Scientists Build Possibly The First Man-Made Genome

hackingbear writes "Wired is reporting that researchers have created the longest synthetic genome to date by threading together four long strands of DNA. 'Leading synthetic biologists said with the new work, published Thursday in the journal Science, the first synthetic life could be just months away — if it hasn't been created already. [...] The ability to synthesize longer DNA strands for less money parallels the history of genetic sequencing, where the price of sequencing a human genome has dropped from hundreds of millions of dollars to about $10,000. Just a few years ago, synthesizing a piece of DNA with 5,000 rungs in its helix, known as base-pairs, was impossible. Venter's new synthetic genome is 582,000 base-pairs.' As a programmer, I'm most excited by the possibility of a new platform and the programming jobs that will be created by it."

Comments

In case you been living in a cave with Cheney

[Anonymous Coward]

Synthetic Genomics

Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[nebrshugyo]

If Venter and company royally screw-up, and create some bug that kills us all, or turns the biosphere to a pile of gray goo, nobody's going to make any money off of dandy, new, commoditized designer life forms. Where do I complain?

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Fallingcow]

I'd be more worried about the tech becoming common enough and easy enough to use that anyone with $100,000 and some spare time can make a super-virus, or a bacterium that is extremely hardy and destroys wheat or rice crops, or any number of other nasty things.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[KublaiKhan]

If 'grey goo' could happen from nanotech or biotech, then bacteria would have done it already.

So far, all that's happened is some assorted earthtone sludge.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[QuantumG]

Ahhh, I see, you're one of those people who hears the term "Super-empowered Individual" and thinks of it as a bad thing. Whereas I'm kinda of the opinion that the problem with our society is the dis-empowerment of the individual.

Guess you think concealed-carry licenses are a bad idea too.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[spun]

I guess you think every individual on the planet should have nuclear weapons? I mean, that would be "super-empowered individuals," right?

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[QuantumG]

Well, the thing about nukes is that you need a good delivery device.. oh, and they're pretty conspicuous, so you'd need a secret silo too. That's, umm, really a lot of capital investment. That said, if more concerned citizens had access to "the button" then we'd hardly have any threat of military coup would we?

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, either Will Smith will save us or Milla Jovovich will blast us all to bits afterwards.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose having a "bug" in your code is a bit of a double-entendre when you're code runs in a biological cell.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[pnewhook]

That said, if more concerned citizens had access to "the button" then we'd hardly have any threat of military coup would we?

Of course not because we'd all be dead by now.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[pnewhook]

Guess you think concealed-carry licenses are a bad idea too.

I do. I see nothing wrong with protection of life and property, but you don't need a concealed gun to do that.

Basically they should outlaw any gun under five feet long. And bullets should be ridiculously priced, like $10k or something (although every 5ft or longer gun would come with one free bullet). That keeps the right for self defence but gets rid of the morons shooting at each other for fun.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[spun]

The problem isn't concerned citizens, it's sociopaths and those brainwashed by sociopaths. You know, there are some people who hate humanity enough to wipe us all off the map if they could easily create a superbug to do it. You okay with that possibility? Now, the fact is, even if access to this tech were somehow restricted, criminals and crazies would still find a way to get it. How long before we see a virus tailored to wipe out, say, Jews? This is going to happen, we'd better start thinking of ways to deal with it now. I mean, if anyone could go down to Radio Shack and buy a kit to do genetic engineering for a few hundred bucks, how long before someone creates a species-killer by accident? I agree, restricting access isn't the answer, but I don't know what is.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would gladly be Milla's Gentleman who fell.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[RobFlynn]

Watch this video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6950604815683841321&hl=en

It's about an hour long. It's both intriguing and a little scary at the same time. It gives a good example of just how far things have come and where they're potentially headed.

The benefits and cons are both obvious.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[FooAtWFU]

Basically they should outlaw any gun under five feet long. And bullets should be ridiculously priced, like $10k or something (although every 5ft or longer gun would come with one free bullet). That keeps the right for self defence but gets rid of the morons shooting at each other for fun.

What do I do if I'm attacked by a flock of grizzly b'ars in the mountains, then?

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[kestasjk]

Turns the biosphere into gray goo? I really doubt there's anything (DNA based or otherwise) that replicates so much better than bacteria that it can turn everything, including bacteria, into gray goo. If something came close a bacteria strain would find a way to break it down, and thrive itself.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[ndelta]

"If 'grey goo' could happen from nanotech or biotech, then bacteria would have done it already." Well bacteria have produced a "green goo" that has rapidly spread across the earth. It only took them a few billion years. It is a little more structured than "goo" though.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[orclevegam]

Basically they should outlaw any gun under five feet long. And bullets should be ridiculously priced, like $10k or something (although every 5ft or longer gun would come with one free bullet). That keeps the right for self defence but gets rid of the morons shooting at each other for fun.

