Let's Make a Microbe!

  • By Susan K. Lewis
  • Posted 10.01.05
  • NOVA scienceNOW

What key traits distinguish a living organism from something not alive? What defines life itself? Get a sense of the answers by building your own animated microbe, and learn about research attempting to create artificial life in the laboratory.

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Find out what separates life from nonlife, and glimpse how scientists are exploring the boundary.

Credits

Images

(all vesicles)
Courtesy David Deamer/Duke University
(sunlit plant)
Courtesy iStockphoto.org
(hand with bacteria)
© Corbis Images

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  • Francis Collins on Making Life

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