This is pretty cool so I had to post it. Do you remember the movie Gattaca? Apparently a zoologist (???) is trying to build a handheld DNA scanning device similar to the ones used in that movie:
The scanner analyzes DNA bar codes, which are basically species-specifc sequences found in a single gene known as CO1 which just happens be common to all plants and animals (though CO1 doesn’t work quite as well for differentiating plant species). Researchers are building a database of DNA bar codes right now, and have so far catalogued about 2 million of the ten million species of plants and animals that are estimated to live on earth.
Makes me wonder how much it will cost…
Read: Engadget
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