Here There Be Dragons 115
ThisNukes4u writes "The Economist reports that scientists in California are coming closer to creating real-life mythical animals. Basically, they re-create the natural selection process through a computer simulation and then clone the resulting set of DNA in a donor animal." From the article: "Each computer starts with a search image (dragon, unicorn, gryphon, etc), and the genome of the real animal most closely resembling it (a lizard for the dragon, a horse for the unicorn and, most taxingly, the spliced genomes of a lion and an eagle for the gryphon). The virtual genomes of these real animals are then tweaked by random electronic mutations. When they have matured, the virtual adults most closely resembling the targets are picked and cross-bred, while the others are culled."
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Finally a way to finish the collection (Score:3, Funny)
Mermaids (Score:5, Funny)
Ha! (Score:5, Funny)
Zardoz (Score:2, Funny)
"To the stars Bowen, to the stars."
An interesting observation.... (Score:5, Funny)
genetic algorithms (Score:4, Funny)
Damn liberals (Score:5, Funny)
I hope the president takes a stand against this just as he has so powerfully taken a stand against human animal hybrids.
Got to respect The Economist (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I Like Pickles!!! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:"Haemaurin" and "aurinase" (Score:3, Funny)
"Paolo Fril" is an anagram of "Happy Easter"
"San Melito" is French for "Without filtered coffee", a comment reflecting on the state of mind of the OP.
HTH, Oz.
Re:Got to respect The Economist (Score:5, Funny)
Number of Chromosomes? (Score:4, Funny)
fire!! (Score:4, Funny)
1) google an image of a dragon
2) find an animal that looks like a dragon
3) input 1 and 2 into computer, run simulation
4) take output genome and synthesize DNA
5) place DNA into cell and allow cell to reproduce
6) use resulting dragon to create fire
It's quite simple really, even the new
Yum (Score:4, Funny)
What about a troll? (Score:3, Funny)
If I commissioned them to build me a troll, I wonder whose genes they would start with?