Biologists on the verge of creating new form of life

So...we are going to be able to create something we don't understand? Awesome! ....because we are totally smart enough to NOT screw this up and potentially create a problem worse than anything we've got thus far.

Wow, that's amazing - I wonder if there's a way to speed up their replication and evolution processes, leave them to it, and see what happens...

The introduction to a new horror movie should be this story. The _blank_ of the Dead...

One day we'll fight a war against these things, and we'll all reminisce about the first time we learned of them on Current.

Behold, the power of the human mind to simulate nature itself in its thoughts and creations.

i gotta get a look at the full report when it's published. this article leaves out all of the scientific goodies. is it a normal phospholipid bilayer? which nucleic acids and proteins are they going to use? i need details! its kinda cheating if they're using relatively advanced molecular components that would have taken millions of years evolve to build this cell.

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

---Charles Darwin

The words seem almost prophetic.

This won't sit well with the conservative christians who say that only God can create life. I can't help but remember all the people that I've argued against who have told me that it will be impossible to ever recreate life...

I can't wait to break the news!

Fantastic! Just don't tell the gov't about it...hmmm, unless they're really behind it all.

Looks like once again a scientist desperately needs to get laid. Sheesh, first sexy artificial intelligence, then cloning, now life from whatever they scrape up off their toenails. The search for scientists to get booty will push us into the next age!

Cool. I want to turn a piece of granite into a sub-living creature now.

If Dr Brian Cox got sucked down a black hole that surely would have to be the greatest rock n roll death ever.

Yikes, and my son is applying to Harvard. Hope Honors Chemistry has him slightly prepared. I wouldn't want the homework from that class.

I wonder how the church is going to respond to this.

Awesome post.
Is that a real pic or digital?

The only question that no one has yet to ask is... Why? Whats the purpose of this effort? because I don't see one...

Horay!! Were one invention closer to the end of the World!!

Strange that this coincides with the release of Spore...

HEY.... I thought women were the creatures of life!!!!!

I don't know if he's the first to do this, as creating a novel lifeform is a project that many engineers in the synthetic biology field aspire to do.

But guys, I don't think you understand the significance of this. It isn't some scientist just using electricity and water or anything, they're actually CREATING life by building it from scratch.

Even though this might be a really simple lifeform it hints at the advances in our technology and what could be possible in the future... and we have to consider its moral implications.

If only I could get a life for myself...

I thought they already did this.

I heard about something involving a vacuum and electricity several years ago.

Man needs to advance or philosophy and society before we can properly use our technology.

i hope they create a lifeform that can counteract mankind's wrongdoings.

Does this mean if he destroys his sample he's done an abortion? What are the right to lifers going to say! SAVE THE ARTIFICIAL LIFE FORM!!!

Interesting stuff for sure - brings up questions about what constitutes life.

So this is a race to see who can create artificial life first, these guys, or Currents news robot and her husband, "Just in time" Berlich?

Awesome!

OK whats the point? He is creating life to????

better life

save life

or get published

That is fuckin crazy.

God, I wish I could wake up in the future and see how things are. I bet it's going to be wild. Really fricking wild. The love the possibilities.

"Could"

Does that mean it has yet to actually replicate?

I wonder if its like photosynthesis?

Run, Run for you lives.

I can see the conversation now.

Scientist: I have created LIFE! :D
Person: AWESOME! What does it do?!
Scientist: Um, well...it replicates.
Person: Does it talk?
Scientist: No.
Person: Does it sleep?
Scientist: Not really.
Person: Is it cute?
Scientist: Not at all.
Person: ...So what does it do?!
Scientist: Just...replicates, really.
Person: Oh. Uh, that's great, man.
Scientist: ;_;

The only feeling I get from this is SCARY...

And I always thought that robots would take over the earth...

way cool

And so it begins, the birth of our future planetary masters...
thanks, science.

LMAO

Can't wait for this to scare the pants off conservatives.

How long do you think it takes for this to be banned?

It will develop self-awareness, eat all of us and take over the planet!
I just know it!
*running in circles, yelling obsenities*

Creating life? Define it please.

we learn somethinh new everyday. this is really cool.thanks for the post pericles

that's very cool sure their will be a lot of speculation about how it could harm the human race but i think its an amazing leap in a good direction....

To what purpose I wonder

Wow? first I have heard of this.....

thanks for the heads up.

I am getting old; I can remember the first color tv's ;)

now they are creating life? whew