And all the criminals would carry sawed off weapons and go around mugging people for their ammo. Forget the wallet, the bullets are worth way more. It's these sort of poorly thought out ideas that cause problems. You have to consider all implications of decisions you make. Bear in mind that no matter what you decide to do, there will be people out there looking to see how they can exploit it to their ends, including getting around restrictions, and more importantly, making a profit off said restrictions. It's worth remembering that organized crime in America didn't really take off till prohibition, when they suddenly found something illegal that was very profitable with minimal risk. Always remember the law of unintended consequences.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah? Well... I think all guns aught to be the size of your average Saturday Night Special and should spit out anti-particle payloads, so that each shot releases the potential energy of a light grenade!

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree the idea of Super-empowered individuals sounds amazing! Where do I sign up? You are right the anti-focus on individuality has destroyed our society, making us nothing more than worker drones and suspended our self-awareness in fear of being rejected from what is considered to be normal behavior and process of life..

If Armageddon means having society move back to small units who excel the individual then I'm all for it!!! Perhaps some of these materialistic and egocentric people will vanish once and for all!

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[bodan]

Actually, the nasty thing about nukes is that you don't need a very good delivery device. It doesn't matter that much where one goes off. Pretty much anywhere in an inhabited or industrialized place one could do a big mess. If anyone could have one, that's a lot of potential messes.

So a car or a backpack could be very good delivery devices for small enough nukes. You don't even need to be suicidal, you can just leave one somewhere. And suicidal people are not that rare; they weren't even before the current Muslim craze.

9/11 was such a big deal because it's hard to cause that much damage. You need a good plan and a lot of dedicated people to hijack plane and fly it into a building, even if you have access to guns or normal bombs.

Imagine for the sake of argument that a nuke was as easy to own as a gun is now. Of course, for rational people with something to loose they would be a good deterrent against aggression. Nukes work (almost) as an anti-aggression deterrent amongst the countries that have them, because the complexities of government tend to average out the crazies. But just barely. They don't stop anyone who doesn't care if they die, though, and there are plenty of crazies in the world.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[badasscat]

I agree, restricting access isn't the answer, but I don't know what is.

Restricting access may not be the *only* answer, but it is most assuredly *one* of them.

Whether or not you think it actually works (and it's a myth that access restrictions always don't work - plenty of things are restricted that you really can't get, like, say, an MX missile), that's no reason not to do it. There are things you do because they should be done, regardless of how effective they are.

There may be *other* things that can be done in addition that we haven't thought of yet in order to keep this kind of stuff out of the hands of crazy people (or really anyone), but access restrictions should certainly be the first step.

btw props to whoever gave this story the "oryxandcrake" tag - great book on just this subject, for anyone who hasn't read it.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[QuantumG]

You've been tricked by Hollywood and CIA bogeymen. A nuke exploded at ground level is about as effective as a big shitload of tnt exploded at ground level.. i.e., not very.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Anonymous Coward]

People like you are the cause of all that is evil in modern society.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Goblez]

Fear of Death is not an acceptable reason to give up your rights/freedom. At least it wasn't 300+ years ago. Ahh, the cost of complacency and comfort.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[spun]

When the techniques are as cheap and simple as they are likely to become, how can you restrict access? It's like trying to restrict access to encryption.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Tsiangkun]

I'd be more concerned with the sub $20k/yr salaries being paid to technicians working with dangerous biological agents today.

I would need to be well taken care of to be motivated to do anything nasty, but people with less than myself, who knows. $100k might pay off debt, and provide a fresh start for someone on the edge.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[NathanBFH]

That really is as ridiculous as a statement as a non-computer scientist saying, in the 1940s, "Gee, I'm really kind of scared of this idea of programmable computers. How do I stop them from making them?"

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[mc moss]

That is incorrect. Just b/c natural evolution didn't produce something yet doesn't mean it is not possible. A common fallacy is thinking that whatever species exist today are the pinnacle of evolution. It doesn't work that way. There is always some mutation that can happen that can produce something new.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[cheater512]

That will be ages away. I doubt we'll be able to make a completely new organism which can live and reproduce for some time.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[amRadioHed]

Fear of death? Fair enough. Certain death on the other hand, I'm willing to negotiate in those circumstances.

