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Biotech News

Scientists Creating Life From Scratch 355

Posted by samzenpus from the bring-me-a-brain-igor dept.
Rubberbando writes "MSNBC is running a story about bioengineering organisms to do specific tasks such as produce hydrogen or ethenol. It also goes into the risks and ethical issues of playing with this sort of science. Some of the scientists involved are saying it's more of an art instead of a science due to its 'biohacking' style of experimentation."
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Scientists Creating Life From Scratch More

Scientists Creating Life From Scratch

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  • Becoming a god (Score:3, Insightful)

    by helioquake ( 841463 ) * on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:31PM (#13358383) Journal
    This type of biological research convinces me firmly that
    the intelligent design (ID) is just another horse crap
    made up by humans. The base of ID's claim lies on the belief
    that the design of some rudimentary living organisms are
    just too complex to be built by accident. Hence
    some higher intelligence -- beyond human intelligence --
    must be involved in creating such organisms. But now, we
    are stepping closer to make one on our own. What does that
    say about humans? Are we becoming a god?

    No. It's all about perception. From our point of view, some
    things may look too complex to be formed accidentally. But
    as science advances, our perception does evolve (or should).
    If our society continues to exist (not sure if that happens
    in Kansas or in Bill Frist's home, but let's not go there),
    then what it seems an impossible task may not be so impossible
    any more.

    Well, that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

    • Re:Becoming a god (Score:5, Funny)

      by jarich ( 733129 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:35PM (#13358408) Homepage Journal
      Well, that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

      Good for you! That's following the scientific method! Keep that mind closed up tight! ;)

    • The base of ID's claim lies on the belief that the design of some rudimentary living organisms are just too complex to be built by accident

      I'm not saying anything for or against ID, but if they claim it couldn't happen by accident, then humans doing it on purpose doesn't really disclaim that.

      -1 Faulty logic.

    • Re:Becoming a god (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:38PM (#13358423) Homepage
      This type of biological research convinces me firmly that the intelligent design (ID) is just another horse crap made up by humans. The base of ID's claim lies on the belief that the design of some rudimentary living organisms are just too complex to be built by accident.

      The fallacy in your statement is in the fact that these organisms weren't merely created by accident - they were intelligently created by scientists in a lab. So the fact that this occurred only reinforces the supposition that it could not, in fact, happen on accident. As far as the supernatural beings requirement, manufacturing simple organisms is one thing, but we are still infinitely far off from being able to manufacture another human (at least without a few beers and some luther vandross). Put simply: they just proved intelligent design could occur.

    • Re:Becoming a god (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nharmon ( 97591 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:38PM (#13358426)
      Thats funny, because the article doesn't mention anything about creating life accidentally or in a manner than could occur in nature. On the contrary, it mentions that the scientists are "mixing, matching and stacking DNA's chemical components like microscopic Lego blocks in an effort to make biologically based computers, medicines and alternative energy sources."

      If anything, this solidifies intelligent design's viability as an alternate theory. After all, this new life was INTELLIGENTLY DESIGNED!
      • I'd say it was designed, I'm unsure as to if the scientist actually knew what would be produced with absolulte certainty.

        Also, these organisms were created over the last 30 years of human knowledge. The rest of the world had billions of years to arrive where we are now.

        I won't hazard a discussion about where all life came from but the two competing theories in my mind don't compete. In reality evolution doesn't explain where it all began, only how we arrived where we are today. Picture it like traveling

      • If anything, this solidifies intelligent design's viability as an alternate theory. After all, this new life was INTELLIGENTLY DESIGNED!

        That's a little like drawing a circle around a can of beer and then claiming that all circles that occur in nature were drawn around beer cans.

    • Re:Becoming a god (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman@ g m a i l . com> on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:38PM (#13358431) Homepage Journal
      Or it could be that you didn't read the article, thus you don't realize that this isn't really "From Scratch." In fact, you probably don't realize that the article talks about injecting custom DNA into a pre-existing organism.

