First artificial life within months...

[cobalt1999]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/28/nlife128.xml

First artificial life 'within months'
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

Scientists could create the first new form of artificial life within months after a landmark breakthrough in which they turned one bacterium into another.
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The scientists want to create new kinds of bacterium to make new types of bugs which can be used as green fuels to replace oil and coal, digest toxic waste or absorb carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

But this pioneering research also triggers unease about the limits of science and the inevitable fears about “playing god,” as well as raising the spectre that this technology could one day be abused to create a new generation of bioweapons.

Producing living cells from synthetic genomes of lab-made DNA would require the ability to move and manipulate whole genomes.


This should drive the fundies nuts. Humans creating "life" and of course the wailing about "playing god".

[acmavm]

1. This research makes me wonder if there's a Walking Jack in our

futures.

It just freaks me out.

[Clark2008]

3. What's a Walking Jack?

[cobalt1999]

8. I looked in the Urban Dictionary and couldn't find it either.

????

[acmavm]

9. Ever read The Stand by Stephen King. Had to do with some

genetic modifying and a nuclear explosion.

Scary shit.

[cobalt1999]

5. It's a powerful tool that's all.

How we use it is obviously something to be concerned about, but the potential for positive use is mind-boggling.

Also, just the achievement alone is fantastic (although few will comprehend that).

[Javaman]

2. And here I thought all this time that moron* was the first. nt

[leftofthedial]

4. yawn . . .

wake me when they get around to "human-animal hybrids"

[area51]

6. Humans creating life

They do that all the time by having children. :D

[cobalt1999]

7. but I didn't get to design mine.

I might have made them a little more quiet and given them the ability to poop gold. Those diaper years would have been much more fun. :)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. LOL! Thanks, I needed a laugh.