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Scientists Attempting to Create Simple Life Form
derubergeek writes "The Washington Post is reporting on an apparently credible project to create a simple life form in a petri dish. The goal is two-fold: 1) to actually create a unique life form essentially from scratch and (more importantly) 2) to extensively analyze and model the entire biology of this critter. Exciting and scary at the same time. From the article, it sounds as if they are quite wary of their project and fascinated at the same time. I usually refer to that sensation as 'That little voice that I should have listened to...'" There's also a NY Times article.
To ensure safety, Smith and Venter said the cell will be deliberately hobbled to render it incapable of infecting people; it also will be strictly confined, and designed to die if it does manage to escape into the environment.
hmmm...where have I heard this before? Something to do with female dinosaurs and frog DNA.
They are gonna create a Slashdot Moderator From Scratch.
They are called Sea Monkeys!
...of a 'simple lifeform'. It lives in the white house...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
If they had to choose a bacteria to do unpredictable and possible dangerous experimentation with, why did they choose one that is known to cause crotch-burn in humans?!
I though that this has been done part-way in simulations of earths early atmosphere using electic discharges. At least they made aminoacids that way (I think they did that).
Amino acids are to life as a bolt is to a spaceshuttle, so no, they didn't do this yet.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
The New England Journal of Evil
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this, let's say we have a man making contest." To which the scientist replied, "OK, great!"
But God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Creating a three-assed monkey: Bad.
It's really not that hard.
--
Damn the Emperor!
Einstein had serious doubts about the morality of atomic weapons [...] But those were moral doubts about the applications of the science, not the research itself.
Actually, I went to see Stephen Hawking speak a few years back, and outside the building were a group of a dozen or so protesters. They were protesting the existence of black holes etc... claiming that Hawking was sent by Satan to lure us away from the Bible.
I can't imagine anything more benign than sitting in a wheelchair thinking about what peices of the universe billions of miles away are like. But, it goes against the bible, so it is 'immoral'.
-see you in hell
This is a wonderful new field of science that has incredible potential for human advancement. It also has incredible potential for misuse and unethical behavior.
Heck, forget honest mistakes made by intelligent, thoughtful, ethical scientists; forget unethical misuses slowly plotted by glacial corporations and governments. What I'm worried about is N years after that, when the biology script kiddies swing into action.
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"