      The true test of creating new life "from scratch" is still not even close to coming to frutition.

      But don't let that stand in the way of a good rant. We all love a good rant. :-)

    • Re:Becoming a god (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thc69 ( 98798 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:40PM (#13358439) Homepage Journal
      Not that I am a big supporter of ID (especially the now common lobbying that it be taught as/instead of science)-- I prefer to believe in evolution, but by your argument, this offers support for ID, not against it.

      See, by your logic, this proves that intelligence can brew life from no life...thereby supporting ID.

      Tangent: Personally, I've never understood why science and religion must be at odds. Why can't one's deity be the one who caused these scientific laws and phenomena, and either nudged evolution a little bit here and there or maybe just planned it all in the beginning (like writing a program, or planning a chess game ahead) and set it loose?

      • Re:Becoming a god (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Oh great, that means that for unknown millenia there has been a deity sitting somewhere listening to complaints on war, famine, disease, etc and saying: "thats not a bug, its a feature"?
      • They're really not creating life from nothing, that's just pure propoganda. From the actual meat of the article I couldn't find anything that they're doing different from traditional genetic engineering. Maybe they can now write up what they want the DNA strand to look like after they're done, but they can't create an ad-hoc strand, it's still just splicing in genes from other organisms, and then injecting that into an already living cell. No new life; this is simply an alteration of existing organisms.
        • The methods are the same: splicing, mutating, and ligating DNA.

          But the thought behind WHAT to splice, mutate, and ligate is very different. They use engineering and mathematics to _predict_ what will work _before_ they build it.

          So it's not the trial and error prone protocol of traditional molecular biology. It's more like real engineering.

          (Or, what, did you think they create a million different skyscrapers and the one which stays up is copied?) ;)
          • Traditionally, that's kinda of what they did with genetic engineering, build a million different skyscrapers and engineer in something to tell them whether the skyscraper stoof up... usually an odd DNA sequence that a flourscent marker die binds to.

            I appreciate that they are putting thought into this, but the article didn't actually go into any of the METHODS used for actually splicing the DNA sequence. All the ones that I know about are basically A)splice it into a retrovirus, infect the host with a vi

      • Re:Becoming a god (Score:3, Interesting)

        by rinkjustice ( 24156 )
        Tangent: Personally, I've never understood why science and religion must be at odds. Why can't one's deity be the one who caused these scientific laws and phenomena, and either nudged evolution a little bit here and there or maybe just planned it all in the beginning (like writing a program, or planning a chess game ahead) and set it loose?

        Science helps us understand how God did it. I believe God will never break a law of the Universe. Why should He?
    • Hence some higher intelligence -- beyond human intelligence -- must be involved in creating such organisms. But now, we are stepping closer to make one on our own. What does that say about humans? Are we becoming a god?

      I don't think Intelligent Design necessarily states it has to be an intelligence beyond humans. It states that natural processes is insufficient to explain the development of organisms, therefore some sort of intelligent manipulation was involved. I don't see how intelligent manipulation
    • > What does that say about humans?
      >It's all about perception. From our point of view, some things may look too complex to be formed accidentally.

      And having an intelligent being (a human scientist) create life is evidence in favor of evolution over intelligent design how? If anything it will encourage the creationist (excuse me, intelligent design) camp more.

      Not that I believe their nonsense. That life can be created from scratch by intelligece doesn't mean that our life was created that way. B

  • Don't they listen?? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:33PM (#13358391)
    Why have these scientists not heeded the dire warnings of Jeff Goldblum? You cannot control your creations! Life finds a way!

    Their "science" and "bacteria" are going to cause random plot-convenient sex changes and bloody dismemberment of lawyers!!!
     
    ...well okay actually maybe this isn't going to be so bad

  • Misleading Title (Score:5, Informative)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman@ g m a i l . com> on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:33PM (#13358392) Homepage Journal
    FYI, the title is incorrect. There is no "from scratch" component to the life. What they're doing is building custom DNA, then injecting it into a living cell.
    • Well, in a sense, this is 'life from scratch'. Although the cell is living, they are still creating a new organism from that cell -- one that is not necessarily the same type of organism as the one the cell came from. This *is* a bit different than cloning in that reproductive material isn't being used. Besides, if you remove DNA/RNA from a cell, is it still a cell and is it still alive?
      • Well, in a sense, this is 'life from scratch'

        More correctly, it's "synthesizing new organisms". "From Scratch" implies, well, that you started from scratch. i.e. Nothing. :-)

        Besides, if you remove DNA/RNA from a cell, is it still a cell and is it still alive?

        Irrelevent. We have the technology to reanimate bacteria. However, we don't have the technology to construct a living bateria.

        This story is a bit like all those cutsey headlines, "Faster Than Light Achieved! Einstein Wrong!" Then you go read the articl

        • Re:Misleading Title (Score:4, Funny)

          by digidave ( 259925 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @05:33PM (#13358788)
          In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

          - Carl Sagan
      • Well, in a sense, this is 'life from scratch'

        No, not really. If I told you I built a car from scratch, would you think I pimped my ride, or built a completely new vehicle from spare parts? Saying someone created life from scratch suggests abiogenesis, which would be a truly phenomenonal acheivement, whereas gengineering some bacteria is common place.

        • Re:Misleading Title (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Tony Hoyle ( 11698 )
          This is 'life from scratch' in the same sense that writing a plugin for firefox is 'creating a browser from scratch'.

          It would be interesting to try to argue your way around the GPL using that reasoning ('yes your honour I wrote it from scratch using two existing GPL programs that I put together, so the GPL doesn't apply').

          The case might last, um... 15 seconds..?

      • Re:Misleading Title (Score:2, Insightful)

        by kfg ( 145172 )
        No, not really. Based on the title I was hoping for a story on synthetic abiogenesis.

        Life truely from scratch is the, ummmm, "Holy Grail" of the life sciences. The true uncharted territory.

        This is just another story about genetic engineering.

        KFG
    • The tagline says 'Synthetic biologists' build with one genetic molecule at a time. To me this says that they're engineering genes themselves basepair by basepair, but that's really not what's going on. This is just the same genetic engineering that's been going on for a long time, maybe just throwing genes from multiple organisms into one, which really isn't that big of a deal. I doubt they even have a revolutionary back end which improves the process. The whole thing just reeks of A)poor sensationalist
      • Well, the difference is the 'engineering' part. They're not cutting, splicing, or mutating large stretches of genes in the hope that it will confer some phenotype. They're using mathematics to _predict_ what will happen if they construct a specific stretch of DNA.

        (I actually do research on the math part of this. And some on the building.)

        -Howard
    • but the other side of the coin, using DNA primitives to build things that are really new, is not yet viable (as I understand it). It's not "life" in that it can't reproduce. It's still highly valuable stuff, if it can do math or if it makes great rubber cement.

      "Creating life" is taking Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Sodium, Chlorine, Phosphorus, etc. and turning that into cells which reproduce.

    • start with a regular old cell then tweak and tune the hell out of it. Then keep dyno'ng the creation until they get what they want.

    • Re:Misleading Title (Score:5, Funny)

      by hackwrench ( 573697 ) <hackwrench@hotmail.com> on Friday August 19, 2005 @05:18PM (#13358692) Homepage Journal
      A group of scientists decided that mankind had advanced far enough that they no longer needed God. So they drew straws, and the loser went to find God. When he found Him, he dithered a bit, made some small talk about the weather, and finally came out with it.
      "OK, look God," he said, "We've mastered space exploration, we can cure any disease, we can talk instantaneously with people around the world, we can clone human beings; basically, we don't need you any more."
      God listened patiently. Finally He spoke.
      "Tell you what," He said. "We'll settle this with a man-making contest. Each of us will make a man, and the first one to finish wins."
      "Sure," said the man, who headed off to consult with his colleagues.
      "Wait a minute," called God.
      The man turned.
      "We're going to do this the real way; the way I did it in the beginning."
      "No problem," responds the man, bending down to grab a handful of clay.
      "No, no, no," says God. "You get your own dirt."

