Synthetic life form grows in Florida lab!

According to this article, a synthetic life form was created and, "It's evolving. It's doing what we designed it to do," said Benner, a biochemist with the Gainesville, Fla.-based Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution.

This is pretty incredible news! Imagine all of the possibilities when this is self-sustaining... Food, fuel, medicines, etc.


Synthetic life form grows in Florida lab

Originally posted by Gigliorononomicon
Imagine all of the possibilities when this is self-sustaining...

Erm.

We had it.

We killed it.





[Good catch tho. Flagged. ]


[edit on 5-3-2009 by soficrow]

Very interesting.

12 DNA blocks? That must have taken some time to do.

Apparently it can't live on it's own, but that wasn't the intention anyways, it was just to see if it will evolve, and it is.


This begs the notion... perhaps one day the hardcore religious might be able to come to a midpoint and agree on evolution. All they have to do is assume their "god" created evolution, rather than planting species exactly as they are.
I can't see any of us in the scientific community bothering to disagree with that. The only reason we disagree at the moment is because our evidence points against their claims. If they simply think their "god" created evolution, it could avoid so much headache.

Whatever though, doesn't affect the rest of us regardless.


Back to the topic on hand.

With our ability to artificially create life, I wonder how long it will be before we can get it to perform useful tasks?
Though, one concern of mine, if the synthetic life can evolve... will it still be useful by the time it becomes the intended maturity to be used?
Will it de-evolve the purpose we gave it?

Amid these concerns is the mother of all concerns... morality laws.
Once these things are declared life by a court of law, or worse, international law, will we even be allowed to put them to use as we designed them to be?

Though, I suppose as long as we keep them in the realm of "plant like" species, there won't be any fuss... unless some group of nut jobs starts a "Ethical Treatment of Plants, Fungi, and Bacteria Organization."

I wouldn't put it past our race to do something so ridiculous.

... oh no... I completely forgot about the "Thou shalt not play god" activists...

... never mind, lets just create an artificial replacement for our race. Be done with it.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by johnsky]

reply to post by johnsky


If this tech is not controlled any person could create a self sustaining replicating synthetic life.

Ive though at about this alot and it is going to happen... theres nothing you can do to stop it. The only thing you can do when this happens is stay out of its way and try to teach it as much as you can as quickly as you can to force it to evolve faster and understand more. The end result of understanding is peace. Pacify it with knowledge.

Everyone always has the same tendency for assumptions when it comes to artificial life, or even A.I.
It's not inheretly "Evil" seeking only to dominate humanity.

I think this is great news too.
It's a shame to think that religious protesting/influence may hold this kind of research back in the future.

Terrific news. There has been much evidence to support these ideas in the past as well. The KEY here is genetics as an information system. Information theory expands to include the true nature of genetics, and this calls into question what is refered to as "junk DNA".

The Florida lab findings perpetuate the idea of genetics as evolutionary language. This genetic communication is happening all around us, and is likely the key to a multitude of disease cures, technological advancements, and even enlightenment.

Originally posted by johnsky
12 DNA blocks? That must have taken some time to do.

It sounds like you are confusing nucleotide bases with chromosomes.

The "12 DNA bocks" that they are referring to are like the letters that make up a word - we have 26 letters in our alphabet, whilst nature uses 4 letters (for DNA) in it's "genetic alphabet".

They are physically, just chemical compounds, and it would have been a matter of finding the appropriate compounds that could act as letters in the artificial code.

[edit on 8-3-2009 by C.H.U.D.]

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.

The "12 DNA bocks" that they are referring to are like the letters that make up a word - we have 26 letters in our alphabet, whilst nature uses 4 letters (for DNA) in it's "genetic alphabet".

They are physically, just chemical compounds, ...]

Erm, no.

One of the rather wonderful things that's happening in biology/chemistry is the recognition that SHAPE counts as much as chemistry, and can be definitive. In addition, although less investigated, are the notions of time and atomic dynamics (physics), which suggest that proteins, traditionally understood as gene products, have the capacity to move in time as well as space - and often derive from sources other than the chromosomes' genes.

...all discoveries that overturn established premises.

Originally posted by soficrow
Erm, no.

Are you saying that nucleotide bases are not chemical compounds?

Originally posted by soficrow
One of the rather wonderful things that's happening in biology/chemistry is the recognition that SHAPE counts as much as chemistry, and can be definitive. In addition, although less investigated, are the notions of time and atomic dynamics (physics), which suggest that proteins, traditionally understood as gene products, have the capacity to move in time as well as space - and often derive from sources other than the chromosomes' genes.

...all discoveries that overturn established premises.

Not sure what you were trying to say, but the above makes no logical/scientific sense at all, and has no bearing on my reply to this thread

For those who are afraid of this technology, I wouldn't be. If these synthetic life forms were exposed to the natural environment, they would get destroyed by bacteria, absolutely destroyed.

I'm sure these things will need to be protected from the environment to work, not the other way around.

So, it seems pretty cool to me.

reply to post by harrytuttle


Exactly...

