Meet the genomically recoded organisms

"We can fit another stop codon over here next to the kitchen."

Riverside, California

Yes, their creators call the Genomically Recoded Organisms they made “GRO”s. But they are not quite as menacing as they sound.

Genetic engineering had, until Y2K at least, was not exactly what it sounds like. No one was really engineering completely new genes that encoded completely new proteins that generated completely new life forms. But the newest generation of tinkerers thought: why not?

The genetic code that is used universally by all life on Earth—giant sequoias, daddy long legs, baker’s yeast, barracudas, ring tailed lemurs, you get the idea. It dictates that specific amino acids are encoded by specific combinations of three nucleotide DNA sequences, called codons.