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Synthetic DNA About To Yield New Life Forms
mlimber sends along a Washington Post story about the immanence of completely artificial life: "The cobbling together of life from synthetic DNA, scientists and philosophers agree, will be a watershed event, blurring the line between biological and artificial — and forcing a rethinking of what it means for a thing to be alive... Some experts are worried that a few maverick companies are already gaining monopoly control over the core 'operating system' for artificial life and are poised to become the Microsofts of synthetic biology. That could stifle competition, they say, and place enormous power in a few people's hands."
True but nature's selection criteria aren't the same as man's. We can probably hit maxima that would be outcompeted in nature in a second. There are probably lots of unique and useful solutions out there when survival constraints are relaxed.
who says artificial life needs to be based on DNA? The earliest forms of life probably used RNA instead or one of its cousins like TNA, GNA, PNA or LNA. DNA is only special in the fact that it is missing a key hydroxyl group in the 2 position. this makes DNA more stable because there's no nucleophillic group there toi assist in self-cleavage of the phosphodiester bond. GNA has a backbone of glycerol rather than ribose [RNA] or deoxyribose [DNA]. PNA uses a reperating serine polypeptide backbone and because the whole thing has no charge like DNA does it has a much higher melting temperature [can withstand more heat] which may make it superior to DNA or RNA in some applications in biology. TNA on the other hand, has a synthetic polymerase enzyme that has to my knowledge, been able to create strands 1000 bases long. then there's alternative nucleotide bases, there are similar molecules to the naturally occuring 5 that also can encode for proteins and act in genetic systems. there's a lot that can be done with this, it's just a pity that it will probably be encumbered in patents if and when any of it is realized.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
If many hundreds of thousands or millions of years from now when humanity is a thing of the past, descendants of the synthetic DNA creatures start debating about whether or not they evolved naturally, or were created by a long-forgotten designer? Of course the former would obviously be a more acceptable conclusion, since the latter creates additional complexity.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You seem to know little about this subject.
:)
Testicles are among the least of our concerns... what SHOULD concern you, especially in a "SURVIVAL" related subject, is that man seems to have been meant to stay on Earth (until man gets over this particular problem.)
See, man is one of TWO mammalian species that requires an external source of vitamin C... otherwise we get scurvy... and eventually kick the bucket. Interesting that Earth's apex predator is range limited by something so simple as carrying a satchel of oranges or lemons on the ship... (okay, not all specimens of homo sapiens qualify for more than "monkey" classification, granted, and some are not capable of even surviving in society, nevermind without said crutch.)
However, a voyage to the stars, without a good supply of replenishable vitamin C would become a trip delimited by a few days/weeks past the day when the vitamin C runs out.
Pretty sad, when you think about it, every schmuck is looking at all these "big" problems, instead of looking at the fundamentals. Testicles and their placement on the body is nowhere nearly as bad as the fact that every single instance of homo sapiens in space would be cut short by the vitamin C supply. Ironic really, perhaps "intelligent design" might warrant a second look, unless of course, evolution and any supernatural forces others might attribute evolution to "realized" that man was a plague, and should be limited to Earth until it managed to kill itself off, whether by grey goo, killer designer virus, or just plain good ole' nuclear warfare.
If that isn't a vote for intelligent design or intelligent forces of evolution, I don't know what is
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
There may be a "patent troll" of artificial life, but there will be no Microsoft. DNA is, by definition, open source.
-ellie