2.9M views · Sep 22, 2020 · 32:47 · 2 HN recommenders · 5 mentions · discussed 2020–2022
The Thought Emporium shows how they engineered a yeast strain to produce real spider silk, after more than two years of lab work and many failures. The video explains the genetic engineering process behind it.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN commenters cite it as proof that cutting-edge biotech is becoming accessible to home labs, much like computing in the 1980s.
“advanced cutting-edge biotech is getting to be as accessible as computing was getting in the 80s”HN comment, 2021
“I watched this cool youtube video by Thought Emporium where he makes custom spider silk”
Making custom spider silk with engineered yeast.
I watched this cool youtube video by Thought Emporium where he makes custom spider silk: this video Just seems like he reads the manufacturer's instructions!
“If you want to see someone do cool stuff with the above”
Cool home biotech work.
With a germ you can kill a few million people - link link link link If you want to see someone do cool stuff with the above: link this video
“advanced cutting-edge biotech is getting to be as accessible as computing was getting in the 80s”
Open-source spider-silk yeast shows biotech becoming accessible.
The point of capitalism is to align the interests of those with no scruples with the interests of everyone else. How well it does this and what else might do better is a matter for frequent — and loud — debate, but it is certainly better aligned than the feudal setup which preceded it. Anyway, here is a link to some open-sourced generically engineered spider-silk producing yeast, to demonstrate that advanced cutting-edge biotech is getting to be as accessible as computing was getting in the 80s: this video
“That's the easy part (literally possible in a home laboratory”
Genetic engineering possible in a home laboratory.
That's the easy part (literally possible in a home laboratory: this video ), the encapsulant and microfluidics for getting the mRNA into it seems to be the hard part.
“one of the YouTube channels I follow genetically engineered yeast to produce spider silk”
Channel genetically engineered yeast to produce spider silk.
I don’t think anyone physically could horde it for even as long as 20 years no matter how hard they tried. Tech has a way of diffusing rapidly — things that start off only affordable by the richest yuppies of Wall Street and London can be superseded by street-wares in Nairobi, and this is not limited to just computers and phones, for example one of the YouTube channels I follow genetically engineered yeast to produce spider silk: this video
