075 - Biotechnology | ESL Podcast

Background: This ESL podcast talks about the recent advances in biotechnology. Scientists have created a "genome" of a living thing. Find out about this controversial topic and let us know your opinion.
Discussion forum Lesson Below

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English Learning Conversation

A: Did you hear about the team of U.S. scientists creating a new life form from scratch?

B: Well, they haven’t quite accomplished that yet. What they did was make the genome of a living organism for the first time. The molecule that they made still doesn’t function as an organism and is incapable of replicating.

A: It’s still pretty exciting because they are anticipating that they’ll be able to produce new kinds of microorganisms that are able to make clean energy, make new life-saving drugs, and eat pollution.

B: There are still a lot of skeptics who worry about the new technology possibly leading to biological terrorism. Many scientists also fear that a patent on this could give this small group a monopoly on making all new synthetic life forms.

From Scratch: Doing something "from scratch" means to do it from the very beginning. If someone makes a cake "from scratch" it means that they started with just the basic ingredients such as sugar, flour, eggs etc. and made the cake. If they went to the store and bought a cake mix, that means that they aren’t making it from scratch.

Genome: The complete set of genetic material (DNA) for a living thing.

Replicate: Able to make exact copies of itself.

Anticipate: Able to predict a future event.

Biological terrorism: Using disease or harmful life forms to cause harm to some society.

Patent: A patent is the legal right to an invention for a limited time period. Drug companies who make a new drug are able to get a patent in order to legally prevent anyone else from making the same medicine during a certain time period.

Monopoly: A market in which there is only one seller.

Synthetic: A substance that is man-made and not found occurring in nature. Certain materials for warm clothing are "synthetic" materials.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 2:55 am and is filed under Fun English Lessons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.