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Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home - Yahoo! News
 The article title says it all. One of the groups, DIYbio out of Cambridge, Mass. is even setting up a community lab with bargain-basement equipment to attempt anything from new vaccines to new lifeforms. Many of them have minimal formal training in the biological sciences, like San Francisco's Meredith Patterson, a computer programmer, who genetically altered yoghurt bacteria to glow green in the presence of melamine using less than $1000 worth of equipment, most of which she built herself. |
A University of Colorado researcher has applied for a patent on a potentially new ways to improve the vision of people with retinal damage. He proposes injecting quantum dots coated with a bioactive material into the retina. The dots fluoresce when struck by light, effectively amplifying the optical signal so that it can be more easily detected by retinal cells. So far, the method has only been tested on rats who can't say whether or not their vision has been improved, but did show greater electrical activity after the injection. The method also has the benefit of requiring no power source.