The tale surrounding the discovery of King Richard III's skeleton beneath an English parking lot is about much more than a pile of 528-year-old bones — all you have to do is look at the face of Philippa Langley as she breaks down during an archaeological autopsy.

"I don't see bones on that table," she says, during an emotional scene in a new documentary about the king's remains. "I see the man."

Langley, a 50-year-old Scottish screenwriter, plays almost as big a role as the much-maligned monarch in "The King's Skeleton: Richard III Revealed." The show airs Sunday night on the Smithsonian Channel in the U.S., after racking up royal ratings on British TV. It was Langley who enlisted the Richard III Society to help jump-start the excavation, and she serves as the on-screen witness for many of the key twists in the excavation.

Medieval CSI
Based on an analysis of the historical records, archaeologists from the University of Leicester obtained a license from the British government to dig into that parking lot next to Leicester Cathedral last year. "The King's Skeleton" traces each step in the CSI-style investigation, leading to February's conclusion that the bones were indeed the mortal remains of the last Plantagenet king.

Richard III reigned for only two years, but his death in the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 was a key moment. In fact, many historians consider his fall to mark the end of the Middle Ages in England. A century later, William Shakespeare's play immortalized him as one of literature's greatest villains.

One of the themes of "The King's Skeleton" centers on how Richard III may have gained a blacker reputation than he deserved. The way Richard III's fans see it, the successors to the throne from the House of Tudor had an interest in making their Plantagenet forebears look bad — to the point of portraying Richard III as a misshapen hunchback. "This is propaganda," historian Pamela Tudor-Craig says during the documentary.

So the truth comes as a shock to Langley.

"What we're actually seeing here is that this skeleton in fact has a hunchback," Jo Appleby, a bone expert at the University of Leicester, tells her in one scene.

"No!" Langley answers.

The identification of Richard III's remains drew upon carbon dating and detailed studies of the skeleton, including evidence of wounds that matched up with historical accounts of the king's demise. But the weightiest evidence comes from analysis of DNA extracted from the skeleton: The chemical signature of the mitochondrial DNA matched up with two maternal-line descendants of Richard III's eldest sister, Anne of York.

Stay tuned
Does this mean the case of Richard III is closed? Not yet. Mitochondrial DNA is not as precise an indicator as, say, a paternity test. "The DNA evidence is simply a single strand within the entire analysis procedure," Turi King, the University of Leicester geneticist who conducted the analysis, told NBC News on Friday. "You certainly wouldn't convict somebody on [the basis of this] DNA evidence."

However, King noted that the mitochondrial DNA signature for this particular skeleton is shared by only a few percent of Europeans. "It's quite a rare type, so that adds to the weight of the evidence," she said.

The next step will be to analyze the skeleton's Y-chromosome DNA, which is passed down from father to son. The Y-chromosome signature is far more precise than mitochondrial DNA, which all children get from their mother. Four paternal-line descendants of Richard III's family have already been identified and tested, and King is now waiting to do the much more complicated reconstruction of the skeleton's Y-chromosome DNA signature.

Working on the royal remains has been a "dream project," King said, but not without its drawbacks: "It's been very stressful. You're trying to work quite quietly and calmly. The pressure to make sure everything has been done properly has been intense. ... I feel like I'm still in the middle of it."

The license to work with the skeleton runs out next year, and King will have to finish up her DNA studies by then.

Meanwhile, a potential legal battle is looming over whether the remains will be reburied in Leicester Cathedral, as planned, or in York instead. Thankfully, that's one drama King and the other scientists involved in the Richard III mystery won't have to deal with.

"I just try to tune it out," she said.

More about the Richard III saga:

• Parking-lot skeleton identified as Richard III
• Could Richard III have gotten his spine fixed?
• For some, resting place is human rights issue

To tune in "The King's Skeleton: Richard III Revealed," check your cable provider's TV listings or consult the Smithsonian Channel's website. Britain's Channel 4 aired the show as "Richard III: The King in the Car Park."

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Christie's

Biologist Francis Crick drew this sketch of DNA's molecular structure in a seven-page handwritten letter to his son that sold for more than $6 million on Wednesday. "The model looks much nicer than this," Crick wrote.

A 60-year-old letter in which biologist Francis Crick told his son about DNA's double-helix structure, weeks before the Nobel Prize-winning discovery was revealed to the world, sold at a New York auction on Wednesday for a record price of $6 million.

"I'm sort of in a state of shock," said Michael Crick, the son who received that letter in 1953 and held onto it for six decades. "The family is calling me 'The Six Million Dollar Man.'"

The $6,059,750 sale price represents the highest amount ever paid for a letter, said Elizabeth Van Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Christie's auction house. The total price includes the buyer's winning bid of $5.3 million plus the buyer's premium. That sum is roughly three times as much as the pre-sale estimates of the letter's worth ($1 million to $2 million) and more than four times as much as the current Nobel Prize amount ($1.25 million).

The letter was purchased by an anonymous buyer who made the bid over the phone. Half of the proceeds will go to Michael Crick and his wife. The other half will go to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, where the elder Crick worked up until his death in 2004 at the age of 88.

Francis Crick and his American colleague, James Watson, published their DNA findings on April 25, 1953, in the journal Nature. That two-page research paper set the stage for Nobel Prize in 1962 and opened the way for a revolution in genetics that is continuing today.

More than a month before the Nature publication, Crick described DNA's "beautiful" structure in a seven-page, handwritten letter to Michael, who was then a 12-year-old student at a British boarding school. "My dear Michael," the letter began, "Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery."

The father went on to describe the DNA molecule's workings in detail, and drew a diagram of the now-famous twisted-ladder structure.

Bebeto Matthews / AP

Michael Crick holds the 1962 Nobel Prize medal that was awarded to his father, with his daughter, Kendra Crick, standing by his side. The medal is to be sold during a New York auction on Thursday.

"As far as we know, it's the first written description of how life comes from life," Michael Crick, now 72, told NBC News. He and other family members decided to sell the letter, as well as Francis Crick's 23-carat gold Nobel Prize medal and other personal effects, during a pair of auctions this week in New York.

The timing was chosen to capitalize on the 60th anniversary of the discovery, and Michael Crick speculated that the timing — and the growing importance of genetics — had something to do with the letter's higher-than-expected price. In addition to the letter, the items sold at Christie's included a sketch of Francis Crick by his wife that went for $17,500; and one of the scientist's notebooks, which sold for $21,250. Those items also brought prices significantly higher than the pre-sale estimates.

Watson, who turned 85 years old this month, was in the audience for Wednesday's sale and shared a bottle of champagne with the Cricks afterward, Michael said. 

