Hooray! Homo Sapiens has finally managed to create life
popsci.com/node/45988/?cmpid=enews052710
this is quite cool, i must say. Next i suppose theyll be making genetically engineered insects.
I’d say more scary than cool honestly.
whats scary about it?
Thats really freaking awesome! Just think…a few thousand years ago all we used we rocks and sticks
i personally think the govornment has too much power to create something they cant control, i mean, come on!
they succesfully breeded a freaking CHICKENOSAUR!!
its like a giant raptor-tized chicken!
its got talons and everything!
and now they’ve succesfully created a cell that was born through a computer?
(the cell they’ve created was not gene splicing, DNA alteration, or mutation, they literatly created this cell from scratch)
next they’ll make things like genetically correct terminators, or the giant human harvesting robots from the matrix!
Very interesting. Although, the only part that people dont aready do quite easily is creating the DNA sequence. i myself have spliced DNA using an electrophoresis machine and grafted it into bacteria. the bacteria is what did all the work, not the scientists.
i feel inclined to agree with the "this could be very good " and "we are too stupid to have this kind of power " arguments
what do we need self replicating synthetic cells for ?
do we need any tools, is existing better in a tropical paradise with coconuts and sunlight and fresh mountain water ?
i know when you get all these tools none of them are ultimately that satisfying and then you have to work most of your lie if you are a normal person instead of just getting up to pick a coconut then playing a drum.
i’ve seen we can’t really say “but things were scarce then” because we don’t know that, and , also , someone dies of starvation every minute or so , so , what does that have to say about us ?
i really don’t know what to make of our fascination with technology because it can only be useful when we are responsible and compassionate and loving ,
i suppose you could have a nanite program that regenerates all your cells so that your body is healed but we already have a better thing its called zero point energy and it works exactly in that manner, without having to eat strange AI synthetic cells made in a lab .
i guess if all our world leaders have a usdden conscience ripen within them and all the people in this world are inspired towards a common vision of REAL freedom and total caring, and we no longer use a monetary system but have an abundance based economy and things like the venus project pop up and all prohibition ends
then i will be glad we have bizarre science, as we will be using it rightfully as opposed to , just … ugh…
Here’s a thought for you, POL; What if all of the life on earth, which came from a single, self replicating cell, was planted here by another being such as ourselves?
I say it was only a matter of time before we made this huge leap. Humans are NOT stupid, thinking is our main strength.
It’s our emotions that are our main flaw, as a species.
This is huge!
The next step for scientists is to instead of inserting the dna into a different cell and have that cell do all the work, they should make the DNA and the cell, so that its completely artificial, and doesnt rely on an already existing natural cell to do the work.
- Where did you get access to that as a 13 year old
- This is what they have done! They didnt insert DNA into a different cell and make it do all the work, EVERYTHING was made synthetically
Rubiks_Cube_Man:
In answer to your first question, believe me or dont believe me, every year for science fair I make an extremely complex science project. In 2nd grade, I made a hovecraft to test air pressure differences, in 3rd grade, I made an areofoil and tested it in a wind tunnel that I made to test bernouli’s principal, in 4th grade, I made a submersible ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle), in 5th grade, I made a vaccum chamber to test heat convection, and In 6th grade, I segmented DNA using an electrophoresis machine. I learned how then they take the segmented DNA and place it into a bacteria or bacteriophage and it accepts the DNA and starts self-replicating. They used this method to create lab rats that glow green when placed under UV light! This year, I redid my 6th grade science project.
in answer to your second question, when reading farther down the article, it says that “they took the engenirred genome and inserted it into yeast.” they didn’t make the yeast, just the piece of DNA code.
But yes, I agree with the “this is awesome” argument. Its extremely hard to completely engineer DNA code. We’ve undertaken a HUGE leap in the biological areas of science.
Now I’m curious to where this leads.
I wouldn’t say this is scary, it’s more like fascinating. I’d definately stay informed about this field of research. Unfortunately, mainstream media barely covers things like that.
Anyway, artificial DNA code could be a huge leap to the cure of cancer and other by now uncurable diseases!
Amazing, what we’re capable of.
We humans can quite possibly be one of the most amazing races in the entire universe, ever.
I don’t care that we have harmed this planet in many ways, if we are capable of figuring out the laws of nature and use that knowledge to track Big Bang and send robots to Mars then we deserve endless respect no matter what.
It wouldn’t surprise me that much at all if we in some distant future actually escape from the expanding sun and find a new planet to inhabit.
If I am reincarnated and get to witness that, I would be literally moved to tears by our astounding intelligence.
I cant really agree with this statememt. I think the human race is pretty good, but we definately dont deserve endless respect. Unless if humans had no flaws or a perfect concinse, then we wouldnt deserve “endless respect”.
And, we’ve discovered quantum mechanics. Physics so weird, we cannot directly observe it, but only observe the results of us not observing it.
ah yes whoops. didnt see that part. Still quite impressive tho
The possibilities steming from this are endless! They could even create a cure for cancer by taking the patients DNA, altering it by encoding the information on how to recognize and destroy cancerous cells, placing it right back into the white blood cell, and now you have a cell that will kill cancer cells made right from the cancer patient him/herself!
of course, thats just in theory…