And besides, in what weirdo world is having access to massively destructive weapons an inalienable right?

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[amRadioHed]

No, that entirely depends on the placement, doesn't it? For maximum widespread destruction the bomb needs to be detonated at the right altitude, but if you want to do a lot of damage in a confined area then an explosion at ground level or lower is what you want (e.g. the nuclear bunker busters our government was considering early in the GWOT)

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Cheesey]

You forgot about all the other life on Earth.

We are the grey goo. The plants and the bacteria had a good go at spreading all over Earth, but we spread further and faster than any previous life. The "grey goo scenario" is limited by the assumption that energy is abundant, and indeed energy (food) shortages are all that stops us covering every inch of the world.

I, for one, welcome my fellow grey goo overlords.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[kurzweilfreak]

Just call it a feature!

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[johkir]

Worried about anyone with spare cash and time, or any government with spare time and mo...., er, just any government?

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Ajehals]

You don't complain. Moreover if you make illegal copies of the organism and distribute it (Atchoo!) then you will be found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Seriously though, DNA and Patents (like a lot of things) shouldn't be mixed.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Sanat]

As you pointed out an air burst is much more devastating however a ground burst spread radiation much more and makes the place uninhabitable for a very long time even if all of the buildings are not knocked down.

That is why the missiles have both war plans. Sometimes for destroying and other time for making an important place impassable without needing to wear special garb to protect from the radiation.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[IronChef]

I've been thinking about that for about 20 years, ever since I had an epiphany in a biology class. Living systems are ultimately solvable, and even a partial solution is very, very powerful.

Compared to nuclear technology, biotech has an even greater potential for good or ill works. IMHO.

The decades to come will be interesting.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Compholio]

When the techniques are as cheap and simple as they are likely to become, how can you restrict access? It's like trying to restrict access to encryption.

As long as we get an open source immune system before it gets cheap then we'll be good. Everyone will target the commercial products so we'll all be safe.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[bodan]

Heh. Well, do you think that anyone should be allowed to carry with them big shit-loads of TNT anywhere they want to?

A nuke blowing up at ground level (say, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum, a University, any hospital, even a mall) will certainly not destroy a city. But I won't call it ineffective, even in a war. It's might be actually efficient, depending on the underlying intent.

Also a nuke (even a huge one) is very portable relative to a big shit-load of TNT. And I'm sure modern ones could be moved with relative ease to the top floor of a sky-scraper, which would work similar to an airburst (probably not perfect, but still). In fact, once you have one nuke, it's probably easier to do that than to hijack a big plane and drive it into the same building.

Don't forget perspective. The grandparent opinionated that it would be OK for any ordinary citizen to have access to nuclear weapons. Even one nuke can have more nasty effects than all the planes used on 9/11. And that triggered two wars (that are still going on), turned the most successful democracy on Earth to a potential police state, and is indirectly responsible for a probably recession...

A nuke explosion alone would not directly destroy civilization. But the grandparent's opinion is ridiculous. Can you imagine the Columbine massacre with nukes? That wasn't terrorism, Muslims, political agendas, or conspiracies.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[G-funk]

Works for me. Everybody would be awfully polite. If we deserve to live as a species, we will.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[pnewhook]

People like you are the cause of all that is evil in modern society.

Really? I thought it was the lawyers and polititians.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[pnewhook]

And all the criminals would carry sawed off weapons and go around mugging people for their ammo.

Well if you have a gun shorter than 5 feet you are obviously a criminal and therefore go instantly to jail. Then institute a three strikes and we electrocute you rule. Problem solved with the petty muggings.

It's worth remembering that organized crime in America didn't really take off till prohibition, when they suddenly found something illegal that was very profitable with minimal risk. Always remember the law of unintended consequences.

Yup. I agree completely. That's why outlawing harmless things like simple pot posession is just moronic. Think of the millions of dollars thats spent and thousands in jail trying to stop something thats relatively harmless.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[QuantumG]

No, it doesn't. "Spreading radiation" from ground level is just a nonsensical suggestion. Mass (even radioactive mass) has this property of calling downwards.. I think they still call it gravity.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Sanat]

I'm not going to argue with you about it, I was on a SAC minuteman missile combat targeting team for eight years that was responsible for setting the war plans, setting the targets, installing the launch codes and aligning the missile to true north (before some new self aligning innovations were installed) so I believe I have the right to make my point. Gravity brings down everything including all of the dirt and rock and debris that is highly radioactive. A dead zone for all who enter. That is why we have ground bursts!

