Slashdot Mirror
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."
That is _imminence_, or the quality of being imminent...
Immanence is almost another entirely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanence
What kinds of organisms will scientists, terrorists and other creative individuals make?
[broken image]
Figure I. SCHEMATIC.
Modified design for a low-pH respiratory engine. 1) monobasic phosphate buffer tank. 2) ADP-GDP reservoir. 3) primary ADP-GDP feed line. 4) NAD/FAD reservoir. 5) pyruvate feed line. 6) Deinococcus culture chamber. 7) ADP-GDP return line. 8) NADH-FADH2 return line. 9) pasteurizer. 10) sodium-potassium pump. 11) NaCl/KCl reservoir. 12) actin filament membrane. 13) myosin-hydroxyapetite cylinder. 14) axle. 15) flywheel. 16) dilute H3PO4 reservoir. 17) intake port. 18) myosin generator. 19) proton pump. 20) ATPase membrane. 21) secondary ATP feed line. 22) electrophoresis cartridge. 23) pH regulator. 24) UV sterilizer. 25) transmission. 26) +12VDC battery. 27) radiator coil assembly. 28) CO2 exhaust vent. 29) fan. 30) phosphate return line. 31) brake assembly. 32) generator. 33) amylase generator. 34) glycolysis chamber. 35) fibrolytic culture chamber array. 36) microcontroller. 37) compost chamber. 38) thresher. 39) lid. Cit. L. Xu et al, Cellulosic Artificial Muscle Engines (2057), Biomech. Eng. Letts. 21 599-612
Anything still based on DNA is re-using nature's building blocks. It's like in Photoshop, using the clone tool vs. drawing a photorealistic texture freehand - there's a huge difference. Nature has been searching the space of DNA recombinations for a long time.
How exactly does this blur the boundaries of life? I could see some people questioning if a virus was really alive, but adding more things like viruses wouldn't *further* blur the line, and anything as complex as bacteria would be life regardless of if they were natural or not.
I suppose if you let religion define "life" for you this might cause trouble, but definitions shouldn't be the job of religion.
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
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.
I thought the line between biological and artificial was already blurred in Los Angles O.o
Graduate students and most professors are no smarter than undergrads.
They're just older.
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'
It should be pointed out that the technology described is largely fictitious. The best labs haven't even managed to create a single artificial cell, and those technologies ALL use cobbled-together bits stolen from other lifeforms - nothing truly from scratch. There are a few good examples of proteins being engineered to specific functions (mostly DNA binding specificity), but we're ages away from being able to say, "Okay, I want to synthesize a protein that does this random function; here's how I would do it." And as for more complex lifeforms? Forget it. We don't even understand the development process of any multicellular organism in any detail, never mind being able to manufacture our own. So, on the whole, I think this story is akin to worrying about who is going to get control of, say, shrink-ray technology. Scary when it happens, but it ain't happening any time soon.
There may be a "patent troll" of artificial life, but there will be no Microsoft. DNA is, by definition, open source.
-ellie