Scientists have created the world's first synthetic life form

" Speak something into existence being perfectly made and then I'll be impressed "

So would I. But so far I have never seen any evidence of anyone doing that.

What I want to know from the religious on the board, is if life was indeed a " miracle" and miracles can only be performed by God. Then isn't what these scientists have done impossible. They should have failed no matter how many times they tried.

You can not "play God", unless you are God. It would be like me pretending to be you, I would fail. And if this is true, anyone can play God, then why would you consider him so special ?

OK, I am sorry to burst anyone's bubbles, but this is NOT a creation of an "artificial life". Remember that they still had to use a naturally occurring cell to achieve their goal. Rather, it is "advanced biotechnology"----they didn't even remove all the nucleic acids in the Mycoplasma---they only transferred some DNA, albeit an extended one, into the organism's genome.
I would concede when scientists could make their own cells from individual biomolecules--carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins---each of which in turn should be made from individual chemical elements in the test-tube. Then, we would be talking about "creating" a new life.

[edit on 21-5-2010 by ker2010]

Ok well watching the video seem kinda like a youtube video…he talks and look at his screen like he is reading the material already written, then must me hitting the play button for this female “robotic” sounding gal to ask him a question? Seems strange, hear the crack in the speakers from the audio change?
But what I gather is this isn’t creating life from “NOTHING” because they are using a cell, and feeding it information to make it grow in certain ways!

So if I missed something hit me up, and “O” by the way, they created something from something, that lab, and computer sequence is made from something, digging a little deeper, you’ll find there is more dirt. Adding proteins to a cell is something! They cant have proteins nor cells….and for the sake of argument …they have to go out and dig up their own resources to make glass plastic and microchips to run that computer. Sand paper (fine) to sand that microscope lens to zoom on their work,

But they are doing things like the bible said it would, “what man can imagine man can do” We as a collective can do, so good job at handling whatcha do…..adding your sigs to the genome.

**I wish I had a family member who did this stuff………….I got to some home work to get up on this biology s**t.

Go Honkeys

Ok well watching the video seem kinda like a youtube video…he talks and look at his screen like he is reading the material already written, then must me hitting the play button for this female “robotic” sounding gal to ask him a question? Seems strange, hear the crack in the speakers from the audio change?
But what I gather is this isn’t creating life from “NOTHING” because they are using a cell, and feeding it information to make it grow in certain ways!

So if I missed something hit me up, and “O” by the way, they created something from something, that lab, and computer sequence is made from something, digging a little deeper, you’ll find there is more dirt. Adding proteins to a cell is something! They cant have proteins nor cells….and for the sake of argument …they have to go out and dig up their own resources to make glass plastic and microchips to run that computer. Sand paper (fine) to sand that microscope lens to zoom on their work,

But they are doing things like the bible said it would, “what man can imagine man can do” We as a collective can do, so good job at handling whatcha do…..adding your sigs to the genome.

**I wish I had a family member who did this stuff………….I got to some home work to get up on this biology s**t.

Go Honkeys

reply to post by -elmo-

Did they create it out of thin air?
Or did they "modify" something that had already existed?

Pathetic argument. The genome is entirely artificial, and it wont be long before scientists create completely artificial lifeforms. Anyhow, I think being able to directly modify an existing lifeforms in such a drastic way is an amazing feat. It just goes to show that even biological life can be understood and recreated. Once you understand the basic building blocks, you can go from there. There is absolutely no denying the theory of evolution IMO, and whether a "God" exists or not, biological life can, and will exist in either case. Given enough time, practically anything is possible...and it's only a matter of time before man reaches a "God-like" status. Assuming our species survives long enough, such a transition is inevitable, there is no stopping it, man is far too curious and power hungry. Imagine a future like this:

99% of people have nanobot supercomputers embedded into, and extending on their neural networks, allowing people to make phone calls and access the internet via an operating system installed in their head, a 3D display which only you could see, would appear to float in front of you. Memory and intelligence will also be vastly increased when man and machine fuse, in what is known as the singularity. Most people will be highly mechanized cyborgs. "Real" virtual reality, which manipulates brain signals, will be developed, so will "real" artificial intelligence - thinking machines. Consciousness will be seen as something more like the "ghost in the shell", and people will be able to completely transfer their minds into other hosts, or even into the digital world, freeing themselves completely of a materiel body. The future will be something absolutely amazing, but the risk of our destruction by machines is great.

[edit on 21/5/10 by CHA0S]

Nobody has created artificial life, what basically was achieved was a DNA transplant from one cell to another. I'd even dispute that artificial DNA has been created. "Artificial" as in "engineered" sure, but the blueprint for the DNA was copy/pasted from an existing organism. Great achievements for sure, but there's a long way to go to creating artificial life.

[edit on 21-5-2010 by ker2010]

reply to post by woodwardjnr


They cheated, they just removed the dna then replaced it with a synthetic version, still keeping the cells original structure and organelles. EPIC FAIL.

If they are going to create life they need to spawn it from entirely synthetic components. What they have done is just the same as removing someones lungs and giving them an artificial biolung then claiming "WE CREATED A NEW LIFEFORM"

Disappointing...

