If you had unlimited access to money and equipment what cool Science experiment would you try?

[Josiah Zayner]

I think about this alot especially because most things people try to do in DIY revolves around making things cheaper for others.

So what would you study if money and equipment access was not an issue?


I think for me one of the things I want to work on is enhancing sensory inputs. My first research project would be about extending the ability of mice or rats to understand the english language. What I would do is use a microprocessor with RF, maybe TI because I have worked with TI RF2500 before and they are easier to use. Or maybe just an arduino nano with a xBee? This would take a small webcam mounted on the animals head and transmit the data back to a computer which would do image analysis and word identification. These words would then be translated into signals that would be sent back to the animal and used to stimulated the animals brain in mostly real time either using optogenetics or microelectrode arrays to give the word "meaning" to an animal. For instance the word "Danger" could activate neurons associated with fear in the hippocampus.

Sounds crazy. I just need someone to give me $$$$ and access to lots of stuff.

What about you? Any crazy ideas that just need $$$$ and access to things?

[Koeng]

I would make a bacteria to terraform Mars and possibly Venus :D . I don't know how well the latter would work, but I am pretty sure with unlimited funding I could make a bacteria to terraform Mars

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Nice question, but I can't reveal all my plans. gotta make money to earn a living somehow ;)

Of the less practical:
Terraforming surely would be on top of my list. plus a plant that produces *all* vitamins you need.
Sequence the genome of all bioluminescent organism. And sequence the lobster genome (lobsters are said to be biologically immortal, meaning they show no signs of ageing)

[Cathal Garvey (Phone)]

Hands down, enzymatic DNA synthesis. A DNA-synthesising test tube reaction. :)

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Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

That would be a nice idea.. An enzyme that "reads" a string of small nanometal balls and synthesizing it into DNA. Your computer could laser-cut the structures and the enzyme then translates it!

or a polymerase that adds A when bluee light, T when red light, C when green light, G when ellow light. You would then send off light pulses and write DNA :D

[John Griessen]

On 03/22/2014 05:11 PM, Mega [Andreas Stuermer] wrote:
> That would be a nice idea.. An enzyme that "reads" a string of small nanometal balls and synthesizing it into DNA. Your computer could laser-cut the structures and the enzyme then translates it!
>
> or a polymerase that adds A when bluee light, T when red light, C when green light, G when ellow light. You would then send off light pulses and write DNA :D
>

Nice thinking. You're probably gonna' have fun with that writer. Thinking up future realities -- plus a few never realized dreams...

[Sebastian Cocioba]

I would make a plant motile. A pet that feeds itself. One that moves in our sense of "real time". Charging during the day, moving around at night. Would be fun. Little shop of horrors...minus the horrors. Not a hybrid of an animal or insect and a plant, it will solely rely on photosynthesis for its energy. A kind of BEAM robot. Might need to crank up RuBisCo efficiency which may solve some biomass and crop growth issues too. Everyone wins. :P

Sebastian S. Cocioba
CEO & Founder
New York Botanics, LLC
Plant Biotech R&D

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From: Koeng
Sent: 3/22/2014 3:52 PM
To: diy...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [DIYbio] Re: If you had unlimited access to money and equipment what cool Science experiment would you try?

I would make a bacteria to terraform Mars and possibly Venus :D . I don't know how well the latter would work, but I am pretty sure with unlimited funding I could make a bacteria to terraform Mars

On Saturday, March 22, 2014 12:14:14 PM UTC-7, Josiah Zayner wrote:

I think about this alot especially because most things people try to do in DIY revolves around making things cheaper for others.

So what would you study if money and equipment access was not an issue?


I think for me one of the things I want to work on is enhancing sensory inputs. My first research project would be about extending the ability of mice or rats to understand the english language. What I would do is use a microprocessor with RF, maybe TI because I have worked with TI RF2500 before and they are easier to use. Or maybe just an arduino nano with a xBee? This would take a small webcam mounted on the animals head and transmit the data back to a computer which would do image analysis and word identification. These words would then be translated into signals that would be sent back to the animal and used to stimulated the animals brain in mostly real time either using optogenetics or microelectrode arrays to give the word "meaning" to an animal. For instance the word "Danger" could activate neurons associated with fear in the hippocampus.

Sounds crazy. I just need someone to give me $$$$ and access to lots of stuff.

What about you? Any crazy ideas that just need $$$$ and access to things?

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[Koeng]

The writer could probably write a television series on this thread alone... I imagine it like "The Twilight Zone" except with a bunch of crazy science ideas actual scientists dream up 

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

http://sb6.biobricks.org/poster/toward-heterologous-carbon-fixation-in-e-coli-with-the-chloroflexus-3-hydroxypropionate-pathway/ 

That's how to make your runing plant. Introduce these genes into a fungus or into a naked animal (fur will deflect light).

Btw, human immortal cells usually are only in a petri dish. What if you give them antibiotic peptides, and make them prioduce anti-fungal substamces. And add exoenzymes. 

Then you would have a cell mass that could creep/crawl around on the floor of a forest. 

They would be like fungus mold, but actually be mammalian cells (more or less) 

If humanity were to be wiped out by an asteroid, it's DNA would still be living as some creepy fungus. 

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Ah you said no hybrid :D 

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Maybe you could even reprogramm the cells, so they will develop into human beings again? 

You could send them on other planets as cells (low maintanance) frozen and then induce forming placenta tissue (maybe inside an egg). 

One thing still would be nice - human cells should get a better DNA polymerase. This one makes too much errors. You could wipe out some herreditary diseases (e.g. single nucleotide polymorphisms . not those occuring from chromosome rearrangement)