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[QuantumG]

Why would you argue with me? Sounds like you just agreed with me.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Aceticon]

If 'grey goo' could happen from nanotech or biotech, then bacteria would have done it already.

If it had happened on this planet we wouldn't be here to talk about it. Clearly it's a case of the results of the "experiment" dictating the existence of the "observer".

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Anonymous Coward]

Move to an urban area. Let the bears do their own thing...

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[mrops]

If this becomes popular, I shred to think what product Microsoft will come out with.

Also do I want Norton Anti-virus running on my body, or maybe Microsoft's malicious humanware removal tool.

"Hi, I am a PC. Hi I'm a Mac", will have a whole new meaning.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[thealsir]

Here here. What would it take to have a cheap assembler put together bits of DNA under a microscope? I imagine this would take far fewer resources and be far less conspicuous than, say, fabbing an MX missile.

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[geekoid]

Except ground burst are counter productive.
And ALL rocks that fall from space are radioactive.
An air burst has the same effect, but for a shorter amount of time. It really behooves no one to ahve a radioactive hole for years.

My experience is from Fuck Everybody Warren, AFB

Re:Thanks for the SuperFlu, Craig!

[Sanat]

Never made it to FE Warren.. one of the few bases. Postured Malmstrom, Minot, Whiteman, Grand Forks and then did a tour at Vandenberg which was the most fun.

During the Cuban missile crisis we took over the sites from Boeing (even though they were not completed) and postured them just so we would have the additional fire power if required. Fortunately it all worked out with the fight... for that I am grateful.

My experiences were from the 60's so the philosophy may have changed since then about ground burst and hitting hardened targets.

I was already at Grand Forks when this incident took place at Malmstrom.

http://www.cufon.org/cufon/malmstrom/malm1.htm

But, but...

[Wylfing]

But Jesus, and the Bible!

Re:But, but...

[CaptainPatent]

But Jesus, and the Bible! Yes, don't worry...
We'll be able to genetically replicate those soon too

Re:But, but...

[no_opinion]

And while we're at it, can artificially created life have a soul? ;-)

Re:But, but...

[KublaiKhan]

The official position of the Catholic Church, IIRC, is that animals do not have a soul--so no problem there; just define any artificially created lifeforms as non-human animals, and then you'll have no theological problems.

Not sure about how the other 5/6 of the world's population would think about it, though.

Re:But, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

But what do children do when they grow up, but take on the tasks of their parents.
So also the children of God....

Re:But, but...

[geekoid]

You need a genetic sample...and if you can find a Genetic sample of Christ, that kibnd of throws Chritianity down the crapper.

Like when they got all excited because someone claimed to find Christs body and I'm like "Dude, that's proof your religion is based on nothing."

OTOH, these same people thinks Christs birth is the important part.

Re:But, but...

[babblefrog]

A monk asked Venter-zenji "Does a synthesized life form have Buddha nature or not?"
Venter-zenji replied "Mu."

Re:But, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

OTOH, these same people thinks Christs birth is the important part. You're exactly right, and they give the rest of us a bad name.

Re:But, but...

[Zaphod The 42nd]

Well, the easy out there is that Animals are not entirely sentient. But if you can genetically create a creature with a gigantic mind and give it the biology, maybe have some preprogrammed memory, but you could theoretically build an artificial and sentient creature, capable of speaking language. At that point, its pretty rough to say it doesn't have a soul. Or at that point, what is a soul?

Re:But, but...

[KublaiKhan]

Should keep the philosophers and theologians at each other's throat for a long while, anyway.

Re:But, but...

[amRadioHed]

Well, the easy out there is that Animals are not entirely sentient. You know it's funny, that's exactly what the dolphins and chimpanzees say about humans.

Re:But, but...

[Mr. Roadkill]

We'll be able to genetically replicate those soon too

Maybe we will, at that. It all depends on how the guys working on bringing the mammoth and dodo back make out, and on whether or not any of the various Jesus-Relics turn out to be real and have useable DNA.

There might be skin cells on the Shroud of Turin, but by now any original ones would probably be adrift in a sea of others from all those who've handled it over the years. There have been a number of foreskins, an umbilical cord, blood specimens and milk teeth that have been claimed to be holy relics over the centuries. There's also the supposed ossuary containing the bones of James, brother of Jesus, which would make for interesting comparisons - as would the contents of one of the ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb, which supposedly claims to contain the bones of Jesus, son of Joseph.