Francis Crick's Nobel Prize medal and its accompanying diploma are to be sold by Heritage Auctions on Thursday. That lot alone could go for anywhere between $500,000 and several million dollars. Francis Crick's lab coat, his canceled Nobel check and other items will be sold as well. Twenty percent of the proceeds from the Heritage Auctions sale are to be donated to the Francis Crick Institute in London, with the remainder divided among the scientist's heirs.

Michael Crick said he hoped the medal as well as the letter will go on public display to serve as "an inspiration to young scientists all over the world."

The younger Crick has had a long career as a computer programmer and game designer in the Seattle area, and currently puts out a daily series of word puzzles known as "Cricklers." He said he and his wife have already talked about how his new status as a Six Million Dollar Man (or, more accurately, a 2.6 million-dollar man) might change their routine.

"We're very determined not to let it seriously impact our lives," Michael Crick said. "We still want to do our Crickler puzzles every night." 

More about the DNA discovery:

• Science will profit from sale of letter and Nobel Prize
• What about Rosalind Franklin? 'Lost' letters reveal twists
• NBC News archive on DNA

For more information about Michael Crick's DNA letter, including a remembrance of his father and a catalog that shows every page of the letter, check out Christie's website. Check the Heritage Auctions website to learn more about the medal and associated sale items.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 10, 2013 4:48 PM EDT

Christie's

Francis Crick sketched this diagram of the DNA double-helix molecule in a 1953 letter to his son, Michael. "The model looks much nicer than this," the elder Crick wrote.

The descendants of Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA's double helix, are likely to receive a seven-figure sum from this week's sales of the late researcher's Nobel Prize and a handwritten letter describing the structure of the DNA molecule — but the geneticists who are carrying on Crick's legacy will win a dividend as well.

"We'll probably be giving more money to the Francis Crick Institute than the prize was worth when he got it," mused Michael Crick, the Nobel-winner's eldest child and the recipient of that historic letter back in 1953.

The sales have been timed to take advantage of the 60th anniversary of the double-helix discovery, which was detailed by Crick and American biologist James Watson in a paper published by the journal Nature on April 25, 1953. Their findings opened the way to deciphering the molecular codes that control all of life's processes. The paper's publication date is now celebrated every year as "DNA Day."

Double helix, double sale
Crick's legacy is the focus of two million-dollar sales scheduled in New York this week: On Wednesday, Michael Crick's letter goes on the auction block at Christie's. His father sent it to the 12-year-old at his boarding school in March 1953 — just after the researchers worked out the structure of DNA's long, double-helix molecule, but before the Nature paper's publication. "My dear Michael," the letter began, "Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery."

The seven-page letter goes on to lay out the chemical structure of "des-oxy-ribose-nucleic-acid ... called D.N.A. for short." The elder Crick even sketched out the base pairs connecting the molecule's twisted spines.

"As far as we know, it's the first written description of how life comes from life," Michael Crick, now 72, told NBC News.

The letter has been valued at $1 million to $2 million. Michael Crick and his wife, Barbara, will receive half of the proceeds. The other half will go to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, where Francis Crick worked up to the time of his death in 2004 at the age of 88.

Heritage Auctions

"F.H.C. Crick" is engraved on the 23-carat gold medal that Francis Crick received for the 1962 Nobel Prize.

Then there's the week's second sale: On Thursday, Heritage Auctions will sell the 1962 Nobel Prize gold medal, as well as Francis Crick's endorsed award check, one of his lab coats and other effects. The medal and its accompanying diploma are expected to go for anywhere between $500,000 and several million dollars. The London-based Francis Crick Institute is due to get 20 percent of the proceeds. Francis Crick's descendants — including Michael as well as two other children and six grandchildren — will split the rest.

It's tricky to convert today's dollars into what the Swedish krona was worth in 1962, but the way Michael Crick figures it, his dad's share of the prize back then would be worth something in the range of $100,000 to $150,000 today.

Sorting out the puzzles
Michael Crick has made his own mark in life as a computer programmer and a game developer in the Seattle area: Among his creations are Pentode, WordZap and the first version of Microsoft Word's spell-checker. Today he keeps his hand in by offering a daily series of "Crickler" word puzzles online.

Crick said he kept his father's letter in a plain envelope for decades. "Around 2005, somebody thought it might be valuable," he recalled. "The first thing I did was make some reasonably good copies of it."

It's a different story for the medal. Michael Crick said that was locked up in a safe-deposit box, and "it was just going to sit there indefinitely." After Francis Crick and his wife Odile passed away, the family started debating what to do with it. Wouldn't it be better to have the medal on display, say, at a museum? If it's so valuable, how should that value be divided among nine heirs?

"That was a bit of a puzzle," the puzzlemaster said.

Crick family via Christie's

A young Michael Crick sits on his famous father, Francis Crick, in a circa-1943 family photo.

The family decided to put the medal up for auction, along with the other effects. And Michael Crick decided the letter should be passed on as well. "There was some concern, because the process of valuing the letter was tricky. What do you compare it with?" he said. The experts at Christie's decided to compare it to a 1939 letter that Albert Einstein addressed to Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning about the dangers of nuclear weapons. A copy of that letter was sold in 2002 for $2.1 million.

All the plans for the auctions came together in time for this month's 60th anniversary, which Michael saw as a nice touch. "It just seemed like a good time to put the medal on the market," he said.

He'll be in the audience for this week's sales in New York, hoping that his keepsake — and his father's — will pay dividends for his family and for generations of scientists to come.

More about the history of DNA:

• 'Lost' letters reveal twists in double-helix discovery
• DNA directly photographed for the first time
• All about DNA from NBCNews.com

For more information about Michael Crick's DNA letter, including a remembrance of his father and a catalog that shows every page of the letter, check out Christie's website. Check the Heritage Auctions website to learn more about the medal and associated sale items.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech researchers used a gene disruption technique to change the eye color of a mosquito, a critical step toward new strategies for disrupting the transmission of diseases such as dengue fever. The eye colors of these mosquitoes are varied because of cell-to-cell variability in the degree of gene editing.

Scientists at Virginia Tech have disrupted the genes that control eye color in mosquitoes, using a genetic-engineering technique that could also disrupt the transmission of diseases such as dengue fever.

The technique relies on two specially designed proteins that belong to a class known as transcription activator-like effector nucleases, or TALENs. The technique can target DNA at a specific site in an organism's genetic code, so precisely and efficiently that the journal Science has called the molecules "genomic cruise missiles."

Virginia Tech entomologist Zach Adelman prefers a different analogy. "They're basically a very, very fine-tuned pair of scissors," he told NBC News.

TALENs have been used to edit the genomes of animal and human cell cultures, but Adelman said the approach he and his colleagues used on the mosquito genome was different. Rather than trying to modify the function of a gene, the researchers aimed to disable a gene by snipping away at it. In the journal PLOS ONE, they describe how they targeted a gene whose protein product is essential for the production of eye pigment in Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species linked to the transmission of dengue fever.