  • Biohacking (Score:5, Funny)

    by daeley ( 126313 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:34PM (#13358399) Homepage
    Scientist #1: I am teh l33t bi0hax0R!!!!1111!lol!!!

    Scientist #2: LOL j00 r bi -- ur teh ghey!!!

    Scientist #1: STFU, n00b!111!

  • I am going to sue (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:34PM (#13358401)
    I hold rights to all life and I will see you in court.

    God

  • Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MadJoy ( 908843 )
    As I understand it, it's trying to make it into more of a science, where previously it had lacked order and had merely been creative guessing which genes to put where. Seems like a much better method to me - start from the most basic (well, almost most basic... genes -> nucleotides -> atoms -> quarks... but you get the gist) elements and put them together building-block style. Go modern science.

  • Title misleading? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Swamii ( 594522 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:36PM (#13358410) Homepage
    The article states,
    Though scientists have been combining the genetic material of two species for 30 years now, their work has remained relatively simplistic.

    Combining the genetic material of different species, I think we can all agree, is hardly creating life from scratch.

    • Re:Title misleading? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MadJoy ( 908843 )
      Yes, but now they're going beyond that. They're trying to synthetically combine nucleotides of genetic material together in new ways. No more simple two species transactions, but a genuine "synthetic" approach to creating NEW genes.

      • Yes, but now they're going beyond that. They're trying to synthetically combine nucleotides of genetic material together in new ways. No more simple two species transactions, but a genuine "synthetic" approach to creating NEW genes.

        Recipe for pepperoni pizza "from scratch":

        Get pizza.
        Make pepperoni.
        Add second to first.

        It's not to say that the scientists aren't working hard, aren't smart, or haven't made a significant advance. They are making new genes and using them in living organisms. This is completely

    • Combining the genetic material of different species, I think we can all agree, is hardly creating life from scratch.

      Hillbillies have been doing this for years.

    • Combining the genetic material of different species, I think we can all agree, is hardly creating life from scratch.

      Its also illegal in some states, morally wrong in some religions, and offensive to some people. I just think its gross and they should keep that stuff in their bedroom.
    • Silicon chip computers will be life from scratch, as soon as they get the capability to replicate themselves. We better regulate in advance, before someone does it. All this DNA hacking is just plagiarizing life from somewhere, unless they can really cook up a self replicating molecule, but that would start out something simple, that would only copy itself, probably even without some sophisticated cell structure like a bacteria would have it, but just pure DNA-like crap, like a virus.

    • Combining the genetic material of different species, I think we can all agree, is hardly creating life from scratch.

      I guess we don't all agree, because I don't. What does "from scratch" mean? In cooking it means taking basic ingredients and turning that into a finished product. Isn't DNA the basic ingredient to life? In cooking you can still use machines to do some of the work like a mixer, oven, etc and still have your product created "from scratch". Why isn't the same true in biology when you're usin

  • Creating life? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ryanr ( 30917 ) * <ryan@thievco.com> on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:38PM (#13358428) Homepage Journal
    Are they using the intelligent design method, or the waiting around to see what happens on its own method?

  • We build organisms by mutations all the time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:39PM (#13358434) Homepage Journal
    in fact, my job is to record all the data from hundreds, well tens of thousands, of such mutations, sometimes only in one small section of the exact same original organism or protein.

    and then we crank out thousands of colonies for each of these, or at least we hope we do.

    So, from my viewpoint, the concept of manufacturing an organism to crank out oil needs to be thought thru quite a bit - what if it harvests not just the biowaste of corn husks but starts eating grasses and other plant life? what if it hybridizes or mutates (there is solar radiation and chemical interference and ingestion) and loses its species-specific behavior - as bioengineered rice did in China and India when it hybridized with nearby "wild" rice crops due to their farming practices and this thing called nature (wind, storms, excessive rainfall, seeds falling out during transport ....).

