Ultimate Enlightenment? (Synthetic life)

[Gringo]

'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

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.

The researchers hope eventually to design bacterial cells that will produce medicines and fuels and even absorb greenhouse gases.

All great, create new things, solve old diseases or what if our other tehcnological advances, ie the robot nation, become an intelligent force and use this new life technology to supplant their masters?

Or as the bbc blogger said

And the creation of his synthetic microbe is being compared with Dolly the sheep in genetics, and Microsoft's operating system in computing.

Well if it's based on windows98, we're quite safe. So how does VT think this changes the world?

[Brumerican]

How do you think it changes the world ?

[AVFC-Prideofbrum]

We don't need humans.

[Guest Ricardomeister]

I find this quite worrying but scientists will always try to play God, especially if they can get their hands on plenty of funding!

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Never **** with nature.

[Brumerican]

Never **** with nature.

What about medicine etc ? Is that not **** with nature ?

[AVFC-Prideofbrum]

I find this quite worrying but scientists will always try to play God, especially if they can get their hands on plenty of funding!

So basically they will doing nothing then and not exist?

[TheSufferingVilla]

The power to create life makes men Gods. However, by our very nature we make for terrible Gods.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Oui.

It'll come back to haunt us, someday, when bacteria becomes immune to our medicines (granted it already happens, but in the future it'll be on a far bigger scale, there will be more medicine floating about and more people will be depending on it).

Everything is just one big chemical equation and everything depends on the right balance. Most of what we do is so negligable on the big scale so we get away with it, but as time goes on we'll eventually start **** with the very fabric of what makes the world click and then it'll come crashing down.

[AVFC-Prideofbrum]

I'd create the terminator. Aka another James Milner unless he leaves for Man City, then i'd create proper terminator to terminate James Milner.

[saturdaygig]

Lets hope they can create a creature that stays calm even when the transfer window is quiet

[Sie]

So how does VT think this changes the world?

Not nearly as much as the headlines would imply. From what I've been told, the reality of this breakthrough is being rather inflated as we've been able to synthesise DNA for at least a decade and we've also had full sequences of bacterial genomes before that.

This experiment is merely combining the above two methods. What's been done here is more like taking a book, photocopying some of its pages, removing them and then gluing in the photocopies to replace them - bam, Artificial Book. It's more of a proof of concept that we have lab equipment that can accurately copy a very simple genome from an already mapped original to a degree that it functions the same. It's the "functions the same" part that this experiment just tested. The 'creation of synthetic life' thing as if we've genuinely created life is rather dishonest spin, at least when it comes to how most laymen will interpret such a headline.

So sci-fi rhetoric about how meddling with matter will destroy us all can be saved for at least a little while longer I suppose.

[LondonLax]

I am quite nihalistic.

Humans are going to keep advancing technology, people are going to keep fearing the worst.

It is how the whole of human history has gone so far.

Ultimatly it doesn't really matter because we are all going to die someday anyway.

So to this I say 'Meh!' :drowsy:

[YLN]

I am quite nihalistic.

Humans are going to keep advancing technology, people are going to keep fearing the worst.

It is how the whole of human history has gone so far.

Ultimatly it doesn't really matter because we are all going to die someday anyway.

So to this I say 'Meh!' :drowsy:

Veee Believe in Nattting, not even the correct spelling of nihilism, or what it actually means.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

[leviramsey]

Say what you will about the tenets of national socialism, dude, at least it's an ethos.

[LondonLax]

I am the walrus?

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Shut the f*ck up donny.

[kidlewis]

this is one step closer to making the cloning vats in unreal tournament real. Bring it on.

[JulieB]

I didn't vote because I've only caught a little bit of this story tonight.

I don't like to be cynical but just like most things this"new science" may well be used to create more hideous ways to kill other men.

Can you imagine the damage that could be unleashed on mankind if some synthetically mutated DNA was turned into some kind

of hideous biological weapon?

The Jury's still out on genetically modified food...goodness knows what this could bring about.