First Successful Genome Transplant In Bacteria 80
eldavojohn writes "Researchers reported the first genome transplant from one bacterium to another, thereby transforming the species from M. mycoides to M. capricolum. The research, published in Science, shows that it is possible to achieve a success rate of 1 in 150,000 genome transplants in bacteria. While this may not seem like very good odds, it's actually a major step towards synthetic life, opening up the possibility of tailoring bacteria to our needs. The article mentions medical uses and fuel production as possible applications."
Strong containment (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Strong containment (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Strong containment (Score:3, Interesting)
That conclusion doesn't follow from the given premise.
A modern PC counts as 100% synthetic, but dropping it in the ocean will "kill" it quite thoroughly.
Now, if you mean that, in terrestrial life's 3-billion-year long arms-race, no other lifeform has come up with a substance that specifically targets this particular lifeform, I would agree. But that doesn't mean nothing can kill it, just that nothing has killed it yet.
Little do they really understand. (Score:4, Interesting)
It means that someone walked into your house took all the old furniture out and replaced it with a whole bunch of different but similar furniture so that when you got home in the evening you could still sit down on the couch and watch TV.
So what everyone is going gaga over is the fact that the movers can take furniture out and replace it with different furniture. To be honest, I'm not that impressed. It has *nothing* to do with synthetic life, artificial life, etc. because they are *still* using the few hundred enzymes that nature had to evolve over billions of years. They didn't sit down and design a totally new basis for self-replicating systems that can survive in our "real" world and make a copy of itself. The hard drive in your computer is significantly more impressive. It has more parts and using a single command I can get it to copy itself. And *we* humans had to design every single circuit and craft every single part in it. Now *thats* something to be impressed with.