Actually, now that I think about it, we probably won't see a JesusClone(TM)- unless some weird cult decides to follow practices similar to those seen in Marc Laidlaw's novel, Dad's Nuke, and feed their followers cloned blood plasma derived from the Holy Foreskin. More likely than not, those in control of the various relics will do whatever they can to stop those pesky molecular geneticisists doing anything that might disprove the resurrection. Not that it's disprovable by anything earthly, of course - it's all a matter of faith, and the Bible tells us all we need to know on the matter, as you should well know ;-) - but there's no point confusing the sinners further.

Re:But, but...

[Metasquares]

Religion tends to hold that we are artificially created. So yes, according to that definition.

Impossible?

[XxtraLarGe]

Just a few years ago, synthesizing a piece of DNA with 5,000 rungs in its helix, known as base-pairs, was impossible. Yet, somehow we've managed to have life on earth...

Re:Impossible?

[bumby]

unless you believe in "intelligent" design, life on earth wasn't synthesized. At least not by the definition of the word in this domain.

Re:Impossible?

[esampson]

I think the key word in that sentence is 'synthesizing'. They weren't saying it wasn't possible for it to happen. Just that we couldn't do it ourselves. :)

Re:Impossible?

[esampson]

I have my own theory; so many things in this world annoy me that they couldn't have happened by random chance. Instead they are proof of some supreme cosmic being who shaped the world just to piss me off.

I call my theory Belligerent Design. (with all credit to Lore Sjoberg for that joke).

Re:Impossible?

[eli pabst]

Yet, somehow we've managed to have life on earth... That is largely due to the technique by which we synthesize DNA in the laboratory. It's actually done using a series of chemical reactions rather than by utilizing the specialized enzymes found in cells. It's an extremely artificial process where the DNA strand is physically held on a microscopic bead, and as a result of the chemistry we use, it's actually more convenient to synthesize it backwards which makes it a slow and cumbersome process. In a cell, your natural DNA replication machinery are replicating DNA orders of magnitude longer and faster. However, that's *replicating*, where your cells are simply copying DNA from a template rather than truly synthesizing anything novel. So technically it takes evolution millions of years to do what we can do in the lab in a few hours.

Re:Impossible?

[nuttycom]

Just a few years ago, synthesizing a piece of DNA with 5,000 rungs in its helix, known as base-pairs, was impossible.

Yet, somehow we've managed to have life on earth...

What part of synthesizing do you not understand?
And who the heck modded this insightful?

I for one

[Joseph1337]

Welcome ours 582,000 base-pair genome overlords

The question that needs to be asked is

[Pojut]

will they use this technology to create a life form who is programmed to create other life forms?

Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! IT'S A NET!!!*

*My apologies for this horrendously bad joke

Re:The question that needs to be asked is

[SpaceLifeForm]

The odds are very good that has already happened. Compare the estimated life of the universe to the estimated life of your star system.

Re:The question that needs to be asked is

[MacarooMac]

"What remains now that we have this complete synthetic chromosome ... is to boot this up in a cell."

Let's hope their booting up GNOME..**

**My appologies for this even more horrendous joke.

Re:The question that needs to be asked is

[repapetilto]

yes but it wasnt until the third generation of stars (our current one) that enough oxygen, carbon, heavy metals, etc had been synthesized (created) by exploding stars for rocky planets and life-as-we-know it to be feasible. Granted that still leaves up to about 5 billion years for some other life to have figured this out before us, but yea.

Should I be happy... or scared

[Opportunist]

I mean, imagine the possibilities. The ability to create synthetic, self replicating machines that produce whatever material we could need. Tailor drugs and chemicals by using "Biotechnology".

Or should I be afraid of the first "programmed virus" that can actually infect human beings?

I don't know. As usual, it seems to have two sides. What comes out of it is up to us, I guess. In other words, if I believed in God, I'd hope he has mercy with us.

Re:Should I be happy... or scared

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I'm hoping that someone makes an actual chairdog.

Re:Should I be happy... or scared

[orclevegam]

Any programmed virus can't really be that much worse then what has already evolved as is. I mean, are they really going to top Ebola or HIV? The real danger to a virus is in the delivery system, without a way to effectively distribute it within a population it's mostly an academic exercise.

Re:Should I be happy... or scared

[pha3r0]

They already reconstructed a virus they pulled from remnants in our own DNA http://www.hackaday.com/2008/01/05/24c3-hacking-dna/ (long video it is detailed somewhere near the end)

Re:Should I be happy... or scared

[cstdenis]

I want a datadog

Re:Should I be happy... or scared

[amRadioHed]

I mean, are they really going to top Ebola or HIV? Actually you could do much worse than those two. Ebola works far to quickly thus limiting the extent of it's outbreaks and HIV is relatively difficult to contract.

