'Synthetic life' breakthrough announced by scientists

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first synthetic living cell.

The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell.

The resulting microbe then looked and behaved like the species "dictated" by the synthetic DNA.

The advance, published in Science, has been hailed as a scientific landmark, but critics say there are dangers posed by synthetic organisms.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10132762.stm

[UndertheOcean]

1. Cool !!!!

[conspirator]

2. Not so cool when used by the military and the CIA to create a race of Manchurian Candidates n/t

[brooklynite]

8. Manchurians cannot be candidates unless they're naturalized citizens...

...and then, excluding the office of President.

[dorkulon]

30. lol

[Evasporque]

61. Teabaggers want amendment for Manchuria and Austria....nt

[Decoy of Fenris]

3. Incredibly cool.

Sadly, I'm not gifted with scientific foresight, so I don't know what this could mean in a long run, but still. It's things like this that help me understand why scientists go into their field.

[Cheap_Trick]

4. Next stop, Roy Batty.

[harmonicon]

5. no, he's 5 steps away (nt)

[EXneoCON]

6. "Nothing...

...can go worng....go worng....go worng..." :bounce:

[slackmaster]

7. Synthecoccus novae?

[Flipper999]

9. This punches a hole in the old creationist argument that only God could have created life

since no one (till now) had created life from scratch.

[Duppers]

22. This is NOT from Scratch

Read the article. They used yeast and genetically mutated it.

[Ian David]

23. I can predict the counter-argument to that.

If you find a watch in the desert, you know it was made by Man (or an intelligent designer) because it resembles something made by Man.

Now that Man has created synthetic life, living cells can fall into the same category as a pocket watch, in that they resemble something that is made by Man.

Therefore, if you find Life, it must have been created by an Intelligent Designer (for example, God).

The obvious rejoinder to my counter-argument is, "Then perhaps God is really as fallible, un-magical, mundane and mortal as WE are. If creating Life is god's second greatest accomplishment (after allegedly creating the Universe) then maybe he's not such hot shit after all.

Now, here comes the kicker:

How to make a universe
By Chris Lee | Last updated August 18, 2006 10:04 AM

For many years now physicists have discussed how one might make a universe in the laboratory. The essential idea is that the vacuum is not completely empty but has a set of intrinsic energy levels, which can be excited. It is this energy that drove the early inflation of the universe and continues to accelerate the expansion of the universe today. However, these properties, combined with some fairly exotic theory, may point the way towards making a new universe.

More:
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2006/08/5027.ars

The Angry White Sky God is *so* ordinary. Yawn.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

24. They haven't created anything.

What they've done is the equivalent of Xeroxing the original Mona Lisa and call it a masterpiece. Get back to me when they've taken all natural ingredients without any synthetic enhancements, put them into a sealed, sterilized primordial environment, and without any intervention create a new, original lifeform.

God ain't out of business just yet.

[FLPanhandle]

33. "god ain't out of business just yet"

Yes, but he's a little less special now.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

34. Not to me.

:shrug:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

37. Big believer in the God of the Gaps, eh?

How about that little man who shuts off the light when you close the refrigerator?

[FLPanhandle]

38. To be honest, he was never a very good or interesting mythical creation

Quite boring, controlling, and somewhat psychotic and irrational.

Now the Romans and Greeks at least were imaginative with their mythical gods. Those guys were a hoot.

The Judeo-Christian-Muslim god by comparison is the work of a C student in a hurry late one night.

[Duppers]

47. uh?

Abiogenesis has occurred, this just isn't it.

[Auggie]

10. "We don't know how these organisms will behave in the environment."

Be very friggin' careful

[kpete]

Scientists create artificial life in laboratory

Source: TIMES UK

Scientists create artificial life in laboratory
Reported by Times Online on Thursday, 20 May 2010 (21 minutes ago)
Times Online

Scientists have created synthetic life in the laboratory, in a feat of ingenuity that pushes the boundaries of humankind's ability to manipulate the natural world.



Craig Venter, the biologist who led the effort to map the human genome, said today that the first cell controlled entirely by man-made genetic instructions had been produced.

The synthetic bacterium, nicknamed Synthia, has been hailed as a step-change in biological engineering, allowing the creation of designer organisms with specialised functions that could never have evolved in nature.

The team at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, is investigating how the technology could yield microbes that make vaccines, and algae that turn carbon dioxide into green hydrocarbon biofuels.

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article7132299.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2015164

[FLPanhandle]

11. That is so cool.

The religious fundies heads must be exploding.