Genetically engineered TALEN proteins were injected into the germ cells of mosquito embryos early in their development, with the intention of disrupting the coding for eye pigmentation that would be passed down to the next generation. When the targeted mosquitoes gave birth to baby bugs, a large percentage of them had light-colored eyes instead of the typical black eyes. The lack of pigment served as confirmation that the genetic code was wiped out.

The next step is to identify the genetic mechanisms in mosquitoes that play a role in virus transmission. When the right targets are found, the researchers will try to design a different set of molecular scissors to disrupt that genetic code.

Adelman said he's been working on molecular strategies to fight mosquito-borne diseases for a dozen years, and began the TALEN-based project just last May.

"To date, efforts to control dengue transmission through genetics have focused entirely on adding material to the mosquito genome. Ensuring that this added material is expressed properly and consistently has been a challenge," Adelman said in a Virginia Tech news release. "This technology allows us to pursue the same goals, namely, the generation of pathogen-resistant mosquitoes, through subtraction — for example, removing or altering a gene that is critical for pathogen replication."

More about mosquitoes:

• Gene-modified skeeters could stop dengue fever
• Key West waits on dengue mosquito experiment
• WHO: Dengue is fastest-spreading tropical disease

In addition to Adelman, the authors of the PLOS ONE paper, "TALEN-Based Gene Disruption in the Dengue Vector Aedes aegypti," include Azadeh Aryan, Michelle A.E. Anderson and Kevin M. Myles. The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Fralin Life Science Institute at Virginia Tech.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

University of Arizona

A photomicrograph shows an X chromosome at left, alongside a shrunken Y chromosome. The Y chromosome is passed down exclusively from father to son and can serve as an indicator of male-line human diversity.

Scientists say an African-American male's odd genetic signature suggests that the human Y chromosome's lineage goes back further in time than they thought — perhaps due to interbreeding with other populations such as Neanderthals.

"This really upsets a lot of ideas, but at the same time, it's understandable if we accept that human populations were structured in the past so that there were little pockets of diversity," said Michael Hammer, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who is one of the authors of a study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

The study focuses on the analysis of a DNA sample that was obtained from an African-American living in South Carolina and submitted to the Genographic Project, a National Geographic effort aimed at mapping human origins and migration. The funny thing about this sample is that it didn't match up with any of the previously known genetic signatures for the Y chromosome, which is passed down from father to son.

"Nobody expected to find anything like this," Hammer said in a news release.

A team led by Fernando Mendez, a researcher in Hammer's lab, analyzed more than 240,000 DNA base pairs on the African-American's Y chromosome. A comparison of the differences between the mystery genetic signature and previously known signatures led the team to conclude that the most recent common ancestor for the entire group lived about 338,000 years ago.

That goes further back than the fossil record goes for anatomically modern humans, Hammer said. "The fossil record speaks to 195,000 years or 200,000 years," he said. It also goes further back than the previous date for the most recent common ancestor based on Y-chromosome analysis, which is in the range of 142,000 years.

The researchers followed up on their discovery by searching through a genetic database for African populations, and turned up 11 men from western Cameroon who had virtually the same genetic signature.

Hammer said there could be two explanations for the previously unidentified Y-chromosome type: Either the genetic heritage of anatomically correct humans really does go back much further than what's reflected in the fossil record — or other populations, such as Neanderthals or the more recently identified Denisovans, interbred with modern humans. Anthropologists refer to that pattern of divergence followed by renewed interbreeding as introgression.

The results are "more consistent with introgression of an odd lineage," Hammer told NBC News. Over the past few years, scientists have been coming around to the view that such interbreeding did take place early in the history of our species. Recent analysis of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA has indicated that a part of their genetic heritage survives in modern-day humans.

Melissa Wilson Sayres, a geneticist at the University of California at Berkeley who played no role in Hammer's study, said the new findings were "exciting" because they pointed to a Y-chromosome lineage more ancient than any others. "They just happened to come across this one Y chromosome that was hidden for so long, and it's very likely that there are more hidden Y chromosomes around the world," she told NBC News.

She said one of the biggest debates in the study of human genetics has to do with how to match mutation rates with time scales — and she expects this latest study to add to the debate. For example, some might continue to argue that the most recent common ancestor lived more recently than 338,000 years ago. "It will still be the oldest Y-chromosome heritage that we have, but I can foresee that some people might disagree with that specific age," she said.

More about our genetic origins:

• Y chromosome is an evolutionary marvel
• Humans had sex with now-extinct relatives
• So who didn't have sex with Neanderthals?

In addition to Hammer and Mendez, the authors of "An African American Paternal Lineage Adds an Extremely Ancient Root to the Human Y Chromosome Phylogenetic Tree" include Thomas Krahn, Bonnie Schrack, Astrid-Maria Krahn, Krishna R. Veeramah, August E. Woerner, Forka Leypey Mathew Fomine, Neil Bradman, Mark G. Thomas and Tatiana M. Karafet. The authors acknowledged Jacqueline Johnson and her male cousins, the descendants of Albert Perry (South Carolina) and participating Family Tree DNA customers.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Experts say DNA analysis supports their claim that the bones dug up last year under a parking lot in the English city of Leicester are the last mortal remains of England's King Richard III.

"It's the academic conclusion of the University of Leicester that beyond reasonable doubt the individual exhumed at Greyfriars in September 2012 is indeed Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England," Richard Buckley, the project's lead archaeologist, said during a Monday news briefing in Leicester.

The project used 21st-century forensic science to solve a 500-year-old mystery surrounding one of William Shakespeare's best-known villains. Shakespeare's play, "Richard III," made the king out to be a scheming monster who killed children to get to the English throne. The bard gave Richard III dramatic lines that are still evoked today, ranging from "the winter of our discontent" to "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

In real life, Richard III's battlefield death in 1485 marked the end of England's Wars of the Roses, a decades-long conflict between the houses of York and Lancaster. Tradition held that he was buried in the choir of Leicester's Greyfriars Church, but the precise location of his remains was lost in the mists of time. Some even speculated that Richard's bones were thrown into the River Soar during Henry VIII's reign.

It was only in the past few years that archaeologists have been able to zero in on the location of the Greyfriars site again. Last year, a team led by the University of Leicester excavated a city parking lot and found a wealth of intriguing evidence — including a skeleton with a battle-scarred skull and a spine that was curved due to scoliosis. There was no evidence of a coffin, a shroud or clothing that was buried with the body.

All those clues suggested that the skeleton could have been that of the historical Richard III, but to firm up the connection, scientists put the bones through genetic tests, radiocarbon dating and more detailed osteological analysis.

"The skull was in good condition, although fragile, and was able to give us detailed information about this individual," University of Leicester archaeologist Jo Appleby reported Sunday in a news release. During Monday's news briefing, Appleby said experts identified 10 injuries to the bones, including eight wounds to the skull and "postmortem humiliation injuries." Such wounds are "highly consistent" with the accounts of Richard III's death, she said.

