Month: May 2026
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Building a Time Machine
In 2006, Alan built a time machine. And not just any time machine. A particularly fine-grained time machine, which could advance or go back one second at a time. In fact it could actually only advance or go back by a single second, stepping back into the past a second, or jumping forward into the…
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Bits Pretending to be Atoms
As our world becomes more digital, we are being surrounded by bits pretending to be atoms. That’s what the whole field of augmented reality (AR) is about. Through a headset or handheld device, the atoms of our “real” reality are augmented by images created from bits on the device. We then perceive our overall reality…
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From Bits to Life
Craig Venter took a page out of Lynn Conway‘s book and was able to convert bits to the ultimate form of atoms: life. Venter and his team were able to create a novel living bacterium whose DNA atoms (genome) were determined by bits representing that DNA. Venter’s bacterium wasn’t created solely from bits. In fact…
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Craig Venter 1946-2026
Craig Venter, leader of a commercial effort which paralleled the government’s Human Genome Project (HGP), has died. Venter passed away less than six months after his frequent rival James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and first director of the HGP. Whereas Watson had been working towards a human genome his whole career, Venter…
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