[edit on 21-5-2010 by rajaten]

[edit on 21-5-2010 by rajaten]

reply to post by CHA0S


He talks about how they used “PROTEINS” to guide the gnome so yeah that is “SOMETHING” come on look at the question, don’t come dissing someone for asking, makes your response pathetic.

It's all about who gets their hands on the technology. Will it be used for good, or will it be used for evil?

I believe in creation, but I don't have a problem with improving our existence. If you could eradicate disease with technology, then I say do it. Truth be known, I would imagine the bodies we have right now were engineered.

Troy

When I first heard the news, I thought "BS" - then I read what they did and had my suspicions confirmed.

They synthesized DNA... from DNA templates which came from actual living cells.

The four chemicals they used are adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. They're nucleotides, and the parts of DNA. But, it's not the components that are important, it's the pattern. The meaning. The information. This was not what was synthesized in the lab.

An analogy would be saying that you created an architectural masterpiece because you could make bricks, and then arrange them into a building you saw a picture of.

Or, like saying you created a motion picture because you discovered that pixels only require red, green, or blue light to make a color and then taking credit for Star Wars.

It's like they took a piece of tracer paper, copied the Mona Lisa, and said - "Look! We made art!"

We haven't the foggiest idea where to start if we were to try to attempt to create a genome of a cell from scratch. This thing is just a bunch of plagiarized copies taken from nature.



[edit on 21-5-2010 by 30_seconds]

Just to remind some people ....

Skeptic = Someone who constantly re-evaluates their opinion on a subject. Depending on the evidence at hand. A skeptic has never " made up their mind" on a subject.

Denier = Someone who refuses to change their opinion, no matter what is put forward by others.

If you wish to identify yourself properly, ask yourself if your believe exactly the same thing you did last year on a subject. Or have you changed your mind ?

In my opinion, deniers have always been more dangerous than any biological weapon or war. Deniers can come in the form of religious people and atheist. It is a mindset that holds humanity back. An unwillingness to change.

Thank God for the skeptics amongst us, or we would still be living in caves.

I am under the opinion that until we have a full and complete understanding and manipulation of our own DNA structure, we shouldn't be creating other strains, unless it somehow relates to self understanding...

I am impressed overall though at the rather quick development of the genetic field...its been what, less than 20 years now and we appear to be accelerating our knowledge fairly well...nice. (One day, we may be only 100 years behind the hidden tech our secret governments have in their black ops programs...ok, bitterness over).

As far as the people in this thread that feel the need to speak about religious matters...do you find a child everytime a new toy is created and demand how it was created since only elves can make toys? Just let them deal with a advancing world...eventually they will realize Santa was mom and dad...and the jewish/christian/muslim God was just group of ancient power mongers. Enjoy the new breakthrough.

First synthetic life form! Rubbish.... Polititians and Lawyers have been around for years!

www.sciencemag.org...

G'day All,

Well, well, well, we knew they were doing it and now we know.

Synthetic biological entities are what they will inevitably will be striving for, this technology combind with time travel technology will be in our future.

Now im thinking, maybe the gray's are us from the future.
It makes sense that some of these alien encounters are us sending back biological robot's to gather information about us now.

Only time will tell.

Great stuff, now all I need is an evil step-brother, a fake tail and Nibiru to come back and I can re-enact final fantasy 9 in real life properly.

Originally posted by ker2010
Nobody has created artificial life, what basically was achieved was a DNA transplant from one cell to another.

No, it was not a "transplant". It was entirely synthetic synthesized DNA. A major difference, since the synthesiz of a strain of DNA this size is a feat in itself.

Originally posted by rajaten
They cheated, they just removed the dna then replaced it with a synthetic version, still keeping the cells original structure and organelles. EPIC FAIL.

You have no understanding of molecular biology if you say this is a fail. You just expose yourself as being ignorant.

has anyone followed the money behind this yet? I admit I dont realy follow it all. i know the DNA was created and inserted into a blank cell or something like that, but the rest is beyond my understanding. the first i heared of this was the local news, which means its as much or more mis information than real info, but they mentioned being able to design cells how you want them and implying that some that live off of crude oil would be being developed soon sort of thing.

my first thought is who will profit, then my next thought was when i get to the computer to try looking into the real news story. most of the info i found was over my head and in my nightly routine i ended up here, found this thread and thought i would post here. so anyone with knowledge in the area know how far away designer bugs are and who is the money behind the lab that did this?

Originally posted by octotom
reply to post by grantbeed

 

Now religion is out of the picture, lets move on shall we??!!

Not quite. This reminds me of an illustration that I heard in a sermon once:

A scientist went up to God one day and said, "God, we don't need you anymore; we have been able to create life on our own!"

"Is that so," said God, "Let's see you do it."

So, the scientist reached down to grab some dirt. As he was lifting it up, God said, "Na-ah! Get your own dirt."

Absolutely brilliant. This is not impressive to me in the least bit, what these scientists did. They took gods work and are just copying it...can't they do better if they are so good. Not impressed in the least.

reply to post by cybertroy


Dr Venter and his colleagues are already collaborating with pharmaceutical and fuel companies to design and develop chromosomes for bacteria that would produce useful fuels and new vaccines.

There ya go, pharmaceutical and fuel companies are going to get their dirty sticky little hands on this...

Source





[edit on 21-5-2010 by Majestic RNA]