It’s a technology that scientists say could fundamentally alter entire populations. The Pentagon has expressed alarm about what terrorists might do with “gene drives.” Meanwhile, scientists are researching how they could be used to stop the spread of intractable diseases like malaria. So how did a group of college students come close to creating a gene drive as part of a science competition?

(via College students try to hack a gene drive, and set a science fair abuzz)

WILD // JAY

With the kit, customers can genetically engineer yeast to make mead that gleams like a lantern — the ideal refreshment for, presumably, poorly lit house parties. “Imagine a world in which after work you invite your friends over to have them try a custom beer you brewed that glows in the dark using your own genetically designed yeast,” the Odin’s website read early last week.

 The FDA also began to imagine this world after the kit started selling last week, unknownst to the agency — and then it started asking whether fluorescent homebrew was safe. By initially marketing the kit as a food-making device, the startup may have exposed a loophole in laws that haven’t caught up to a generation of biohackers tinkering with the DNA of bacteria, plants, and animals in their kitchens and garages.

 “The system wasn’t set up to deal with things like this,” said Todd Kuiken, a senior research scholar at North Carolina State University’s Genetic Engineering and Society Center. While humans have for centuries used yeast to make wine and beer, and homebrewing has been legal federally since 1978 and in all 50 states since 2013, the Odin’s light-up twist could give regulators a hangover-sized headache. “I can’t imagine when they wrote the laws for this, [they said,] ‘Well, at some point, somebody’s going to be able to engineer yeast for beer that will make it glow in the dark,’” Kuiken said.

(via DNA Biohackers Sold A DIY Kit For Glowing Booze And Here’s What Happened - BuzzFeed News)

Not even a weak signal anymore. Just wait till someone cracks the DMT yoghurt // JAY