Louis Tête's Nouveau Villages has a perfect pairing in bleu cheddar topped with Plochmann's yellow mustard. Very Beaujolais! More tasting notes and labels are in the story.
It will build on research by Clyde Hutchison at TIGR and the University of North Carolina. He gradually stripped down the genome of Mycoplasma genitalium, a very simple bug that lives in the human genital tract.
In 1999, he reported that the bacterium could survive with as few as 265 of the 517 genes it normally has. This set of genes could be thought of as the minimum set required to construct a living organism, Hutchinson reported.
Venter says his team will focus initially on M genitalium. They will remove all the genetic material from the bacterium then synthesise an artificial chromosome, which they hope will contain the minimum number of genes needed for life. They will then insert this chromosome back inside the cellular shell. If this project is successful, the next aim will be to add new functions to the basic organism.
[link from John Robb]