[pertinent]

21. My heads just fine

I especially love this quote, "The synthetic bacterium, nicknamed Synthia, has been hailed as a step-change in biological engineering, allowing the creation of designer organisms with specialised functions that could never have evolved in nature."

I thought one of the premises of evolution was that anything is possible given enough time.

And then one important point, "The man-made genome was then transplanted into a related bacterium, Mycoplasma capricolum. This “rebooted” the cell so that it was controlled by the synthetic genome, transforming it into another species."

They can not create life. They had to insert this artificial genome into something that was already living.

[Bill McBlueState]

26. I've never heard that stated as a premise of evolution.

But I agree that no heads will be exploding; people rarely change their view of the world in response to a scientific result.

[pertinent]

29. Premise?

I think the word is still apt. You can not have a discussion on evolution (with the exception of microevolution) without massive amounts of time being involved.

This scientific result does not challenge belief. It is still working within the framework already established in our world.

[Posteritatis]

31. Sure you can. Also, the macro/microevolution thing is a complete false dichotomy. (nt)

[harry_pothead]

45. Yes it is +1

[AngryAmish]

48. It is from "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy"

Really, it is. Remember the part when it was said that nothing was manufactured anymore since the universe was large enough to grow anything, including a mattress?

[BrklynLiberal]

12. OMIGAWD!! So I guess this is a big boost for "intelligent design"??

:evilgrin:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[jayfish]

14. Cool Concept Really.

Humans evolved from single-celled organisms created billions of years ago by a wholly different species. All traces of said species being wiped from the face of the planet by plate-tectonics, impacts and other natural forces. Prolly a book written about it somewhere.

FSH

[BrklynLiberal]

17. Chariots of the Gods and Stargate

[jayfish]

18. See?

I knew someone smart made all this up already. I don't know the whole SG canon;(Having only watched the motion picture, Atlantis and Universe) but were humans created or simply enslaved early in our development?

Jay

[BrklynLiberal]

25. Stargate

Premise

Stargate productions center on the premise of a "Stargate", a ring-shaped alien device that creates a wormhole enabling personal transportation to complementary devices located cosmic distances away. Under the control of the United States government, the Stargate discovered on Earth is kept a secret from the public. This allows storylines to present no contradiction between depicted events and reality, an effect compounded by setting Stargate in the present day, and depicting Earth accurately, with any unrealistic technology originating solely from alien civilizations. These extraterrestrial civilizations are however more often pre-industrial than scientifically advanced, and are almost invariably human. Together, this allows for stories predominated by human interaction in Earth-like environments, an unusual feature for a science fiction franchise focused on exploration of other worlds.

In the story, this is explained as being the result of alien interference in Earth's distant past - the concept influenced by the theories of Erich von Däniken. Many ancient mythologies are shown to be the result of aliens who had visited Earth posing as gods by using their technology to give the impression of deific power. While some of these aliens had benign intentions, a race later known in Stargate SG-1 as the "Goa'uld" used Stargates to move slaves from Ancient Egypt to other habitable planets, simultaneously being responsible for the Egyptian religion and culture. Following a successful rebellion, they fled Earth, and the Stargate was buried and forgotten until modern times, when the United States acquired it following an archaeological dig. Rediscovering the function of the Stargate, the galaxy is begotten as a source of knowledge, as well as threats, and the attention of the Goa'uld is drawn once more to Earth.

[no limit]

13. Cool

[Uncle Joe]

15. That's just part of the story, they've advanced it to the human level, here's their prototype.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[Soylent Brice]

16. K&R

[bejamin wood]

19. not cool,,,,

Just my opinion, please feel free to disagree -
This is Monsanto^2 or worse. Imagine disposable things that should not be disposable. This will extinguish the need for respect of nature since after all, one would be able to repopulate polluted/devastated areas with hardier animal life forms.

It could be an interesting world by 2050.

[Odin2005]

27. Hysterical, luddite garbage.

[Ian David]

20. I welcome our new Synthetic Overlords.

[Odin2005]

28. This is very cool!

[myrna minx]

32. Next step: kill-bot factories.

:D

[proteus_lives]

35. Science fiction becomes science fact.

The future is now.

[rbixby]

36. I, for one, welcome our new synthetic overlords NT

[NeoGreen]

39. Does it eat oil? n/t

[Dover]

40. Scientific Breakthrough - Synthetic Life

Source: Guardian

Craig Venter's synthetic life breakthrough raises scientific hopesUS geneticist believes discovery, to create a genome from scratch, could earn him trillions of dollars.

