News 'Artificial life' created

[dysfunction]

BBC News - 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

This is quite interesting and it could be very worrying too.

At the same time you could have an organism to clean up the environment but it could also be damaging the environment in ways not yet known about.

Also, as stated in the article, it could be designed as a bioweapon.

 

[Ch3tan]

We've already got skynet, now it seems Umbrella Corp is becoming a reality too.

So Arnie vs Mila. Who would win? Would Arnie's flesh over his exo skeleton be affected by the t-virus, or would he be immune? Would skynet be able to control Mila given her modifications?

These are all important questions that I demand we have answers to!

 

[FuzzyLogic]

Woohoo Cylons on the horizon!

 

[Jeros]

Amazing! Its amazing how we are starting to make things that where/are science fiction a reality

 

[Ctuchik]

We've already got skynet, now it seems Umbrella Corp is becoming a reality too.

So Arnie vs Mila. Who would win? Would Arnie's flesh over his exo skeleton be affected by the t-virus, or would he be immune? Would skynet be able to control Mila given her modifications?

These are all important questions that I demand we have answers to!

arnie obviously, his flesh isnt important for survival

and no, Mila wouldn't be controllable because she isn't 100% machine. she still has a working brain, damaged as it may be

 

[StRaNgEdAyS]

Mankind just made God redundant... again ...

 

[old.Tohtori]

Amazing! Its amazing how we are starting to make things that where/are science fiction a reality

Actually we've been doing that for the past 20 years.

This IS the sci-fi age, people just take things like "call anyone anywhere anytime" for granted

Or how about vacuum sealed food?

Internet?

Super computers in every home?

Sliced bread?

arnie obviously, his flesh isnt important for survival

and no, Mila wouldn't be controllable because she isn't 100% machine. she still has a working brain, damaged as it may be

Points to add to this;

Also isn't arnies flesh not really flesh, but a high tech polymer of some soft?

And milla is infected already, she's not a machine, just bio enhanced.

On the issue of Milla vs Arnie though, have to go with milla as terminators get terminated by regular old humans too. Add super- to that human and it's red lights out.

 

[Ctuchik]

Mankind just made God redundant... again ...

well, atleast science can be proven, god have yet to show himself

 

[Scouse]

This is quite interesting and it could be very worrying too...it could be designed as a bioweapon.

Biology doesn't kill people, biologists do

 

[Billargh]

I'm expecting the Geth in time more than anything else.

 

[ECA]

well, atleast science can be proven, god have yet to show himself

And on the 7th day - God went to the vegas in the sky, got pissed - and had his kidneys extracted by the Kan'dan mafia group - unfortunately he didn't survive.

RIP God.

Kids - stay off alcohol.

 

[rynnor]

Lets not go overboard - they have just stuck some extra bits in a bacteria - its not exactly artificial life.

It doesnt seem any more exciting than the sort of genetic engineering thats been going on for years to me?

 

[dysfunction]

Lets not go overboard - they have just stuck some extra bits in a bacteria - its not exactly artificial life.

It doesnt seem any more exciting than the sort of genetic engineering thats been going on for years to me?

It's quite different to regular genetic engineering.
They have made synthetic DNA and the bacteria "runs" according to that DNA rather than the usual tinkering with real DNA that is there already

 

[Jeros]

well, atleast science can be proven, god have yet to show himself

"science does not require your faith, its just requires your eyes"

or something

 

[old.Tohtori]

"science does not require your faith, its just requires your eyes"

or something

I could but i won't

 

[Wij]

It's quite different to regular genetic engineering.
They have made synthetic DNA and the bacteria "runs" according to that DNA rather than the usual tinkering with real DNA that is there already

I don't understand. DNA is just DNA. It's a molecular string. It can't be artificial or real. It just is. It could have been assembled artificially in the first generation but it's still DNA. Subsequent generations will have assembled their copies of this artificially-assembled DNA in the normal way. There's nothing artificial about them now except the historical origin of their genome.

Or have I missed something ?

 

[Chilly]

You're not impressed by replacing the entire genome of a cell and reprogramming it? Replacing it, not with a genome from some fish cell, but one that was cooked up by hand, human hands, and then actually WORKED when dumped into a new cell.

ATM we just put in small fragments and use virii and stuff so propagate, now we can totally engineer any genome and plug the **** in.

VODKA GENERATING SLUDGE, DUDE!

 

[rynnor]

I don't understand. DNA is just DNA. It's a molecular string. It can't be artificial or real. It just is. It could have been assembled artificially in the first generation but it's still DNA. Subsequent generations will have assembled their copies of this artificially-assembled DNA in the normal way. There's nothing artificial about them now except the historical origin of their genome.

Or have I missed something ?