"Historical sources tell us that Richard's body was stripped," hacked and put on public display after the battle, Appleby noted.

The skeleton's relatively delicate structure was consistent with descriptions of Richard III's physical appearance, University of Leicester historian Lin Foxhall said. 

University of Leicester

A photo shows the Greyfriars skeleton lying in the site where it was found.

University of Leicester

The Greyfriars skeleton is laid out for forensic analysis. Experts believe the foot bones were separated from the rest of the body after burial.

University of Leicester

The Greyfriars skull was found by researchers during a search for the remains of King Richard III.

Buckley told journalists that the position of the hands suggested that they might have been bound together. Initially, the team reported that an arrowhead was found among the bones, but Buckley said a closer look determined that the object was a nail that was apparently mixed in with the remains.

Radiocarbon dating showed that "the individual could have died in 1485," Buckley said. Two tests yielded dates possibly ranging from 1455 to 1540.  

The team's genetic analysis reinforced the link to Richard III: DNA was extracted from bone samples and compared with modern-day mitochondrial DNA from two direct descendants of Richard III's family, including an anonymous donor as well as Michael Ibsen, a Canadian-born cabinetmaker who is a 17th-generation descendant of Richard III's eldest sister, Anne of York.

"The DNA evidence points to these being the remains of Richard III," said Turi King, a geneticist at the University of Leicester. She said additional DNA tests were still in progress.

Genetic matches based on mitochondrial DNA aren't as clear-cut as, say, a paternity test — but a mismatch would have ruled out any family connection. Similar techniques were used to identify the remains of Czar Nicholas II and other members of Russia's royal family, who were killed in 1918 during the Russian Revolution.

A documentary about the Leicester project, "Richard III: The King in the Car Park," is to be aired by Britain's Channel 4 on Monday night. But this isn't the end of the story. For one thing, the results announced on Monday will have to go through review and publication in scientific journals. The announcement also could lead to a reassessment of Richard III's reign, which some historians say wasn't nearly as terrible as Shakespeare made it out to be.

"I think this could be the moment where Richard III's reputation actually turns," British historian Andrew Roberts told NBC News. "This could be the moment where we look at his achievements and the positive aspects of Richard III, and don't just see him as one of the old Dark Ages kings."

And then there's the matter of reburying the remains: Authorities said the skeleton would get a proper interment in Leicester Cathedral, not far from the parking lot where it was found. The cathedral's canon chancellor, David Monteith, said planning for an interment ceremony in 2014 has already begun, and he expressed the hope that after more than 500 years, Richard III "may come to rest in peace, and rise in glory."

More about the search for Richard III:

• PhotoBlog: Reconstruction reveals Richard III's face
• Skeleton was almost destroyed in 19th century
• Dispute erupts over skeleton's future resting place
• Hunt for king's grave turns up garden

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Getty Images

Neanderthals like the one depicted in this museum reconstruction died out tens of thousands of years ago, but geneticist George Church says it may be possible to bring their DNA back into the gene pool.

Pioneering Harvard geneticist George Church suggests that the day is coming when we'll want to reverse-engineer the Neanderthal genome and pass the now-extinct creatures' advantages to our own progeny. All that's needed would be an "extremely adventurous female human" to serve as a surrogate mother.

During an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Church was asked whether a Neanderthal baby would be born in his lifetime. "That depends on a hell of a lot of things," the 58-year-old replied, "but I think so."

Is he serious?

Well, Church is serious about the promise of synthetic biology, which involves tinkering with the chemical components of DNA to add artificial twists to the code of life. Microbes could be tweaked to produce better biofuels or harness solar power. White blood cells could be rejiggered to fight cancer or other diseases, using a tamed form of the HIV virus. And extinct species could be brought back to life through a combination of cloning and genetic engineering.

The species-resurrection scenario would involve inserting the reconstructed nuclear genetic material from the extinct creature into the living egg of a closely related present-day species, sparking the cell into dividing, and then implanting the resulting embryo into the womb of a female from the present-day species. It's been discussed in the context of using elephants to bring back mammoths, or chicken hens to bring back dinosaurs. 

Technically speaking, the progeny wouldn't be a mammoth or a dinosaur, but rather an elephant or chicken exhibiting the genetic traits of their long-departed relatives. A similar technique could be applied using Neanderthal DNA: Chunks of reconstructed genetic code could be used to reprogram human cells and produce increasingly Neanderthal-like stem cells.

"If we do that often enough, then we would generate a stem cell line that would get closer and closer to the corresponding sequence of the Neanderthal," Church told Der Spiegel. "We developed the semi-automated procedure required to do that in my lab. Finally, we assemble all the chunks in a human stem cell, which would enable you to finally create a Neanderthal clone."

In the current political, ethical and technological climate, there's no way this scenario could come to pass. Researchers are closing in on a high-quality Neanderthal genome, but they're not quite there yet. The Russian and Korean scientists behind the mammoth-cloning project say they're years away from doing their experiment. And the idea of getting humans involved in cloning experiments is still the stuff of science fiction.

However, Church's point is that the Neanderthal genetic code may be so valuable that the hurdles will be worth overcoming.

"Neanderthals might think differently than we do," he told Der Spiegel. "We know that they had a larger cranial size. They could even be more intelligent than us. When the time comes to deal with an epidemic or getting off the planet or whatever, it's conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial."

Theoretically, it might be possible to create a whole population of neo-Neanderthals and see how they differ from the usual breed of Homo sapiens, Church said.

"Curiosity may be part of it, but it's not the most important driving force," Church said. "The main goal is to increase diversity. The one thing that is bad for society is low diversity. This is true for culture or evolution, for species and also for whole societies. If you become a monoculture, you are at great risk of perishing. Therefore the re-creation of Neanderthals would be mainly a question of societal risk avoidance."

Does the idea of Neanderthal surrogate motherhood sound sensible when he puts it that way? Or does it still sound like a science-fiction nightmare? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

More about the DNA frontier:

• How sex with Neanderthals made us stronger
• Neanderthal DNA lives on in some of us
• How synthetic biology will change us

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute have coaxed single strands of DNA to fit together like Lego bricks and form scores of complex three-dimensional shapes, including a teeny-tiny space shuttle. The technique, described in this week's issue of the journal Science, adds a new dimension to molecular construction and should help open the way for nanoscale medical and electronic devices.

"This is a simple, versatile and robust method," the study's senior author, Peng Yin, said in a news release.

The method starts with synthetic strands of DNA that take in just 32 nucleotides, or molecular bits of genetic code. These individual "bricks" are coded in a way that they fit together like Lego pegs and holes to form larger shapes of a specific design. A cube built up from 1,000 such bricks (10 by 10 by 10) measures just 25 nanometers in width. That's thousands of times smaller than the diameter of a single human hair.

