I am creating life, says US scientist

[Von Tonner]

This could turn out to be the biggest break through in science since the discovery of bubble gum. Seriously though, I'm all for it but I expect their will be a lot of "navel inspection", hystiria, hand wringing, etc, from all groups of society, political as well as religious.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx...national_news/

[Letum]

I wonder if this is a break through for chemistary or biology. :hmm:

[Skybird]

I wonder where man all of a sudden should get the sense of responsibility from that is needed to help preventing that such powerful tools shall not be abused for - carefully said - questionable goals and practices.

Blade Runner, Getacca, I hear you calling.

I simply think man in no way is ripe for such powers.

[joea]

I already know how to create life. My parents knew also. :p

[antikristuseke]

Well its been known from experiements done since the 50's that amino acids that form the DNA double helix can form in what is belived to be the composition of acient Aarths atmosphere and oceans so it sint really all that surprsing that we have come far ennough along that some of our brightest minds can create chromosomes. Allso this is a nice blow to the creationist camp and their mindless babble, but im sure that bunch of lunatics won't leave things to unfold on their own without puting up a fight and im pretty sure politicians riding on their votes will allso try to **** things up. Guess we have to wait and see. Interesting article.

Edit: trying to type after just having waken up is bloody prone to typos.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Blade Runner, Getacca, I hear you calling.

You missed one.

[CB..]

"Space above and Beyond" had a nice one too..
first create a race of machines to do the dirty work no one else wants to do..oops forgot to give them a mind of their own..oops they developed one..and told us to "sod off"... next make the same mistake again by creating a race of "tanks" ie manufactured human beings to fight the now independant AI manchine people....oops forgot that they might have their own thoughts regarding having been manufactured to fight our battles for us ...they tell us to "sod off" too....

strange thing about the religious angle on all this is that you can't play at being god (even with a small "G")..without running into the same problems with your creations..give 'em a mind of their own??? or not??? bit of a sticky wicket that..

maybe the bible and other religious works are not quite as barmy as we would like to think...personaly i am inclined to be less hasty to dismiss them as they do throw up the same questions we are finding our selves dealing with ...a "hand book for races that want to play god" ..lol

a parable if you like...taken as such they are becoming more relevant every day rather than less relevant...mind you this is not an argument for religion...religion is a weapon of mass destruction...just an argument for some sort of middle ground..

if were going to start desiging life to suit OUR needs...hadn't we better examine what we believe our needs to be ? first? better to know now rather than later...as it's a lot harder to undo than it it actualy is to do..what de ye reckon..unless we are going to just treat life itself as if it were just another commodity in our consumer "lifestyle"....or perhaps that is why they have been ramming that word down our throats for last 20 years...to prepare us for the concept that life IS just another commodity??

anyhuw i'm sure they (who ever the hell "they" are) know what theyre doing....well there's allways a first time isn't there :rotfl:

would you let an ape loose with a chemistry set??

[Letum]

It's likely that this kind of thing happens in nature on a regular basis anyway.

The earth was very different when the first semi-chemical semi-biological life forms where
produced, however it is likely that is is an event that has happened, and continues to happen
every now and again. It is likely that there are plenty of places where the right
chemicals and conditions exist.

[Steel_Tomb]

Originally Posted by Letum

I wonder if this is a break through for chemistary or biology. :hmm:

I believe its called "biochemistry" , having done A level Biology I think this (if confirmed) is the biggest breakthrough in science since we completed our discovery of the human genome...the fact that someone can create artificial chromosomes in a laboratory is quite frankly amazing. However, creating one chromosome is one thing. Creating a complete set which will interact with eachother and reproduce (thus creating functioning, living cells) is an entirely different ball game!

[TteFAboB]

Interesting that among the promised benefits, Global Warming and Energy Sources are selected, the hot topics of the moment. The benefits certainly aren't limited only to those relative to time.

But I would like to know if anybody can provide a link with proper scientific language, because in the Guardian one I cannot see where life is being created. From what I understand from the link provided, somebody took an already existing DNA chain and decided to build a copy of it from scratch, chromosome by chromosome, leaving out a bunch of stuff, probably to reduce the work-load and time consumed. Then they took a living bacterial cell and inserted the DNA inside it, "expecting" the new DNA to take over the old one. The Guardian uses this word, expecting. I suppose they succeeded? Or is there a probabiliy involved, it may or may not work each time?

If so, nothing has been created, but reproduced. Everything already existed. The combination of chromosomes and the matter used to build each chromosome. Then massive affectation ensues and everybody starts talking about their own ficticious imagination of what actually happened, but not realizing it, everybody also believes to be talking about the same thing.