And the 'artificial' gene is just a copy of the natural gene for that bacteria - still good media handling that group

 

[dysfunction]

They have chemically constructed the chromosomes and made the DNA...so I guess you are correct in that it is just DNA artificially constructed.

It is mightily impressive as that DNA could in theory do anything they want it to do

 

[Athan]

It's the entire sequence (not the DNA itself per se, as it's still using the same bases) of DNA in this thing that's artificial. Not just taking some extant vrius/bacteria and tweaking it a bit to suit. That's what the big deal is. It's proven we understand how DNA works sufficiently to write a 'biological program' from scratch.

How big a deal it will be in practice will be shown in the coming years (we might just end up redoing lots of stuff that evolution already produced, or we might come up with 'programs' that are entirely different and couldn't practically ever have evolved).

 

[Athan]

Also isn't arnies flesh not really flesh, but a high tech polymer of some soft?

No, it's real human flesh (from the point of view of the organisation of cells and what those cells are), but with an artificial life support system. It's all part of the "oh shit, they're from the future, couldn't they just bring uber weapons with them too?" fix-up of "oh, the time travel mechanism only works if there's a biological electric field present" or some-such other bullshit, which then required the robots to have a way to provide that ....

Don't think about it too hard, it really doesn't make any sense.

 

[ECA]

So somebody wrote Hello World in DNA terms, think how scary this stuff is going to be in 50 years time.

Medical science is going to be so much further forward*










*Probably won't be due to all the ethical restrictions in modern scientific research.
What's the harm in a little grave robbing/unleashing the plague now and then for a few lulz.

 

[Chilly]

So somebody wrote Hello World in DNA terms, think how scary this stuff is going to be in 50 years time.

dna internet? dna goatse?

 

[rynnor]

It's the entire sequence (not the DNA itself per se, as it's still using the same bases) of DNA in this thing that's artificial. Not just taking some extant vrius/bacteria and tweaking it a bit to suit. That's what the big deal is. It's proven we understand how DNA works sufficiently to write a 'biological program' from scratch.

No - thats not what was done - they just copied the natural genome - yes the copy was 'artificial' but thats it - it shows we can copy it does not demonstrate profound understanding.

 

[StRaNgEdAyS]

dna internet? dna goatse?

DNA porn! Or is that just swinging?

 

[dysfunction]

No - thats not what was done - they just copied the natural genome - yes the copy was 'artificial' but thats it - it shows we can copy it does not demonstrate profound understanding.

Yes they copied it, constructed it and made it work. That may well be the "easy" bit but I doubt it will be too many years before they can actually make their very own one.

If you know how to construct something from parts someone else has made it, the next step is to make the individual parts yourself.

 

[Athan]

From Craig Venter creates synthetic life form | Science | The Guardian

The new organism is based on an existing bacterium that causes mastitis in goats, but at its core is an entirely synthetic genome that was constructed from chemicals in the laboratory.

Yes, the 'shell' of it is from an existing bacterium, but the genome is entirely man-made.

 

[rynnor]

Yes, the 'shell' of it is from an existing bacterium, but the genome is entirely man-made.

I think your mis-understanding me - yes it was artificially created but its just a copy of the natural one.

To be a genuinely artificial lifeform it would need to be running on a genome we designed - it isnt.

 

[rynnor]

Yes they copied it, constructed it and made it work. That may well be the "easy" bit but I doubt it will be too many years before they can actually make their very own one.

If you know how to construct something from parts someone else has made it, the next step is to make the individual parts yourself.

I think that small step may end up taking a looong time.

 

[Athan]

I think your mis-understanding me - yes it was artificially created but its just a copy of the natural one.

To be a genuinely artificial lifeform it would need to be running on a genome we designed - it isnt.

From Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome -- Gibson et al., 10.1126/science.1190719 -- Science

We report the design, synthesis, and assembly of the 1.08-Mbp Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 genome starting from digitized genome sequence information and its transplantation into a Mycoplasma capricolum recipient cell to create new Mycoplasma mycoides cells that are controlled only by the synthetic chromosome. The only DNA in the cells is the designed synthetic DNA sequence, including "watermark" sequences and other designed gene deletions and polymorphisms, and mutations acquired during the building process. The new cells have expected phenotypic properties and are capable of continuous self-replication

(emphasis mine).

Although I do note the "1.08 Mbp" in the quote, which I hazard a guess means 1 million base pairs. It does seem unlikely at this point that all of this was designed from scratch. On the other hand I expect the scientists doing the work know it a lot better than any of us and this is indeed a significant step forward. Even if the majority of those 1.08 Mbp are straight copied from the bacterium it seems likely that a significant amount of the visibly functional genome is indeed artificial.