If you look at nature/'natural life' as opposed to 'artificial life', it's no different, apart from being more evolved/complex, but back in the beginning life would have been similar in many ways (which is why scientists are performing these experiments).

Basically, nature has always been a 'huge out of control experiment', and a dangerous one at that (people are still eaten by tigers and struck down by disease all the time).

The difference is that nature has had 10's and 100's of millions of years to hone it's creations so that they can be strong and capable of survival in the wild, and in the process many species have become less than harmless.

Artificial life at the moment is primitive and clumsy (probably just like the first life here on earth), and would not be able to compete in the wild (especially considering that it has been engineered to be this way) as it is now.

However, there is always a tiny chance that it could survive (a freak mutation could always occur), and eventually go on to to replace us, over a time scale of millions of years, but it's extremely unlikely that we could create something that would give us problems in the short term, at least at this stage when the technology is in it's infancy.

Originally posted by Gigliorononomicon
According to this article, a synthetic life form was created and, "It's evolving. It's doing what we designed it to do," said Benner, a biochemist with the Gainesville, Fla.-based Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution.

This is pretty incredible news! Imagine all of the possibilities when this is self-sustaining... Food, fuel, medicines, etc.


Synthetic life form grows in Florida lab

If it can't replicate on it's own, it is not LIFE by anyone's definition. They haven't created life.

The purpose of life is to consume other forms of life to survive. It occurs by direct dietary consumption for energy to survive, or taking over territory by means of war/ environmental destruction.

Any life form that reaches a point of understanding will understand that it will also need to take defensive measures in order to preserve its own species from extermination.

I think the point is always counting on a new life form to be peaceful is fine, so long as we prepare for the possibility it is going to compete against us with force.

Originally posted by DYepes
The purpose of life is to consume other forms of life to survive.

Really? So what other forms of life do algae consume to survive, or trees for that matter?

Originally posted by DYepes
Any life form that reaches a point of understanding will understand that it will also need to take defensive measures in order to preserve its own species from extermination.

I think the point is always counting on a new life form to be peaceful is fine, so long as we prepare for the possibility it is going to compete against us with force.

Riiiiiiiight...

You do realize, that some goo in a test tube is not exactly going to be able to make decisions about weather or not it wants to defend itself? And even if it could, it would have to evolve defenses, which is not exactly something that happens over night

I think it should be destroyed and all the information pertaining to it as well and never brought up again.

reply to post by johnsky


actually alot of hardcore religious do in fact believe in evolution..I myself would consider myself hardcore religious..whatever that means exactly, I guess whatever hardcore would mean when it comes to religion would help to know just exactly what that means? I go to church I believe in God, I believe he created everything, I believe the bible to be his word, I believe that word to have come to us in human form 2000 years ago by the name of Jesus. I pray to them I rely on them I live my life by them (and I must add..I have an extremely good life by all respects, its not perfect but I think the difference is in realizing that it won't be perfect and when its not all is well anyway) however...I believe in science I believe there is a science to everything, I believe there is a math to everything and I believe that math and science go hand in hand...I also believe that it was God who would have created that science and math the moment he created the universe, I believe that science and math to be the universal language in which to understand God by. I also believe that since God created that science and math, that he would not work outside of it, not that he couldn't...but then..that in itself would be science of sorts would it not? in other words I believe everything can be explained by science..but that just because we discover that science does not mean God did not do it. I believe God did allow evolution to happen as well as natural selection, or rather..he was the natural selection. however...my question still remains and my belief in life evolving from one thing and turning into another is still out...I do not believe that yet..I believe species evolve..a dog is a dog a cat is a cat a flu bug is a flu bug...my hard to believe is a speices turning into a completely different speices...land animals to fish/fish to land animals...big huge dinorsaurs into tiny little chickens ( I realize there were tiny dinos,...however scientist try to tell us that chickens and tyrannasaures came from the same animal) one thing is certain...there is alot of science we have discovered that before would have been thought to be God's miracles...I believe fully that everything (even miracles in the bible) can and will be explained by science..and that of course as time goes on and we learn more and more continues into lifeforms..however, one thing is absolutely certain..those lifeforms needed a creator to begin with..they didn't show up on they're own..we may be able to get life from stem cells, and from organ cells, etc...but the fact is..those cells didn't exist in a dish on they're own and just sit there and then develop..no..they were in a lab and the lab technicians had to do something to them to make them develop...they needed a creator in order to get a creation..so here is my question...if this planet millionso f years ago began making life forms..completely on its own without a creator..why has it stopped? where are the totally random life forms that should occasionally still pop up? and if life began randomly by a series of chances with no creator..why do we need a lab with a bunch of creators to mirror it? in the bible it states: God said "let us make man in our image" us..let us...he obviously knew something we didn't at the time. we had a creator then...and life needs a creator now in order to show us how it started.

2) Don't create your entire post as one paragraph, break things up into separate thoughts.

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[edit on Wed Mar 25 2009 by Jbird]