TEDTalk Tuesday: On the Verge of Creating Synthetic Life

[Occulus]

This week's TEDTALKTUESDAY gives us a mind-blowing look into the (ever more successful) attempts to create synthetic forms of life, using genetic code created in a lab. From killing bacteria to creating lifeforms that can gobble up CO2 and create fuel in the process, in this talk, we learn how genetic engineering of microorganisms might alter for the better the course of human history.

Enjoy!

CRAIGVENTER

Talk Title: On the Verge of Creating Synthetic Life (Video runtime: 32:52)



Craig Venter

Wiki bio

About this Talk

"Can we create new life out of our digital universe?" asks Craig Venter. And his answer is, yes, and pretty soon. He walks the TED2008 audience through his latest research into "fourth-generation fuels" -- biologically created fuels with CO2 as their feedstock. His talk covers the details of creating brand-new chromosomes using digital technology, the reasons why we would want to do this, and the bioethics of synthetic life. A fascinating Q&A with TED's Chris Anderson follows (two words: suicide genes).

[lvx35]

1. This is really interesting stuff. The efficiency they are getting is impressive

According to Prof Debatrata Das, who is heading the research team, Enterobacter cloacae can produce about 3.85 moles of hydrogen from one mole of the substrate, which is very close to the theoretical limit of 4 moles of hydrogen during anaerobic fermentation.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/03/indian-research.html

It starts to give us the image of a world where industry and ecosystem are merged, which is both scary and hopeful.

[unpossibles]

2. thanks for the link

I love TEDTalks. Will watch it later from home.

[tomreedtoon]

3. So this is what the Umbrella Corporation is doing.

For those who didn't know, Umbrella Corporation is the entity in the game "Resident Evil" whose products turn human beings into murderous zombies. And somebody is cheering these bastards on in real life?

[Terran]

4. Operative word = "game"

Jeez, got a Frankenstein complex? Nobody's turning people in zombies. :eyes:

[tomreedtoon]

6. Even if you meant "into" zombies...

...sure they are. Ever been to a Republican rally?

Or closer to home, do you remember cyclamates, the artificial sweeteners that were banned because they caused cancer? How about thalidomides, the pain medicine prescribed for pregnant women that just happened to remove the legs and arms from their newborns?

If you ever read the introduction to the book Jurassic Park, instead of watching the movie slack-jawed, Michael Crichton laid out the real-world problems with runaway science done for profit.

[Terran]

7. Wow, thanks so much for correcting my grammar.

Huge blunder on my part. Anywho, ya know, I read a lot of sf too (though not the crap that hack Crichton has been turning out for years), so I actually do have a pretty good idea of some of the possibilities inherent in the technology being described here. It's obvious that unlike you I'm open to all the possibilities, good and bad, not just the obvious potential for corporate and government abuse.

But seriously, you've seen too many action-adventure flicks, dude. Stop reading Crichton. He's not exactly known for being the Great Prognosticator. Didja read Congo? Somehow I managed to a few years ago, and it left me laughing about his silly ideas about computers.

[Occulus]

5. Actually, if you're looking for a fictional comparison, this is *exactly* what Arthur C. Clarke

wrote about in his "Rama" series.

For those who have never read these books (and if you've never heard of them, the Rama books are truly decent science fiction, not merely pop sci-fi), Rama is a gigantic, hollow cylinder which is also a spacecraft. Dead black and completely regular on the outside, the interior is a sustainable environment for various forms of life. The entire thing is presented as a huge mystery: who built Rama? Why? What can be discovered inside Rama? What is Rama's purpose? etc.

One of the species that has hitched a ride inside Rama, called the octospiders for their eight legs and spiderlike gait, has biology as the basis of their technology. They have learned how to engineer apparently any lifeform they wish however they please- everything from sending chemical signals to single-celled life, to creating a snakelike creature which, when squeezed, can be used as a pen.

Imagine being able to create a bacterium that happily consumes impurities in drinking water, but at the same time is 100% nontoxic to humans, or a virus that can deliver DNA changes to that bacterial species, and when delivered, causes the bacteria to clean viruses out of blood instead. That's the sort of thing they're trying to accomplish.

You do bring up a valid point, though, and one that Venter addresses near the very end of the video: how do we keep this ability from being used to bring harm to people, to keep it from being weaponized? He answers that by referring to the sort of thing done with the e. coli (was that it?) research strains, which simply cannot live outside a lab. Given the equipment, knowledge, and facilities necessary to perform this sort of research, I don't think we're going to see secret labs turning people into zombies anytime soon.

Then again, I have a sudden craving for.... brrrrRRRRAAAAAIIIINNNNNnnnnnnsssss......

:)

[NashVegas]

9. This Is My Problem With a Lot of Tech Types These Days

Most of them only concern themselves with two questions:

1. Is it possible?
2. How?

Before they set about figuring out whatever.

Two questions that don't seem to get asked:

3. Why?
4. What are the ramifications?

I just got into this today with an engineer at work. It's great and wonderful that we can make these things, but the people who we make them *for* have only one concern: making money. The tech revolution, IMO, is mostly about making people, particularly people who labor, redundant.

[Javaman]

8. Why exactly would anyone want to create another laura bush?

I mean really!

LOL :rofl: