Artificial life is only months away

Fire PETA for not protecting humans.

It is very reassuring to know that the supervirus killed the Chinese first.

Space had how many millions of years to do it?

Humans only have a few decades.

Humans have a brain.

The Universe has....nothing. I would think that a billion years with nothing that gave something could be rivaled by a brain.

That's a bit simplistic, isn't it? We assume that the human brain is the be all and end all or intelligence. We try to make something of nothing, but we simply cannot recreate the EXACT nothingness that was present millennia ago which led to creation of life. We're getting pretty close to abiogenesis!

Anyway, in my opinion, time has more power than the human brain.

Seeing how a student can surpasses a teacher how is it that the human brain is less than what created it? That's kind of backwards in how this whole evolving thing works.

There has been nothing shown that is more powerful than the human brain. Time isn't really seen, therefore it can't compete. You can't even quantify it enough to have a battle.

You're really putting down time. To ignore the importance of time is to ignore nature as it is. Without time, we wouldn't exist. True, it cannot be quantified, but you cannot expect the human mind to simply recreate in years what nature did in millenia. There is an incredible amount of things the human mind does not comprehend.

Considering how evolution works, then we must know for certain that the human mind is not the best - or rather will not be the best for ever.

"Time isn't really seen, therefore it can't compete."
Only humans and space are in this competition? How does space work without time? How does anything work without time?

If we could never die or grow old then what use is time to us? It's a measurement that isn't necessary outside use of birthdays and drinking age. =P

Whose to say the universe isn't one giant brain and we are all its thoughts?

Certainly not facts.

"If you could theoretically choose the genes your child inherits so that they would be born with brown eyes"- That's no longer theoretical, but is becoming practice through genetic diagnosis and selection.
http://current.com/items/89856131_custom-made-babies.htm#89858299

As for using targeted genetic engineering to change phenotypes in adults, I think that could very well be in the cards sometime in the future.

If this technique could be used for or as a stepping stone to that purpose, maybe . . . I really couldn't tell you, you'd need to find a geneticist that has been following this project in detail for a solid answer.

tis on the horizon, and currently being projected in the realm of 'personalized medicine'

plus mars lacks a strong magnetic field to retain much atmosphere.

Unfortunately I don't believe our government wants to cure anything, not only would the health care company's loose massive amounts of money but the over population problem arises also.

where is the point that we "are all missing" and what is the "very bad idea" in that excerpt?

"...should allow it to take over host cells and reboot them with its DNA."

I suspect his point is that the taking over of host cells in order to restart the cell with new DNA can be very much abused. Perhaps we could render a bacteria to take over virus cells and cure Cancer and STD's and other diseases which hurt humanity (though really they're natural population control- hahaha) but at the same time, we could render a bacteria to eat through anything and destroy anything.

Like most scientific breakthroughs, the emerging technology can have good and bad applications.

Unfortunately, if it's possible then the abuse of this technology for diabolical means probably will happen at some point down the time line.

but isn't that, more or less, what a virus does on its own, take over host cells and reboot them with its own DNA?

so in a sense, we no longer have to rely on our own f'ups to mutate genes and create disease, we can now customize made to order disease and make the pharmaceutical industry fabulously wealthy saving us all from ourselves.

oh, wait, I got that backwards, I meant we can create interventions and cures...what was I thinking?

OR you know, we could convince cancer cells to stop acting like cancer cells.

Or something useful like that...

incredulous...
a virus uses a host cell to manufacture copies of itself...it doesn't actually "reboot" the cell with its own DNA/RNA it just uses it as a factory, the cell does the same thing it just duplicates viruses as well...that is quite a large difference

and as with any scientific or technological advance there is always a negative side I can't think of any advance that we have made that can't be used for harm...but isn't it worth saving the lives should we just tell people that we have the technology to save them but we are to scared to use it because we think somebody might take it and use it in a bad way

Bad people do bad things, it's going to happen and nothing can stop it. On the other hand, for someone like my best friend who has lupus this breakthrough might be the only thing than can stop her body from destroying itself, and that makes it worth it in my mind.

I was being incredulous ellax21193, my Achilles' heel, with the key terminology in my analogy being 'more or less,' but thank you for the clarification.

Your question, "isn't it worth saving the lives-- should we just tell people that we have the technology to save them but we are to scared to use it because we think somebody might take it and use it in a bad way" has been the pivotal point for any discussion of scientific advancement for almost as long as we have been doing science, and in my opinion, it is only when we stop asking that question that we are in real danger of using science in a bad way.

man look what the wheel did, you think caveman thought about that shit

my favorite!

if god made us in his image then we should and can make life as he did.

Good point.

Nice ignorance based fear mongering . ;) But I can't say it isn't expected from you.

thanks 4saken. That made me laugh.

the implications for the study of Designer DNA in stem cell research sounds like the missing puzzle peace. then the pro-lifers can give the stem cell controversy a rest.

it's application would be limitless.

Like the bacteria they altered a few years ago to eat oil, they've become the gold standard for oil spill clean up.

The potential is there, to say we shouldn't embark on this endeavor because the only thing 'you' personally can think of is insidious is somewhat selfish.

For instance if you could create an nutritious organism that ate the salt out of sea water then you could feed starving third world countries and provide them drinking water in the same process.

"Dr Venter, who has been chasing his goal for a decade, is already working on projects to use synthetic biology to create bacteria that transform coal into cleaner natural gas, and algae that soak up carbon dioxide and turn it into hydrocarbon fuels. Other potential applications include new ways of manufacturing medicines and vaccines."

you should try re-reading the article

Those all sound fine and good, but what about scientists with political agendas that say would like to create "Designer DNA" to rid the world of certain races, or groups of politically undesirable people like homosexuals and such?

So non-reproducing chemicals cannot form reproducing chemicals? Interesting claim.

"To create life from non-living matter is impossible."

No, THAT'S incorrect. Life is made from and originated from non-living matter (hence the reason we find it so hard to define life). So it is obviously possible.

"we are star dust"

but i was disappointed to find out they were converting preexisting algae and bactrium. but the point that they can create synthetic customizable DNA is way cool.

the implications for the study of Designer DNA in stem cell research is astronomical.

Designer DNA? did i just coin a term?

Good observation, but like NeoBunny said life is very hard to define because if you took apart all the links of your DNA in your whole body and dropped it into a pile, the pile would not be living material. It'd just be carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, etc.

If we were to create something like the postulated methane based lifeform it would be truly unique and original, we are just co-opting what nature has already provided for us, true.

But if we were to create something like the methane based lifeform would it be considered life at all?

wow! that is deep.

let me think, carbon based life form...............Methane based life form................why not.

Not quite the same thing that Mendel did.

then how did the very first life forms on earth form, don't bible bash me either

If it is, it'll probably taste like chicken.

Every thing taste like chicken lolz D:

I agree, this is very questionable

It took them TWO YEARS to figure that out?!?! Gosh A'mighty that's crawlin' on your hands & knees. Well, when the scientists at one university finish the nanobot project and these guys finish the algae-fixes-everything project and the other groups of disassociated smart dummies finish their projects and somehow they criss-cross in the bathroom I guess that'll just about be it.

The only great thing about it is that we can know the scientists all got eaten down to the bone first.

It seems disingenuous to call them artificial. It implies that man has created a life, when he is merely manipulating life.

that was a very wise thing to say jabul. i agree.