    Be careful what you wish for - sure you may be able to make a plant that creates oil, but it may end up turning your front yard from grass into sludge, or attack your food crops.

    It's happened before, and that's one of the joys of biochemistry - biological processes change and adapt and mutate and it's always fascinating in this multiply interdependent bio system we live in.

    Now, if you want to experiment on Mars or in space colonies inside large asteroids, be my guest. But we live here. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you need to do something right now...
    • I dunno, what if such a mutation cropped up on its own without any help from us? I imagine we'd figure it out and handle it either way.
    • If the project isn't plagued by haste, and takes its time it is able to address som important issues at hand:

      For humanity and science to grow beyond our current technology, we need viable powersources. I regard fossile fuel like a "rocket booster", when it runs out, we need something to keep us "airborne", technologywise. Fusion technology looks exciting and is supposed to be selfsufficient before long, but if we fail, a backup plan might be useful.

      And another thing, antibiotics are falling behind in
      • a more reasonable plan might be the a hybrid between the Euro model of lower consumption and increased non-fossil fuel usage - where they are moving to 20 percent wind/solar/biofuel usage by 2012 (and half way there) and expanding use of lower energy cost high speed trains instead of planes and better transit - and the US model of expanding energy supply.

        We could easily migrate to expanding wind farms and solar farms and biofuel usage - storing stored energy via catalysis (H20 to H2 and O2) in fuel cells fo
    • So, from my viewpoint, the concept of manufacturing an organism to crank out oil needs to be thought thru quite a bit - what if it harvests not just the biowaste of corn husks but starts eating grasses and other plant life?

      This is extremely unlikely to happen. Different plant species have different proteins and biochemicals, and an organism tailored to deal with the product of one plant is not going to be effective at dealing with those of others. This is why parasitic organisms and infective bacteria, vi
      • This is extremely unlikely to happen. Different plant species have different proteins and biochemicals, and an organism tailored to deal with the product of one plant is not going to be effective at dealing with those of others. This is why parasitic organisms and infective bacteria, viruses and fungi are so specific to particular species.

        No, that's not true. For example, we find Leishmania using canines (dogs) as a reservoir for infection, and then infecting humans.

        Cross-species parasitic organisms are fa
        • Cross-species parasitic organisms are fairly common, as a recent work by some European scientists in France and the UK said, with a publication date of 2005, and unpredicatable results can happen even by removing quail from a parasitic ecosystem, as many parasites have multiple hosts in their life cycles, including backup or reserve (temporary/seasonal) hosts.

          This completely different from some hypothetical 'general' parasite which can happly munch through a large variety of plants. Having very specific org

  • Who do they think they are? (Score:3, Funny)

    by uncoveror ( 570620 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:42PM (#13358456) Homepage
    Creating life from scratch? Who do they think they are? Darth Plagueis perhaps?

  • stuff (Score:4, Informative)

    by lovebyte ( 81275 ) <lovebyte2000&gmail,com> on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:43PM (#13358461) Homepage
    Making stuff is the big deal. Most chemicals are made from petrol nowadays and the chemical companies are searching for a way out of this dependency on petrol. One way is plants (as raw material) + bacteria(for their enzymatic reactions). Quite a few microbiology labs are now working in discovery, selection and bio-engeneering of bacteria for this very purpose. Personally, I think the discovery part is very important since we know close to nothing about the biodiversity of bacteria. A number I heard recently is that 70% of the biomass of this planet is made of bacteria, and most of them live in the ground and are very difficult to isolate and study and thus mostly unknown. Look up metagenomic in google for more info.
    • Yeah typical,

      "oh lets invent something because the free nature stuff cannot be patented and sold for profits"

      Any one can clone natures best, cloning plants is trivial.