The latest research builds upon work that the Wyss researchers detailed in May, which involved piecing together DNA strands to create two-dimensional tiles (including cute smiley faces). This time around, the strands were twisted in such a way that they could be interlocked, Lego-style. As any visitor to Legoland knows, such structures can get incredibly complex in the hands of a skilled builder.

Yin and his colleagues are still learning their building techniques. Fortunately, the bricks could be programmed to build themselves, with the aid of 3-D modeling software. Once the designs were set, the researchers synthesized strands with the right combinations of nucleotides — adenosine, thymine, cytosine and guanine — so that when they were mixed together in a solution, at least some of the bricks would form the desired design.

To demonstrate the method, 102 different 3-D shapes were created using a 1,000-brick template.

The Wyss researchers reported a wide variation in assembly success rate, or yield: Depending on the design, the yield ranged from 1 percent to 40 percent. That's roughly in the same range as the success rate for another method for molecular assembly, known as DNA origami. The origami method requires more custom work to design the "staples" to hold the DNA structures together, while the Lego-style method can rely more easily on a standard toolbox of DNA bricks.

In the future, DNA origami and DNA brick-building may be used together, said Kurt Gothelf, director of the Center for DNA Nanotechnology at Aarhus University in Denmark. "It is likely that a combination of the two methods will pave the way for making even larger structures in higher yields," Gothelf wrote in a commentary for Science.

Researchers say complex nanostructures could be used as smart drug delivery devices inside the human body, or as the components for microscopic electronic or photonic devices. It may look as if scientists are just playing around with smiley faces and toy shuttles, but a few years from now, DNA bricks will be no laughing matter.

Update for 3:30 p.m. ET: Peng Yin put me in touch with the Wyss Institute's Yonggang Ke, the lead researcher for the study, for an email Q&A. Here's an edited transcript:

Cosmic Log: I'm trying to visualize the self-assembly process. The shapes are designed using software, and that yields a recipe list for different strands that are synthesized, and then the various ingredients are combined to assemble themselves into the desired shapes?

Ke: "All the designs were done using software. First, a cubic '3-D canvas' model that contains 1,000 'voxels' was generated. [Each voxel represents an 8-base-pair connection between bricks.] Second, a list of a master collection of DNA strands (we ordered 4,455 strands) was generated based on the 3-D canvas. This master collection of strands covers all possibilities of shapes that can be designed from the 1,000-voxel 3-D canvas. Then we made 102 shapes using the software; each shape was designed by removing the unwanted voxels. At last, the software translates each shape to a recipe list of strands and sends the information to a robot for mixing the ingredients."

Q: Do you have to select 'good' structures of Lego blocks from undesirable or misshapen Lego structures?

A: "We didn't select the 'good' structures. That is why some structures' yields in the paper are so low. However, there are a few designed structures that failed self-assembly. They were mentioned in the supplementary material."

Q: I mentioned a couple of figures in the May report on your team's work with 2-D shapes: 12 to 17 percent yield, expected production of one desired shape per hour, $7,000 to synthesize a toolkit theoretically capable of producing 2 x 10^93 shapes. Do you have comparable figures for 3-D brick production?

A: "Yields of 3-D DNA-brick shapes were, on average, lower than 2-D DNA-brick shapes, but comparable to 3-D DNA origami structures. We saw yields varied from 1 percent to 40 percent, depending on the designs. The robot can make one 3-D shape per hour, which is similar to the pace for making 2-D shapes.  The master collection of 4,455 strands cost about $11,000, but we can produce 2^1000 (about 10^301) potential shapes. The much larger number of potential shapes is due to the higher resolution in our 3-D brick design." [The size of the voxels is smaller, with just 8 base pairs per voxel.]

Q: Do you visualize combining the short-strand bricks into a completed structure, or building modular structures that are in turn built up into bigger structures (for example, that nanoscale space shuttle)? I assume this is where the combination of brick-building and origami might come in.

A: "Combining multiple DNA-brick structures to form a larger structure via 'hierarchical assembly' is certainly on our mind. I think we will inevitably need to combine many different DNA assembly methods, including DNA brick and DNA origami."

Q: It sounds as if you expect bricks as well as origami to be used together for nanostructure synthesis. Is this a change from the way you expected the field to develop in earlier days, or did you always expect that the two approaches would end up being used in combination?

A: "The ultimate goal of the DNA-brick technique and DNA origami is the same: making larger, more complex, more stable DNA structures. The two methods are also intrinsically connected.

"I borrow a paragraph from our paper: 'DNA origami can also be related to the brick framework, in which half of the bricks are concatenated into a long scaffold. ... The successes of constructions that use only short strands (as in bricks) and those that include a long scaffold (as in origami) together suggest a full spectrum of motif possibilities with strands of diverse lengths: Longer strands may provide better structural support, and shorter ones may provide finer modularity and features; the eclectic use of both may lead to the most rapid progression toward greater complexity.'

"We certainly expect the two techniques will complement each other."

Q: Do you feel as if this establishes a sufficient toolkit for nanostructure building, or are there other steps or techniques that will still be required? Are you working on additional techniques?

  A: "Far from sufficient. The DNA-brick technique is great, compared with a lot of existing methods. It is modular, simple, and can make many complex shapes that were not accessible before. However, it is still not quite enough for many reasons. First of all, the structures are still only nanometer-scale objects. It will be great if we can get them to micrometer or even millimeter sizes. Second, we need to increase the stability of structures for many applications. Third, we want to be able to transfer the structural information to a lot of other materials (e.g. metals, carbon, silicon, protein…) to achieve more functions."

Q: Any more insight into the mechanism that leads to self-assembly?

A: "Right now we don't have any new hypotheses. A more important task for now is to search a reliable assay for studying the assembly mechanism."

Q: Is there any way to put an estimated time frame on applications for DNA structure assembly, or describe the potential applications?

A: "It is hard to predict a timetable. However, we believe we are really close to making high-profile real-world applications using DNA structures, considering the rapid growth of the field in recent years. Many papers have been published in the last couple of years, showing the potential for DNA structures in biophysical study, plasmonic devices, biosensoring, targeted delivery vehicle, etc.

Q: In May, we mentioned the potential for drug delivery or medical monitoring (for example, by nanomachines in the bloodstream). How does going from 2-D to 3-D change the outlook for applications? What are the big obstacles yet to be overcome?

A: "For some applications, 2-D DNA structures would suffice. However, for applications like drug delivery, going 3-D makes all the difference. A delivery vehicle/machine has to be a 3-D object that contains protective shell, recognition sites, etc. Note that we are at early stage of developing nano medical devices using DNA structures. The biggest obstacles in the near future are perhaps how to increase the stability of DNA structures in complex biological environments and how to observe the behaviors of the DNA structures in vivo." 

