The 4th Domain

For all of you who are interested in science and its place in the intellectual, ethical, practical and economic life of the nation, here is this year’s BBC Richard Dimbleby Lecture. Sir Paul Nurse gives a passionate and galvanising view of scientific practice and its consequences in the 2012 lecture. Not strictly synthetic biology, but essential watching!

Horizontal gene transfer is a process where useful genes are transferred between species. It is common in prokaryotes, but here’s a more rare example of the phenomenon across 2 kingdoms of life. A natural version of synthetic biology. Read all about it here and here.