Academics are asked: In your field, what's the most important idea people should know?

Link at the Edge: The most important idea in your field.

Also, the sidebar on the left has some other questions that look cool.
E.g., What have you changed your mind about, and why? And What is your dangerous idea?

Here is a {dangerous/disruptive?} idea that came out recently. A synthetic genome with new man made nucleotides {other than A, C, T, G & U in RNA}that is able to reproduce and stay alive. Startling to me!

Quote from article: "From the moment life gained a foothold on Earth its story has been written in a DNA code of four letters. With G, T, C and A - the molecules that pair up in the DNA helix - the lines between humans and all life on Earth are spelled out.

Now, the first living organisms to thrive with an expanded genetic code have been made by researchers in work that paves the way for the creation and exploitation of entirely new life forms."

Link to a Guardian article on the topic, perhaps better articles elsewhere:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/23/organisms-created-with-synthetic...


Professor Floyd Romesberg (right) and Graduate Student Yorke Zhang led the new study at The Scripps Research Institute, along with Brian Lamb (not pictured).
https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-01/sri-tsc012317.php

>2 DugsBooks: Why is it that the first thought that came to mind is that these guys seriously need to pay attention to *every zombie movie ever made*?

>3 drneutron: No doubt! I think somewhere in the articles is a comment about the famous quote from Jurassic Park "We made it so these dinosaurs can not breed".

What immediately came to mind was; "we are having some anomalous readings from greenhouse #3 on Mars" and obviously how Battlestar Galatica algae ships operated.

Fascinating stuff.

I thought maybe "worst" ideas might squeeze into this category when I noticed this article at Extreme tech.

Just what no one needed: ‘world’s first smart condom’ unveiled

>4 DugsBooks:

The need to supply the bugs with the X and Y molecules is meant to ensure that the cells will die should they somehow get out of the lab. But Romesberg said that despite the protective measure, he still gets asked if he has seen Jurassic Park. In the 1993 movie, Jeff Goldblum questions whether the park’s dinosaurs might breed in the wild despite the failsafes built into their genetic makeup. “What the movie depicted is very different to our failsafe,” Romesberg said. “Our failsafe is based on the availability of X and Y and the cell could never make them.”

“In addition, evolution works by starting with something close and then changing what it can do in small steps. Our X and Y are unlike natural DNA, so nature has nothing close to start with. We have shown many times that when you do not provide X and Y, the cells die, every time,” he added.

Yes, but "life finds a way."