Q: Anything to report on patenting these technologies or forming a venture to commercialize them?

A: "We have filed a provisional patent on the DNA-brick technique. We also have filed patents for other DNA techniques that we have invented in the past. We certainly expect that commercialization of these techniques will be a possibility in the future."

More about DNA assembly:

• DNA designs done faster and cheaper
• DNA origami goes 3-D
• Slideshow: Making smileys out of DNA
• DNA robots pave way for micro-factories
• Scientists create atomic-scale Olympic rings
• Play a game and engineer real RNA

In addition to Yin and Ke, the authors of the Science paper, "Three-Dimensional Structures Self-Assembled From DNA Bricks," include Luvena L. Ong and William M. Shih. The work was supported by the Office of Naval Research, the Army Research Office, the National Institutes of Health, Wyss Institute and the National Science Foundation.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

MPIEA

Ancient DNA was extracted and analyzed using a novel sequencing approach.

Degraded DNA molecules from a group of human relatives who went extinct tens of thousands of years ago have been reassembled using a new technique, yielding a genetic code for the mysterious Denisovans that meets the standard for modern humans.

The findings are based on samples drawn from 40 milligrams of ground-up bone from a Siberian girl's finger. They confirm what scientists saw in a much less detailed genetic sequence they produced a couple of years ago, and address some of the deep questions surrounding the Denisovans. But they also raise a few new questions, including a basic one: Just how old was the sample they analyzed?

"The amazing thing is that we can sequence the whole genome to very high accuracy, but there is too little carbon in it to do a date," Svante Pääbo, a genetic researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, told reporters during a teleconference this week. Pääbo is the leader of the research team behind a paper on the project, published online today by the journal Science.

The finger bone was found in southern Siberia's Denisova Cave during an excavation in 2008. That dig was aimed at untangling the genetic relationship between Neanderthals and modern humans, and bones representing both those species were indeed found in the cave. But the initial analysis of the finger-bone sample revealed a genome that was neither Neanderthal nor classically human. That tiny bone and two molars that were also found in the cave represent the only known specimens of the Denisovan race.

MPIEA

A replica of the Denisovan girl's finger bone sits on a pinky finger, providing a sense of scale.

Previous analyses of the Denisovan genome were considered merely a rough draft, doing no better than an average of 1.9 readings for every molecular base pair in the DNA, or 1.9X. In comparison, the latest analysis goes to a coverage depth of 30X, which is typical of whole-genome sequencing for present-day humans.

The accuracy was increased by taking short, degraded double-strands of DNA, which couldn't be analyzed  the usual tools for gene sequencing, and "unzipping" them into single strands. That made it easier to attach specially designed molecules known as adapters and read out the DNA code, piece by piece.

"There are many things you can do with such a high-coverage genome that you cannot do with the low-quality genome that we had before," said Matthias Meyer, a colleague of Pääbo's at the Max Planck Institute who developed with the new sequencing technique. Here are the main findings reported today:

• A comparison of chromosomes that the girl inherited from her mother and father indicated that there was surprisingly low genetic diversity in the Denisovan population. That would suggest that the Denisovan population never was very large, and could explain why the group faded into extinction as populations of modern humans spread out. The analysis also confirms that the girl carried genes that have been associated with dark skin, brown hair and brown eyes. "It is very likely that they were dark-skinned, and that is really everything we can say about that," Pääbo said, "The truth is, of course, that one can say quite little about how people looked from just studying the DNA sequences." 
• Detailed study of the "gene flow" over time suggests that the Denisovans interbred with Neanderthals as well as our own species, Homo sapiens. The analysis confirmed previous findings that Denisovans were more genetically similar to Neanderthals than to anatomically modern humans. So does that mean that Denisovans were a separate species? "I really stay away from species designation," Pääbo said. "I would not call it a different species, but clearly different groups with a different history. I would not call the Neanderthals a different species from humans either, actually."
• A comparison of the genome with those of modern-day human populations confirmed that Melanesians, Australian Aborigines and other Southeast Asian islanders had the most in common genetically with the Denisovans. The Denisovan contribution to the genomes of present-day Papuans was estimated at 6 percent.
• A deeper analysis of the Papuan-Denisovan connection showed that the Denisovan contribution was lower for the sex-linked X chromosome than it was for other chromosomes. That might suggest that the Denisovan males were more likely than the females to interbreed with modern humans. Or it could mean there was a genetic defect on the X chromosome that led to its elimination from modern-day genomes.
• The researchers were able to triangulate, using the Denisovan genome as well as the genetic codes for Neanderthals and modern humans, to come up with an unexpected result: Present-day east Asians and Native Americans appear to have more in common genetically with the Neanderthals than present-day Europeans, even though Europe was thought to be the main hangout for Neanderthals hundreds of thousands of years ago.
• The researchers also drew up a catalog of more than 100,000 genetic differences that apparently arose between modern humans and the now-extinct Denisovans and Neanderthals in the past 100,000 years or so. About 260 of the changes affect protein function, Pääbo said. "It's quite interesting to me to note that eight of them have to do with brain function and brain development — the connectivity in the brain, how synapses between nerve cells function. And some of them have to do with genes that, for example, can cause autism when these genes are mutated," he said. "I think this is perhaps in the long term, to me, the most fascinating thing about this: what it will tell us in the future about what makes us special in the world, relative to Denisovans and Neanderthals."

Genetic sequencing alone can't tell scientists how long ago the Denisovans lived, however. Pääbo and his colleagues factored in assumptions about the mutation rate of the human genome to estimate that the girl with the finger bone lived somewhere around 74,000 to 82,000 years ago. But a separate line of evidence, based on the rock layering in the cave, suggested that the bone was 30,000 to 50,000 years old.

"I'm very unsure about the archaeological dates, but I would say I'm equally unsure about our molecular dates," Pääbo told reporters.

Similarly, the researchers give a wide range of dates for their estimate of the time when the Denisovan population split off from the evolutionary line leading to modern humans: 172,000 to 700,000 years ago.

"Most of the uncertainty in that number ... comes from the uncertainty at present about the human mutation rate," said another co-author of the paper, David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute. "There is a lot of debate in the community about the rate at which mutations accumulate."

Future studies, involving DNA analysis as well as carbon-dating analysis of other specimens from the Denisova Cave, may help clear up that uncertainty. But for the team behind the research announced today, an even higher priority is to generate a gene sequence for the Neanderthals that's as good as the sequence they now have for the once-mysterious Denisovans.

John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said the newly published paper was "solid work."

"It's really neat that they've organized a catalog of things that humans have that are not present in this ancient genome," Hawks, who studies human origins but was not part of Pääbo's research team, told me. He said the study of comparative brain genetics, for example, was becoming an increasingly important area, "and this study is part of it."