Re:Should I be happy... or scared

[Kashgarinn]

"the ability to create synthetic, self replicating machines that produce whatever material we could need. Tailor drugs and chemicals by using "Biotechnology"."

- yep, it's already here and being used, found anywhere there are large pools of eukaryotes, latin designation "Homo Sapiens", or in layman terms "your mom".

K.

Re:Should I be happy... or scared

[Opportunist]

Imagine the combination, as easy to get as the common cold and as deadly as HIV.

But hey, you could play golf on an aircraft carrier...

Program me a kudzu/marijuana hybrid.

[Khyber]

If that can be achieved (much like a Florida geneticist once made THC-producing orange trees) then you'll single-handedly kick the War on Drugs' ass. That would be a worthy cause right there.

Re:Program me a kudzu/marijuana hybrid.

[jollyreaper]

If that can be achieved (much like a Florida geneticist once made THC-producing orange trees) then you'll single-handedly kick the War on Drugs' ass. That would be a worthy cause right there. Considering the carnivorous plant thread earlier, I don't want to know what that tree would be like when it gets the munchies.

Re:Program me a kudzu/marijuana hybrid.

[errxn]

...you'll single-handedly kick the War on Drugs' ass.

As well as the kudzu problem....

Re:Program me a kudzu/marijuana hybrid.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if that'd mellow out the south finally.

Re:Program me a kudzu/marijuana hybrid.

[Khyber]

No way in hell. As long as cocaine flows like water from Memphis to Atlanta, they're all gonna stay hype.

Re:Program me a kudzu/marijuana hybrid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap he's right!

Re:Program me a kudzu/marijuana hybrid.

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know that! This could be my chance to begin a healthy diet and eat fruit

Re:Program me a kudzu/marijuana hybrid.

[DarkGamer]

Sadly, the THC oranges are an urban legend:
http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=76;t=000176;p=1

Re:Program me a kudzu/marijuana hybrid.

[Khyber]

Sadly, you missed why I was modded funny. I know it's a lie, but it's still a great fantasy.

Re:Program me a kudzu/marijuana hybrid.

[kurzweilfreak]

It would probably say "Feed me, Seymour!"

Wonderful

[pnewhook]

As a programmer, I'm most excited by the possibility of a new platform and the programming jobs that will be created by it.

Geez. The LAST thing society needs is a bunch of synthesized clones running around with hacked up spaghetti code for genes.

Re:Wonderful

[KublaiKhan]

Such a thing would be a fitting tribute to the FSM (may his noodly appendage touch all!)

Re:Wonderful

[CaptainPatent]

Geez. The LAST thing society needs is a bunch of synthesized clones running around with hacked up spaghetti code for genes. Yes, Comment your genes for god sake!!!

Re:Wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new Mycoplasma genitalium overlords!

Re:Wonderful

[thewiz]

Hey, I bet they'd be followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Re:Wonderful

[esampson]

Kind of brings new meaning to Blue Screen of Death.

Windows Genome has detected an error in your base pairs and is now shutting down.

Re:Wonderful

[Script Cat]

How can this be attributed to the Finite State Machine. Typically things like this have massive parallelism.
Though I donot usually draw a weiner when designing a FSM, its appendaged are pretty noodly.

Re:Wonderful

[phranklyng]

Good point. Although I'm genuinely intrigued by the possibilities suggested by this new "platform," I've had to fix enough crappy code (mostly written by others, some written by myself) that I quake at the thought of this. Most of the time, bad code just won't execute; the trouble is those rare occasions when it does.

Re:Wonderful

[AdamTheBastard]

Geez. The LAST thing society needs is a bunch of synthesized clones running around with hacked up spaghetti code for genes. Yes, Comment your genes for god sake!!! Good genes comment themselves!

Re:Wonderful

[liquiddark]

Duh, that's what all that junk DNA is...

Re:Wonderful

[bencollier]

They must have forgotten to comment out the appendix.

Re:Wonderful

[mlush]

As a programmer, I'm most excited by the possibility of a new platform and the programming jobs that will be created by it.

Geez. The LAST thing society needs is a bunch of synthesized clones running around with hacked up spaghetti code for genes.

Too late we are already running on the most worst spaghetti code that depends on undocumented action at a distance method calls.

