
The jar lid has sealed itself like the door on Fort Knox. Perhaps we have discovered a new biological jar sealer that will keep kids out of things we don’t want them to get into. The olives look completely okay through the jar’s glass, so I think I also may have inadvertently discovered a new olive preservative.
I may have discovered a new wonder drug at the office, where I have a teapot I haven’t used for quite awhile, and which has developed something in the bottom of it that would would appear to be the basis for a new antibiotic. The next time I get a hangnail I am going to rub some on it and see if the hangnail gets well.
Or, maybe it will make the hangnail glow in the dark. Tattoos that glow in the dark seem to be one of the goals of the biohackers, and I want to be in on that.