"We know that the human brain is a big target of evolution, but establishing the order of these changes is an important step now," he said. "This gives us a time stamp on some of those changes."

The technique developed for the Denisovan DNA could be applied much more widely in the future. Meyer said his method could be used on modern-day forensic samples that are too degraded to be analyzed using current techniques. And who knows? Anthropologists may find still more long-lost, extinct cousins in the fossil record whose genomes need to be done.

More about our human and near-human relatives:

• Fossil DNA points to new branch of humanity
• Ancestors had sex with mysterious human cousins
• How sex with Neanderthals and Denisovans made us stronger
• Did previously unknown type of human live in Chinese caves?

In addition to Pääbo, Meyer and Reich, authors of the Science paper, "A High-Coverage Genome Sequence From an Archaic Denisovan Individual," include Martin Kircher, Marie-Theres Gansauge, Heng Li, Fernando Racimo, Swapan Mallick, Joshua G. Schraiber, Flora Jay, Kay Prüfer, Cesare de Filippo, Peter H. Sudmant, Can Alkan, Qiaomei Fui, Ron Do, Nadin Rohland, Arti Tandon, Michael Siebauer, Richard E. Green, Katarzyna Bryc, Adrian W. Briggs, Udo Stenzel, Jesse Dabney, Jay Shendure, Jacob Kitzman, Michael F. Hammer, Michael V. Shunkov, Anatoli P. Derevianko, Nick Patterson, Aida M. Andrés, Evan E. Eichler, Montgomery Slatkin and Janet Kelso.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Koby Barhad / RCA

Koby Barhad's concept for an installation called "All That I Am" suggests creating genetically engineered mice that reflect some of the traits associated with Elvis Presley. It's important to note, however, that no mice have yet been Elvisized.

A British artist’s plan to create a mouse with Elvis Presley’s DNA has set websites buzzing over the past week, but right now it’s nothing more than an art-school concept. And it's not clear whether the concept will ever go any further, due to ethical and legal concerns about blending human and animal DNA.

"The purpose of the work was to raise those almost frightening issues," artist Koby Barhad told me. Mission accomplished, Koby.

Actually, celebrity DNA is quite the commodity. A few years ago, a venture called MyDNAFragrance marketed several perfumes that supposedly reflected the DNA coding of Elvis as well as Michael Jackson and other dead celebs. (Sorry, those celebrity-themed fragrances, including "Blue Suede," are no longer available.) The DNA for that project came from University Archives' collection of historical hair. The Elvis hair that Barhad used came from another source: an eBay vendor who was selling strands for $22. (He says he also bought strands of hair attributed to Princess Diana and President John F. Kennedy.)

Barhad, a 35-year-old MFA student at London's Royal College of Art, said he didn't actually submit the Elvis strands for DNA sequencing. Instead, he conducted a practice run with the aid of a couple of researchers from Imperial College. The scientists analyzed DNA extracted from their own strands of hair, as well as from cheek swabs, to confirm that it would be possible to get some sort of genetic reading from the hair alone.

Barhad was particularly interested in seeing whether the DNA tests could identify a variant of the human ACTN3 gene that has been associated with athletic performance. "We proved that those particular scientists didn't have that gene," he told me. Theoretically, then, the DNA tests might be able to identify the genetic signatures of particular traits in Presley's DNA — although realistically, there's some question about how much the DNA might have degraded over the decades.

The next step in the concept would be to breed mice that reflected that genetic signature. Theoretically, you could insert a string of code from the Elvis genome into the desired mouse gene, through a procedure similar to that used to create lab animals with specific mutations. Barhad said another option would be to identify a genetic twist in the mouse genome that parallels the twist in the Elvis genome. For example, if Presley had a particular mutation of the ACTN3 gene, mice could be bred with a similar mutation.

Koby Barhad / RCA

Koby Barhad's concept envisions a stacked series of mouse cages that reflect different aspects of Elvis Presley's life.

The final step in Barhad's art project, titled "All That I Am," would put the Elvis-themed mice in a variety of postmodernistic cages that reflect phases of the rock star's life: One cage might have a funhouse mirror to enlarge the mouse's image, just as Presley's ego was enlarged by fame's mirror. Another would put the mouse on a treadmill, calling to mind how "Elvis worked himself to death" in his final years.

It's worth emphasizing that the Elvis mice do not exist, despite what some websites initially reported.

"I guess the project created a space to imagine a scenario we are all afraid of and want to experience at the same time," Farhad said in an email, "and that was the reason all the news [sites] published it as if I produced this specific mouse, instead of just suggesting it. The funny, or actually scary, thing is that a place in the U.S. ... already contacted me to buy the specific mice. So I think it kind of proves that it is much more real than I even imagined it would be. I'm still writing emails to everyone saying I didn't actually go as far as producing the clones."

In today's follow-up Skype voice call, Barhad said he had no intention of creating an Elvis mouse. "The thing I'm thinking of doing is having my own mouse" that would reflect his own genetic code, he said.

However, Barhad said he'd have to do some more research before going forward with that part of the art.

"Humanized" versions of genes, such as the FOXP2 gene that's associated with speech, have been inserted in mice for research purposes for years. But it's one thing to do that sort of thing under the stringent guidelines that govern genetic studies, and quite another to do it for an art exhibit — even if it's an exhibit designed to call attention to the controversy over transgenic DNA.

"I'm actually going over the law on that," Barhad told me.

Would it be wise for him do it? Or would Elvis observe that when it comes to splicing celebrity DNA, "only fools rush in"?

More about Elvis ... and DNA:

• Auction house all shook up over Elvis hair
• Arthur C. Clarke's DNA odyssey
• Looking for alien DNA
• Cows make humanized milk — but is it safe?

Tip o' the Log to Wired UK's Ian Steadman.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

B. Wei et al. / Wyss Institute, Harvard

This atomic-force microscopy shows 100 shapes, each created from tiles of DNA strands. Each shape takes up a space measuring 150 by 150 nanometers, or roughly one-thousandth the width of a human hair.

The DNA molecule serves as the code of life, but it also serves as handy building material for nanoscale structures — and newly published research shows how patterns as complex as letters, numbers and smiley faces can be created far more cheaply and quickly than previously thought.

Harvard researchers demonstrate the latest twists in this week's issue of the journal Nature. The process involves laying out short segments of DNA in a tile-shaped pattern determined by custom-designed chemical bonds. Those single-stranded tiles, in turn, can assemble themselves into larger shapes like Lego blocks, depending on how the bonds attach to one another. Different recipes for mixing the tiles together will produce different shapes.

The researchers — Bryan Wei, Mingjie Dai and Peng Yin — estimate that the process yielded the desired structure 12 to 17 percent of the time. That yield is far from perfect, but it could be perfectly acceptable for a process involving thousands upon thousands of self-assembling molecules.