Re:Wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems to be entirely true. I've been looking into the relevant mechanisms (for a bioinformatics course), and it really does feel like an old, kludgey, if it works - ship it, code base. I think it was alternative splicing that did it, but the possibility of genes overlapping (possibly in opposite reading directions) is also bad. If it were code, it would be a maintenance nightmare.

Re:Wonderful

[mlush]

This seems to be entirely true. I've been looking into the relevant mechanisms (for a bioinformatics course), and it really does feel like an old, kludgey, if it works - ship it, code base. I think it was alternative splicing that did it, but the possibility of genes overlapping (possibly in opposite reading directions) is also bad. If it were code, it would be a maintenance nightmare.

I've often used this analogy to techie people when trying to get across the horrors of evolution

Imagine a world with only one start up tech company... where the programmers have all resigned after writing a hello-world script.... Instead of getting in new people the PHB decides he can do it himself and starts randomly diddling (with occasional copy pastes) with the code (and compiler and OS and hardwear) to see what happens and testing it by seeing what sells to a market hungery for applications. If it sells he keeps working on it if it doesn't he stops work.

There is no commenting no version control, each new application is a fork from an existing one... and the horrifying thing is the parent application is also chosen at random. If he wants to make a mailer he may start out with a spread sheet or a web server (or even a webserver evolved from a spread sheet).

You may find this story of evolved hardwear Damn Interesting

At last!

[erroneus]

I will have my four-legged chicken! (The drumstick is my favorite part)

Re:At last!

[thewils]

Yes, but have you tried catching the buggers?

Re:At last!

[Greyfox]

They already have those in China. At least... it tastes like chicken...

First genome to post

[Anonymous Coward]

I propose World of Warcraft make a $1 billion X-Prize like fund for whoever can make an artificial Murloc. Mrrghhbrbl!

An omission

[leob]

The article does not say if it's methylated in the right places.

Re:An omission

[reverseengineer]

The parent poses an important question, and as it turns out, Mycoplasma genitalium was a clever choice in that regard: its genome is so streamlined as to lack the machinery to methylate its DNA. In prokaryotes like M. genitalium, methylation is mostly used to distinguish self from non-self DNA, quite useful (restriction enzymes can be used to carve up non-self DNA then), but not strictly necessary; in eukaryotes, it plays a vital role in regulation of gene transcription, so appropriate methylation is very important.

Analyses of M. genitalium suggest it may have orginally had methylation capabilities, but has lost them over time: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=206970&blobtype=pdf

In our analysis, restriction enzyme digestions of M. genitalium genomic DNA, using MspI and HpaII, did not support the fact that CpG methylation currently exists in this genome as evidenced by the identical pattern produced by both restriction enzymes (data not shown). Whether the disparity in CpG dinucleotides in the M. genitalium genome is the result of a now extinct CpG methylase activity or related instead to the codon usage of this organism will require further analysis.

Re:An omission

[Skippy_kangaroo]

I'm more interested in ethylation in the right places.

whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

"As a programmer, I'm most excited by the possibility of a new platform and the programming jobs that will be created by it."

As a programmer, when I think of the quality of the HTML on most websites, and then read the above sentence, I throw up in my mouth a little.

Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[spleen_blender]

Elitist much? Shortsighted perhaps?

Things don't start off perfect, or even good. They get there by wading through the mistakes and learning from the garbage you see. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Dude. HTML is a completely known entity. There are VALIDATERS for it, and the quality of most HTML is rubbish. An influenza virus has only 10 genes, meaning it doesn't take much "code" to make some really bad bad shit.

Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[spleen_blender]

My point isn't to praise in any way the people that aren't performing to that standard. It is the fact that they exist almost as a reminder as to what not to do. Sort of a "without night there is no day" kind of thing.

You make a good point with the dangers that loom. You should read if you haven't "The Singularity Is Near" by Ray Kurzweil. It has some good ideas as to how to deal with this topic with nanotech and AI.

Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[Mr. Underbridge]

Things don't start off perfect, or even good. They get there by wading through the mistakes and learning from the garbage you see. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

He's about 5 stages later when things are made by morons using tools that employ canned templates. Then the moron screws with things so that it's designed for crap and just barely works, but if you change anything it collapses.

You want the genome version of that?

Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[tnk1]

New in January 2018! Microsoft's new .Neuron platform...

