Word: humaneness
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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When President Clinton held a press conference last June to mark what was billed as one of the most important scientific milestones of the century--the cracking of the human genetic code--two men stood together on a White House podium to share the credit. As leaders of competing genome projects, Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, and J. Craig Venter, president of Celera Genomics, were recognized, correctly, as the two most important players in the worldwide effort to spell out the 3 billion "letters" of the human genome--the biochemical recipe, encoded...
Comparing the human genome with those of other organisms, from bacteria to insects to mammals, will help biologists understand how more complex species evolved from simpler ones--and even pinpoint the precise bits of genetic information that are uniquely human. "It has to be a milestone in human history when you have a first look at your instruction book," says James Watson, who with Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA a half-century ago. "Having this book will change the world...
...1960s, for example, he headed not for college but for the surfing beaches of Southern California. That made him a prime target for the draft, and the Navy sent him to Vietnam as a medical corpsman--an experience that taught him indelible lessons about the fragility of human life and the colossal ineptitude of big bureaucracies. Says Venter: "If you suffered fools, you died. I dealt with thousands of people dying because of stupid government policies...
...then, in 1998, Venter took his most audacious gamble. Armed with a more powerful set of gene-sequencing machines and heading a new company called Celera Genomics, he boldly declared that he was going after the biggest prize of all--the human genome. Not only would he sequence the whole thing, but he'd also do it by 2001, several years before the expected completion of the official Human Genome Project. While he insisted he'd make his genome map public, Venter said he'd sell proprietary analytical software to plumb it for information...
...Bible-thumping crowd will let Bush have Whitman - she's pro-business, New Jersey isn't nearly as polluted as it used to be, and baby-killing isn't in the job description. And besides, Health and Human Services looks to be in safe hands of Tommy Thompson...