      So - http://www.hempcar.org/ [hempcar.org]

      So if the damn politicans and christian nut cases would just die of cancers overnight, we could have some real prople with brains running the show to everyones benefit not just the corporate elites nutjobs.

  • IMHO (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fanblade ( 863089 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:45PM (#13358479) Journal
    It's only an ethical problem if scientists create something that has free will. That is, something that can make decisions using a "mind" as well as a brain. If someone succeeded in doing that, then they would have to treat the life as a person, not an animal. The mind (by definition) cannot be explained by science, and I doubt we will ever be able to create that, no matter how perfectly a brain could be developed or free thought mimicked.

    Of course, some people believe that animals deserve the same treatment as humans, but that's another topic.
    • It's only an ethical problem if scientists create something that has free will.

      Given the difficulties of building entire intelligent brains from manufactured DNA I think intelligent software will be seen first.

      Of course, many of us have created intelligent beings. I have to get back to mine now. He wants his breakfast.

    • The mind (by definition) cannot be explained by science

      Very good point, but you'll soon see 100s of posts by /. people taking science as their religion :-)

      And, no, I am not saying that one can't think/talk or reason about 'the mind'. It is just that one can only do it in the general context of philosophy where everything remains ambigous (because there are different premises you can choose from).

    • Re:IMHO (Score:3, Interesting)

      by braindead ( 33893 )
      OK, so it's only an ethical problem if the thing has free will (which you call a "mind"). The question remains, how do we know it has free will?

      And please don't say that we can't detect the mind, so we should treat everything as not having free will and therefore we can do as we please.

    • Re:IMHO (Score:2)

      by Cyno ( 85911 )
      Do people have free will? If you have full control of their environment and their access to information, it can be argued that they do not have free will unless they are aware of their place in the experiment..

    • The mind (by definition) cannot be explained by science...

      You claim the mind, by definition, can't be expolained by science. Mind is in quotations. What is this definition you're referring to? I"m not familiar with it.

      I've learned a bit about neural networks and have been impressed with what neural networks with very few neurons (i.e. tens) can do. The human brain has 10's of billions of neurons. That is a huge difference in magnitude! I am not so arogant as to suggest we can presently know what

  • science (Score:3, Interesting)

    by spazomatic ( 908871 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:53PM (#13358541)
    My whole theory is, if there was an intelligent designer who created us, which I doubt, then he created us with the capability to do such things as this. If he did not want us doing stuff like this, wouldn't he have designed us so as it was impossible for us to do such things? Perhaps God didn't create us to be his children, perhaps he is old and tired and created us to be his replacement

  • Deep theory of biology (Score:4, Interesting)

    by amightywind ( 691887 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @04:53PM (#13358543) Journal

    Some of the scientists involved are saying its more of an art instead of a science due to its 'biohacking' style of experimentation.

    Much of biological science consists hacking, trial and error, dubious statistics, and manipulating life with cheap tricks and without deep understanding. I'm glad to hear scientists call as such. Given the daunting complexity of the subject matter, it is not surprising. But I wonder if there is there a deeper 'theory' of biology analogous to least action principles in physics, that could be illuminated by mathematics? Any biochemists or geneticists care to comment?

    • Much of biological science consists hacking, trial and error, dubious statistics, and manipulating life with cheap tricks and without deep understanding.

      That ain't right. It's the procedure and methods which are trial-and-error, hacking and statistics. Not the understanding. Biologists and biochemists know what's going on in a cell. What they cannot do, is manipulate that stuff directly.

      Cells are very very small things. DNA is very sensitive matter. There is simply no method to insert a given piece of DNA i
      • We do not have a model which reliably predicts some of the most simple chemical reactions, much less those in biochemistry.

        That may have been true 30 years ago, but it's not now. In fact, we can predict the dynamics of biological processes, such as gene expression, signal transduction, and metabolism. The hard part about predicting these systems is that _there are so many components_.

        Today, mechanical engineers can completely predict how a car with thousands of individual components will behave. Chemical en
        • "We do not have a model which reliably predicts some of the most simple chemical reactions, much less those in biochemistry."

