SpudCells!

Have you heard about SpudCells?

This article in the Star Tribune (gift link) almost a week ago was the first thing I saw, but it had been written up in the New York Times as well.  

Bioengineering researcher Kate Adamala and her team have created the first "synthetic cells capable of growing, dividing and self-sustaining." They've made their findings open-source, and created a nonprofit organization called Biotic to "raise funds to perpetuate the communal, global research" that is needed to carry the research forward to the point where the technology can be used to produce plastics or fuels without petrochemicals, or novel drugs. The New York Times story listed another possibility: the cells could draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The Star Tribune article is mostly an interview with Adamala, while the Times article (also a gift link) is more of an explainer. 

Here's a toast to basic science research, the kind of thing that is being defunded, along with all the other things the Trump regime doesn't see a value in.