The technique updates a construction strategy that was first pioneered in the 1980s. Back then, it took two years to create a 7-nanometer-wide cube from 10 strands of DNA, Caltech's Paul Rothemund and Aarhus University's Ebbe Sloth Andersen observed in a Nature commentary on the research. In contrast, the newly reported results suggest that far more complex shapes, measuring more than 100 nanometers across, could be churned out at an average rate of one per hour. (A human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers wide.)

Another attractive factor has to do with the cost: An alternate method for creating nanoscale shapes, known as DNA origami, twists one long molecular strand into a desired shape rather than using lots of smaller tiles. But for each different shape, a new set of molecular "staples" has to be synthesized at a cost of roughly $1,000, according to the Nature commentary. The Harvard researchers' method involves creating a $7,000 set of tiles that could theoretically produce 2 X 10^93 shapes. That's a 2 followed by 93 zeros.

In their Nature paper, Wei and his colleagues showed off 100 shapes — including the Roman alphabet, numerical digits, punctuation marks, the peace sign, Chinese characters and 10 kinds of emoticons. They made use of a custom-designed computer program to aid in the design of the shapes and control the liquid-handling robot that mixed the DNA ingredients.

"This advance truly brings DNA nanotechnology into the rapid-prototyping age, and enables DNA shapes to be tailored for every experiment," Rothemund and Andersen wrote in their commentary.

One of the puzzles surrounding the research has to do with why it works so well. Experts had thought that when smaller strands of DNA were mixed together, they wouldn't come together correctly and completely to form the desired larger shapes. The authors suggested that the timing of the chemical reactions could be the key to their success. "It is conceivable that sparse and slow nucleation followed by fast growth allows complete assembly," they wrote.

Nature News quoted Yin as saying that "any technological applications are highly speculative" — but if the process can be extended to a mirror-image type of DNA that isn't broken down by cellular processes, it could lead to the development of nanoscale devices for drug delivery or molecular-scale medical monitoring. The researchers say they're in the midst of obtaining a provisional patent for the process.

In their commentary, Rothemund and Andersen compared DNA assembly to carpentry.

"Wei and colleagues' findings remind us that we are still just apprentice DNA carpenters, and will embolden others to mix hundreds of DNA strands together against prevailing wisdom," they wrote. "The results will probably surprise us."

More about molecular carpentry:

• DNA origami goes 3-D
• Slideshow: Making smileys out of DNA
• DNA robots pave way for micro-factories
• Scientists create atomic-scale Olympic rings
• Play a game and engineer real RNA

The research reported in Nature, "Complex Shapes Self-Assembled From Single-Stranded DNA Tiles," was funded by the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

J. Craig Venter Institute

A genetically transformed strain of bacteria takes on a bluish cast as a signal that synthetic coding was incorporated into the cell's genetic machinery.

Someday, microbiomes just might give us a world where crude oil is grown like a crop, where vaccines for new flu strains can be produced in days instead of months, and where physicians can tweak the bacteria in your gut to cure what ails you. At least that's the promise held out by genomics pioneer Craig Venter and others at a symposium conducted this week at Seattle's Institute for Systems Biology.

A decade ago, Venter was among a cadre of researchers who first decoded the human genome — in Venter's case, his own. Today, as the head of the J. Craig Venter Institute, he's among a cadre of researchers who are not only working out the implications of that genetic code for our daily lives, but also studying how to tweak the genetic codes of the myriad microbes that surround us — and in some cases, live within us. The makeup of those microbial communities is what scientists refer to a "microbiome."

A decade ago, the main challenge facing geneticists was to translate the "analog" information of cellular chemistry into a digital database, Venter told attendees. Today, the main challenge is to reverse course and make the "digital to analog" conversion, so that innovations in genetic code can be applied to the real world.

How's that done? Venter and his colleagues made a start on that task just a few years ago, by pioneering a process to synthesize DNA and insert it into a strain of bacteria. The daughter cells reflected the artificially altered programming instead of their forebears' natural genetic code.

Now Venter and others are putting synthetic biology to work. Here are just a few of the examples cited at the Seattle symposium, titled "Systems Biology and the Microbiome":

• Novartis, a major pharmaceutical company, is working with Venter on techniques to crack the genetic code of an influenza virus strain and pass it along to the vaccine-makers within five days. A quick turnaround is the key to containing the spread of deadly flu strains like the one that killed tens of millions in 1918. "We think we're actually pandemic-ready," Venter said.
• Several commercial ventures, including Sapphire Energy, are tweaking algae to produce oil-like compounds at a price that's cheaper than the cost of crude oil. Sapphire CEO Jason Pyle pointed out that based purely on commodity costs, corn is a cheaper energy source than oil (though not as cheap as natural gas). If genetically modified algae could be grown in mass quantities as cheaply as corn, it could become a renewable energy source that's much closer to carbon-neutral than fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide could come to be seen as "the raw material of the future," Venter said.

• Algae strains could also be reprogrammed to produce foodstuffs, Venter said. Such genetic twists could outpace today's chemical-heavy agricultural methods, which are increasingly being seen as too wasteful for the planet's rising population. "Ultimately, the elimination of agriculture as we know it should be a goal of modern science," Venter said. However, harnessing synthetic algae cells is "not a short-term project," he cautioned.
• Unraveling the human microbiome, particularly in our digestive system,. ranks among the top priorities for microbiologists. Physicians are already experimenting with "fecal transplants" — a gross-sounding procedure that involves injecting material from a donor's intestines into the gut of a patient who needs a healthier bacterial community. Having your digestive bacteria analyzed, and tweaked if necessary, may someday become part of a routine physical. (However, MIT's Eric Alm noted that it wouldn't have to be done annually, because your gut's microbiome doesn't usually change that quickly.)
• The bacteria in our bowels may even play a role in space exploration: If we ever get to the point of sending astronauts to Mars, Venter said one of the first items on the agenda should be to replace the astronauts' Earth-centric gut bacteria with a selection more suited to the Mars trip. Venter has said other bacteria cold be engineered to create fuel and food from raw materials on Mars, including the carbon dioxide in its atmosphere.

This all sounds like a science-fiction utopia, but some believe there's the potential for a sci-fi nightmare instead. Last month, an international environmental consortium called for a moratorium on the commercial use of synthetic organisms, and an outright ban on the application of synthetic biology to the human genome or the human microbiome.

"It is our obligation to safeguard the future, to be wise in our development and use of technologies which could threaten humans and the Earth," said Carolyn Raffensperger, executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network. The results of an online survey on synthetic biology are due to be released next month.

What do you think about the idea using genetically altered microbes to produce fuel, food and medicine? Is it a panacea, a Pandora's Box, or something in between? Feel free to register your opinion in the online poll above, or in the comment space below.

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• One-third of Americans back ban on synthetic biology