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US Scientist Creates Artificial Life

Posted by Zonk on from the hope-he-did-a-good-dr.-frankenstein-moment dept.

Joshocar writes "The sometimes-controversial US scientist Craig Venter has announced that he has created artificial life. Venter stated that it is 'a very important philosophical step in the history of our species ... We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before.' In the lab, Venter was able to construct and write genetic code from laboratory chemicals. The next step is to insert this code into a cell, which has already been demonstrated in the past. This ability to write genetic code could result in new ways to combat global warming and new drugs, but it could also lead to new bio-weapons."

7 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. He looked down on his creating and... by TheThiefMaster · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... saw that it was a "frist!" poster :(

  2. Hello... by Chairboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    So what exactly does 'Hello world' look like in DNA?

    AGTCA
            TCGCT "WORLD"
    ?

    1. Re:Hello... by MyLongNickName · · Score: 5, Funny

      At least it is easier to read than Perl.

      --
      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    2. Re:Hello... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      We have gone from fscanf() to fprintf(), so I guess it would look like:

      char str[] = "Hello World\n";
      FILE * out;
      if(out=fopen("/dev/chromosome", "w")) fprintf(out,str);

      Apparently it is up to the operating system implementation to provide real time conversions to DNA code bocks from the file stream.

  3. fork! by Kristoph · · Score: 4, Funny

    So this is open source at it's best ...
    He took the source for a bacterium, he forked it, and made a newer, cleaner version. He is about to start testing. His version does not yet actually do anything, but if all goes well it will be a great foundation for new and usefull stuff.
    ]{

  4. Re:Grossly misleading by mc+moss · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think a bigger challenge for scientists is for them to insert their DNA into a cell naturally made by women

  5. Re:life by Seumas · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wrong hole. Biology fails you.