MAJOR News 'Headline' Largely Ignored Today... | Forums

[ytareh]

Heard this on the news on the way to work today.I cant believe people are largely unaware of this and its getting such little exposure.This is 'Dolly the cloned sheep' X1000!!!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0124175924.htm

Did any of you hear today that scientists in America can now 'CREATE LIFE' (about the long and short of it ...)I guess they are responsibly waiting for the political and ethical debate before they go ahead with actual organisms but they have the genes/chromosomes made.As one person said its like basically they have the cd rom with the operating system made and its just a question of sticking it into the pc to get it to boot up...(ie putting genome into cells and 'creating' bacteria)

OK so we dont have space colonies on the moon etc but sometimes we dont realise how fast that technology is moving forward....

[Haigotron]

as a microbiologist, I can say: holy ****!!! really interesting find there

[Pirschjaeger]

Originally posted by ytareh:

Did any of you hear today that scientists in America can now 'CREATE LIFE'

Read the article again. It's only step 2 of 3 steps. They haven't created life yet, only the genome. The first step was completed years ago. Now comes the hard part.

Fritz

[MEGILE]

Great work.

If they are Synthesizing the genome, I assume they can ensure it won't be pathogenic.

An interesting thing, will be watching the organism evolve.

[MEGILE]

Other changes the team made to the synthetic genome included disrupting a gene to block infectivity

My powers of scanning failed me miserably

[johnbn]

LOL

Did any of you hear today that scientists in America can now 'CREATE LIFE' (about the long and short of it ...)I guess they are responsibly waiting for the political and ethical debate before they go ahead

Unless these "scientists" are unfortunate enough to have something wrong with their reproductive systems then it would be safe to assume that they could create life without any major media exposure. Why they are "responsibly waiting for the political and ethical debate" is beyond me. Me thinks they are using this as a smokescreen for their commitment issues!

Viola, see how things can be taken out of context!

the team will attempt to create a living bacterial cell based entirely on the synthetically made genome.

Please everybody note that is a "CELL"

That makes up the insy bitsy teeniest weeniest bit of a living organism.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that this is not a giant step forward in the Genome race to produce an artificialy created indestructable warrior soldier but FFS lets get things into context!!

[leitmotiv]

Class, reach for your copies of Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN.

Here in the U.S. we have been testing genetically altered produce on the population before it was extensively tested in labs for years, and we haven't come near assimilating the data, and now we are ready to leap into the unknown with humans.

Definitely the most important story.

[gdfo]

I got them beat. I can create life. Have already done it. I did it the old fashioned way. LOL more fun also

[Pirschjaeger]

Leitmotiv,

Venter and his team have already mapped the human genome. Their work has been really interesting and worth looking into.

I remember, although vaguely, years ago they had mapped out two especially interesting organisms. One single celled creature could be obliterated with enough radiation to kill three grown men. Given a little time, this organism somehow managed to reassembly itself.

The other one was a bacteria that in theory could digest nuclear waste. The problem was the radiation would kill the bacteria.

So, there was an idea of manipulating the dna of both organisms with the intention of creating a hybrid that would digest nuclear waste and survive.

Real science makes sci-fi a bit boring.

Fritz

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

Originally posted by leitmotiv:
Class, reach for your copies of Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN.

Here in the U.S. we have been testing genetically altered produce on the population before it was extensively tested in labs for years, and we haven't come near assimilating the data, and now we are ready to leap into the unknown with humans.

Definitely the most important story.

Leap into what with humans, they made a single cells genome, where do humans come into this? The goal of this sort of thing is to create bacteria that can eat waste, or produce fuels or medicines. This has nothing to do with human experimentation. Also show me the proof that genetically altered food was sold to people without lab research.