--

It was a dream that began nearly 15 years ago, when Craig Venter, a Vietnam veteran turned geneticist, resolved one day to create a genome from scratch – and with it, make the first ever synthetic life form. Last night, in a dramatic announcement that led some to accuse him of playing God, Venter said the dream had come true, saying he had created an organism with manmade DNA.

The feat, hailed as an epochal scientific breakthrough by some but an alarming development by others, was achieved by scientists at the J Craig Venter Insititute in Rockville, Maryland using little more than a computer, some common microbes, a DNA synthesizer and four bottles of chemicals.

The result – after $40m (£28m) and more than a decade – is the first microbe that thrives and replicates with only a synthetic genome to guide it. Every "letter" of its genetic code was made in the laboratory and stitched together, forming an artificial chromosome 1m characters long.

Despite the scale of the achievement, the organism in question could scarcely be more lowly – it is based on a bacterium that causes mastitis in goats.

While scientists and philosophers have already begun to debate the potential consequences and moral implications of the work, the motivating force for Venter is commercial....cont'd




Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-genome

---

Major.
If this were a different world, breakthroughs of this scale might be worthy of celebration... But I dread it.

[secondwind]

41. I wish he would invent a microbe that eats oil.....

[high density]

42. one that makes oil would be good too.

[Duer 157099]

46. or teabags n/t

[Hardrada]

59. Or does windows.

[CreekDog]

43. That's not new

what about Kenny Rogers?

[Duer 157099]

44. When they figure out how to do this without using a host

then I'll be impressed. Until then, it's not even *close* to being "synthetic life."

It's been possible to remove the nucleus of mammalian cells and replace them with the nuclei of other, differentiated cells and then implant them into a uterus and they grow to term. The only difference here is that the genome, which for a microbe is considerably smaller than a mouse, was synthesized from scratch (but the code was copied).

The biotech industry has been doing a smaller scale version of this for years, every time a plasmid was engineered.

OTOH, I can certainly see how this will be a very valuable tool in the industry. I'd like to play with this myself, it sounds fun.

[TomCADem]

49. Scientists create a living organism

Source: CNN

Scientists have turned inanimate chemicals into a living organism in an experiment that raises profound questions about the essence of life.

Craig Venter, the U.S. genomics pioneer, announced on Thursday that scientists at his laboratories in Maryland and California had succeeded in their 15-year project to make the world's first "synthetic cells" -- bacteria called Mycoplasma mycoides.

"We have passed through a critical psychological barrier," Dr. Venter told the FT. "It has changed my own thinking, both scientifically and philosophically, about life, and how it works."

The bacteria's genes were all constructed in the laboratory "from four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesizer, starting with information on a computer," he said.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/05/20/scientists.organism.ft/?hpt=T1

---

Big deal! The corporate media managed to create a whole political movement, "The Tea Party," which has people angry at Wall Street demonstrating against the regulation of Wall Street. Which is more impressive?

:)

[gmoney]

50. "I for one welcome our new mycoplasma overlords..."

[AmericaIsGreat]

51. Amazing!

This could lead to big things in many industries.

By the way, I can't wait for the first evangelical to weigh in. You figure God would have made it a commandment not to if he was that worried about it.

[liberation]

55. I just want them to riddle me how humans can create life without their precious god

Chalk another failure to the same people who thought the earth was flat, the center of the universe, the stars were shiny things pinned on a canvas, our world is only 6000 years old, there is no such thing as evolution, there were all sorts of angels flying around the clouds, demons were a few feet under ground, etc.. etc... etc...

I am amazed about a collective with a batting average close to 0.00 when it comes to their BS still thinking they are entitled to be taken seriously enough to tell people how to live their lives.

Hope discoveries like these start driving another nail in the coffin of superstition.

[Webster Green]

52. Cool.

[texastoast]

53. ...

I just finished reading Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series, the premise of which is that the good doctor never died and moved to New Orleans.

[defendandprotect]

54. Love your comments . . . !!!

and after 300 years of men studying physics they invented the atomic bomb!!



As the woman from the Bikini Islands said after we nuked her homeland to test

atomic weapons . . .

"Americans are really smart about really stupid things" --

[Miss_Underestimated]

56. Considering that Venter is funded by Exxon Mobil, I'd be very wary of where this is going

[MrScorpio]

57. The creationist anti-evolutionists don't have a leg to stand on now

Thank you, Scientists!

[dipsydoodle]

60. Just for you

One leg too few : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty68LPKRQQQ

[Petrushka]

58. Holy cow!!! They RE-created a microbe known to cause a contagious lung disease in cattle???

Hot damn!!!




















:woohoo: :applause:










:sarcasm: