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 Topic: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

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  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #30 - May 21, 2010, 11:58 AM
    I wonder if we could give this bacteria 46 chromosomes and artifically create life, human life.  I could do with a slave.

    Better still, could be inject our own dna, and create carbon copies of ourselves?
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  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #31 - May 21, 2010, 12:19 PM
    IsLame, That would be slavery, which is immoral.  015

    Back to the subject,
    I heard last night Craig Venter saying that this is the only organism with it's website address encoded in it's dna.  Kewl! Afro
    "Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so." -- Bertrand Russell

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  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #32 - May 21, 2010, 01:41 PM
    They did not encode Allah in the DNA? How dare they! Filthy kafirs.
  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #33 - May 21, 2010, 01:42 PM
    Quote from: abuyunus2 on May 21, 2010, 11:01 AM
    stay behind me son, i'll protect you


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  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #34 - May 21, 2010, 01:51 PM
    Quote from: IsLame on May 21, 2010, 11:58 AM
    I wonder if we could give this bacteria 46 chromosomes and artifically create life, human life.  I could do with a slave.

    Better still, could be inject our own dna, and create carbon copies of ourselves?


    no that wouldn't work - remember the scientists needed to make a genome extremely similar to the bacterias original genome for it to work. if you tried inserting another genome of another organism, it would fail to control the bacterial cell in the appropriate manner and would lead to cell death. in general the term 'synthetic life' is misleading - they used an already living fully functional cell and basically replaced it's genome with an almost identical one that had been synthesized in the lab - the synthetic genome successfully took control of the cell - hence they labelled it as 'synthetic life'.

    In general it is extremely difficult to envisage this technology being applied to multicellular organisms. You could in theory synthesize the entire human genome in the lab (this would take a huge effort but should be theoretically possible given the success in this study) and then inject it into a human cell. however, this type of thing has additional layers of complexity which would make it a scientists nightmare (i.e. there are many modifications that occur to the genome that make it suitable and fucntional for a specific cell type) - and even then you would most likely be restricted to generating a single tissue type. however if you used an embryonic stem cell you could in theory create a whole organism.

    it remains to be seen if human cloning is at all possible, if it is, then in theory the technique from this study could be used to modify our traits. For example instead of just cloning IsLame with 'conventional human cloning', by incorportaing the techniques in this study you could make an Islame with ginger hair etc.

    of course this technology was not invented to be used in this way (human cloning etc. may not even be possible anyway). instead i think it was developed to be used at the level of single cell organisms that may have great benefits to us.
    ''we are morally and philisophically in the best position to win the league'' - Arsene Wenger
  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #35 - May 21, 2010, 01:56 PM
    I see, will have to watch this space I guess..
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  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #36 - May 21, 2010, 02:03 PM
    I hopes this technology will serve as a re-appropriation of nature and not the opposite.
    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #37 - May 21, 2010, 02:05 PM
    Hah, you gotta be kidding.  Man will screw this for whatever its worth.
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  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #38 - May 21, 2010, 03:21 PM
    Not necessarily. We could [in future when we know what we're doing] have a geoengineering system in public control that could even allow us to develop on a different basis.
    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #39 - May 21, 2010, 04:01 PM
    What happens if we get a good slap from nature for meddling, and these things end up taking control, and we become their slaves.
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  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #40 - May 21, 2010, 06:51 PM
    Like I said when we know what we're doing, then we can make it 'work' to our pleasing.

    But it involves appropriating our own nature - solving alienation. It's our activity that we need to transform in order to make it possible. Something like what you said is my fear because it will be determined by alienated - not free - human activity [capital], so it won't be achieved - and worse! That's why we come up with things like 'mysterious mother nature', 'hidden hand of the market', and so on [Wink]
    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #41 - May 21, 2010, 07:08 PM
    Quote from: abuyunus2 on May 21, 2010, 01:51 PM
    no that wouldn't work - remember the scientists needed to make a genome extremely similar to the bacterias original genome for it to work. if you tried inserting another genome of another organism, it would fail to control the bacterial cell in the appropriate manner and would lead to cell death. in general the term 'synthetic life' is misleading - they used an already living fully functional cell and basically replaced it's genome with an almost identical one that had been synthesized in the lab - the synthetic genome successfully took control of the cell - hence they labelled it as 'synthetic life'.

    In general it is extremely difficult to envisage this technology being applied to multicellular organisms. You could in theory synthesize the entire human genome in the lab (this would take a huge effort but should be theoretically possible given the success in this study) and then inject it into a human cell. however, this type of thing has additional layers of complexity which would make it a scientists nightmare (i.e. there are many modifications that occur to the genome that make it suitable and fucntional for a specific cell type) - and even then you would most likely be restricted to generating a single tissue type. however if you used an embryonic stem cell you could in theory create a whole organism.

    it remains to be seen if human cloning is at all possible, if it is, then in theory the technique from this study could be used to modify our traits. For example instead of just cloning IsLame with 'conventional human cloning', by incorportaing the techniques in this study you could make an Islame with ginger hair etc.

    of course this technology was not invented to be used in this way (human cloning etc. may not even be possible anyway). instead i think it was developed to be used at the level of single cell organisms that may have great benefits to us.

    Thanks abu yunus for the info. Afro
    I agree, the term 'synthetic life' is a little misleading.  That term sounds a bit like we have replicated the origin of life on earth.  To me, that would be the REALLY big breakthrough if it happens.
    "Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so." -- Bertrand Russell

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  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #42 - May 24, 2010, 08:23 PM
    Thought some of you guys might find this "interview" with one of the members of that team interesting:

    I am one of the creators of the first "synthetic" bacterial cell.
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  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #43 - May 24, 2010, 09:33 PM
    Before anyone gets carried away.............oops, too late. Cheesy

    This is over-hyped to buggery, which quite frankly seems to be normal for Ventner. He hasn't created "synthetic life" at all. What he has done is to insert an artificial genome into an existing cell. That's still a good party trick but is nowhere near what the hype would have you believe. People have been splicing genomes for ages and inserting them into cells anyway. Ventner has simply taken this fairly common process a but further and synthesised an entire but simple genome for a simple bacterium. It's good research, but it isn't quite what it is being made out to be by the media. Smiley
    Devious, treacherous, murderous, neanderthal, sub-human of the West. bunny
  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #44 - May 25, 2010, 11:03 AM
    yep i didn't want to blurt it out like that in case people thought i was criticising just because of my religous beliefs (something i have been accused  of on here before  grin12).  but yeah, people make 'synthetic DNA' every day and insert them into cells - even I do this from time to time in my own research (the difference in this study is that a complete genome took complete control of the cell). the thing that really annoyed me though, as a scientist, was their title for the paper:

    ''Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome''


    I mean wtf? how did the editors let him get away with that title - the editors deserve a spanking more than anyone in my opinion (although Venter and Science editors to appear to be best friends). Let's forget the context in which they used the word 'creation' for a second but the fact they are saying it's a 'chemically' synthesized genome is even misleading for the non-scientist. The fact is they used yeast cells as hosts to help them generate the genome and of course they also use polymerases etc. that they extract and purify from cells to help them make bits of DNA outside of cells - the construction of the genome was anything but 'chemical' but instead completely dependant on functioning living biological systems or purified biological tools.

    On the other hand, it is true that the techniques decribed might potentialy have great technological benefits - for example engineering genomes that make production of biofuels more effecient etc.

    It's good science - i just wish they wouldn't pass it off as something it so blatantly isn't.
    ''we are morally and philisophically in the best position to win the league'' - Arsene Wenger
  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #45 - May 25, 2010, 11:09 AM
    They do that all the time.  Every time a new fossil of anything vaguely ape-like is found the press start writing headlines about a "missing link",  leaving evolutionary biologists everywhere rolling their eyes with impatience.  Its just to grab attention with the headline.
    "Befriend them not, Oh murtads, and give them neither parrot nor bunny."  - happymurtad's advice on trolls.
  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #46 - May 25, 2010, 11:15 AM
    Also brings in additional funding & revenue for all concerned, shame there are no strong independent bodies to regulate it. Same thing happened with the lemur that Os initially pointed out as being our cousin and not our direct descendent after reading the paper.
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  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #47 - May 25, 2010, 10:41 PM
    I think you mean "direct ancestor". Anyone who has a lemur as a direct descendant has big problems.
    Devious, treacherous, murderous, neanderthal, sub-human of the West. bunny
  • Artificial DNA controls life ?!
     Reply #48 - June 09, 2010, 01:47 AM
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37256799/ns/technology_and_science-science/

    !!!
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  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #49 - June 09, 2010, 04:54 AM
    Thanks for adding so much to the discussion. Threads merged.
    Devious, treacherous, murderous, neanderthal, sub-human of the West. bunny
  • Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists
     Reply #50 - June 30, 2010, 09:26 PM
    Quote from: billy on May 20, 2010, 06:38 PM
    I bet some Muslims are already scouring Quran for evidence that this was predicted in there!


     whistling2
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