          That may have been true 30 years ago, but it's not now. In fact, we can predict the dynamics of biological processes, such as gene expression, signal transduction, and metabolism. The hard part about predicting these systems is that _there are so many components_.

          No, it is still correct today. E.g. the Arrhenius equation describes the dynamics of most chemical reactions. That doesn't
  • I, for one, welcome our new custom made overlords.
  • If I wanted to see life started from stratch, I'll just look in my roommate's shower. The black stuff on the shower wall growing a leg is pretty funky.
  • synthetic biologists themselves fret that rogue scientists or "biohackers" could create new biological weapons -- like deadly viruses that lack natural foes

    Oh you mean like the polio virus they assembled from parts?

    what are the natural foes of a virus? Immune systems, maybe? What else?

  • he intends to string together genes to create from scratch novel organisms that can produce alternative fuels such as hydrogen and ethanol. [emphasis mine]

    Um, we already have a novel organism which can produce ethanol.

    It's called yeast.

    And it is well understood and has a low risk of becoming an ecological disaster.

    Why would we invent a new organism?

    • Perhaps because we want to extend our energy dependence on foreign oil?
    • Perhaps we're craving an ecological disaster that can spread far beyond t

  • Slavery (Score:3, Funny)

    by Peter Cooper ( 660482 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @05:20PM (#13358704) Homepage Journal
    bioengineering organisms to do specific tasks such as produce hydrogen or ethenol

    Isn't this a form of slavery?

    • Re:Slavery (Score:3, Insightful)

      by aduzik ( 705453 )
      You laugh at that, but I know people who *really think* that using microorganisms to do our bidding is a form of slavery. There are people who are honestly opposed to using recombinant organisms to produce oh, say, insulin.

      And you can't point out that those organisms exist in an environment where they reproduce in numbers that would never be possible in nature. According to them -- well, one person in particular -- "it doesn't matter how loosely we hold the whip; it's still a form of slavery." That's mo

  • Abiogenesis is impossible. You cannot create life from non-life. If you could, then creationism wouldn't be a joke. And for that matter, neither would be macroevolution [wikipedia.org].
    • Sorry, Miller's experiment shows basic amino acids from non-life, the interactions of which create life (or so the story goes, which is still the big investigation.)
  • There are still a number of theories out there that claim there is a special essence [wikipedia.org] that only living matter possesses and not in its constitute chemistry and physics. This essence is passed from being to being through the reproductive chain. It also could be passed by contaminate contact with living matter, or distilled like the "life force" in Star Wars or Frankenstein. The absolute refutation of vitalism would be to construct living matter directly from chemicals.

    Vitalism has been used (and still is

  • Ethenol? (Score:3, Funny)

    by slickwillie ( 34689 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @05:32PM (#13358785)
    Maybe they can creat a bionic spell checker.

    Also, the obligatory:

    I'd like to see a Biowulf cluster of these.

    All your biohacks are belong to us!

  • Not news (Score:2, Informative)

    by digitalderbs ( 718388 )
    Molecular biologists have been cloning genes in prokaryotes and eukaryotes for tens of years. It's not a new idea to clone a series of genes that work cooperatively to change biochemical behaviour of an organism.

    Something I find more note-worthy, as a biological chemist, is a new trend to expand the amino-acid table (past 20). Many of the codons (DNA or RNA triplets) are degenerate or they are stop codons. The idea is to add synthetic amino-acids to specific tRNAs. Chemically modified amino-acids are inc
  • Move right along, there's nothing new to see here. A bunch of enterprising scientists have found a new name for the gradual maturation of biotechnology and genetic engineering.

    There is neat stuff happening in this area, but there was neat stuff happening before people gave it a new name.

  • Until what they create has a brain... (Score:3)

    by MikShapi ( 681808 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:52PM (#13359201) Journal
    Until what they create has a brain and is capable of rational thought I don't see where the moral implications of this differ from material science.

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