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The greatest achievement of nature, according to biologist Lewis Thomas, is DNA. Scientists can tinker with DNA's canonical design and build DNA with a different chemical skeleton, or create base pairs, the chemical rungs of DNA's ladder, that are bonded by novel physical forces. Scientists can order custom-made DNA from companies like Twist, which produce DNA strands using individual chemical base pairs, spitting them out like an office printer. Startup companies now custom-make synthetic DNA for research labs, or anyone else who wishes to order DNA fragments, for less than 10 cents per base pair - about 10 times cheaper than the cost a decade ago. [Extracted from the article]