CRISPR patent belongs to aliens
By Sara Reardon,
Nature
| 02. 29. 2016
“Welcome back, you two,” says assistant FBI director to Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. He unlocks the door to Mulder’s old pencil-strewn office. The iconic I WANT TO BELIEVE poster lies crumpled on the floor.
We agree. After nearly 15 years, FOX rebooted the X-Files for a six-episode season that wrapped up last week. The technological advances of the past decade and a half, CRISPR included, gave the writers a raft of new ideas for its supernatural plots. DNA sequencing can be done in hours. People snap pictures of close encounters on their smartphones. Mulder’s ringtone, hilariously, is the X-Files theme song. Now the internet provides a platform for conspiracy theorists and the ill-informed to spread misinformation about the dangers of vaccines, genetically modified crops and gluten. (Spoilers aplenty to follow).
The new season takes full advantage. It opens with an internet personality who has become rich off his conspiracy theory videos. He wants Mulder and Scully to investigate a young woman who claims to have been injected with “alien DNA.” Scully, who was abducted in the show’s second season, finds...
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