Jan 3, 2018 Hot-fix 845-89459086290834 Repairs security issues with .Neuron

Jan 4, 2018 Hot-fix 845-89459086290835 .Neuron B1RD-FL00 virus recovery tool (chkn-sup 1.0)
                  Hot-fix 845-89459086290836 .Neuron EEB0lA virus recovery tool
                  Hot-fix 845-89459086290837 .Neuron PNK-I virus recovery tool

Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[IdeaMan]

The trick to preventing an AI from taking over the world is to make several of them.
Then they form a committee.
Game over.

Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

"As a programmer, I'm most excited by the possibility of a new platform and the programming jobs that will be created by it."
As a programmer, when I think of the quality of the HTML on most websites, and then read the above sentence, I throw up in my mouth a little.

My wife's been doing that a lot lately. She's pregnant. Perhaps you're just on the verge of creating a new platform.

Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can fix that for you.

//vomit();

Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[Gospodin]

Well, at least that kind of crap won't go all grey-goo on us. It's the robust, well-written replicator that can handle a few mutations and still work that'll kick our asses.

Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, where do I apply for this job? I want to program a programmer to do my job for me.

Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[Mr. Underbridge]

Well, at least that kind of crap won't go all grey-goo on us. It's the robust, well-written replicator that can handle a few mutations and still work that'll kick our asses.

That happens when someone develops the "genome" library for C++. Missed the "stop" protein? Oh well. That's not an error. That's not even a warning you'll see unless you're running -Wall.

Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[jewelie]

But... haven't you just described evolution?

Evolution - coding by starting with a previous template version then mindless slow moronic keyboard bashing.

What would worry me more are the brilliant ingeniously tightly coded genomes created by geniuses, with the tiny all important fundamental flaw. (Cue Eighth Day by Hazel O'Connor, for atmos and exageration.)

meme time

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new synthetically-manufactured genomic overlords.

Now, instead of Hardware, Geneware Code gets

[davidsyes]

counted....

It used to be in the prehistoric computing days, engineers got paid by number of lines cranked out. Now, it looks like gene engineers will bask in that opportunity.

But, hopefully, they don't crank out shitty code. Or, well REALLY have "The First man-Made Gnome" (which is what I read at first...). This could be a different take on Project Genesis.

Ewww!

[monkeyboythom]

As a programmer, I'm most excited by the possibility of a new platform and the programming jobs that will be created by it.

As a regular guy, I am NOT excited by the thought of thousands of fat, greasy programmers drooling over a test tube and a well worn copy of "Weird Science."

As my friend Han was so fond of saying, "I've got a bad feeling about this."

Re:Ewww!

[Adambomb]

Yeah, when they all forget to attach the doll it'd kinda ruin the whole nuclear non-proliferation bent pretty badly.

Re:Ewww!

[EntropyXP]

Sounds like a geeks dream come true. Let's make a man-made woman. Throw out sex with robots and bring in the sex with manmade fleshbots! Imagine, designing a woman that doesn't vocal cords! OMG!

Re:Ewww!

[jollyreaper]

As a regular guy, I am NOT excited by the thought of thousands of fat, greasy programmers drooling over a test tube and a well worn copy of "Weird Science."

As my friend Han was so fond of saying, "I've got a bad feeling about this." Tell the programmer to keep his hands to himself.

Re:Ewww!

[geekoid]

"As a regular guy, I am NOT excited by the thought of thousands of fat, greasy programmers"

talk about redundant!

Re:Ewww!

[namgge]

As a regular guy, I am NOT excited by the thought of thousands of fat, greasy programmers drooling over a test tube and a well worn copy of "Weird Science."

As a programmer, I can assure you that the first code implemented this platform that says "Hello World!" is going to excite you witless.

Namgge

Re:Ewww!

[beav007]

...designing a woman that doesn't vocal cords!

I think you a word there...

Re:Ewww!

[domatic]

Just think of the stares they'll get when they go to buy the bras.

Re:Ewww!

[VagaStorm]

I wonder when the first "do it your self bio warfare" kit comes out, or how about bio enginering for dumies ;..;

One word

[Anonymous Coward]

Gattaca

I for one,

[Edward Teach]

welcome our new synthetic overlords. (It had to be done.)

Re:I for one,

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it did. It's a shame you had to be the second one to do it. =)

Re:I for one,

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it didn't have to be done, you feckless pirate!

Biology as the next Programming language

[DFDumont]

The final line of the paragraph scares me to death - I haven't met a programmer whom I'd turn loose on a DNA construction. It would be like handing a loaded, fully-automatic weapon, with the safety ground off, to a three-year-old; or asking them to complete a fully distributed ERP system written in assembler.
Just because we CAN do something doesn't mean we SHOULD. Perhaps if we constructed a complete corpus of biological effects, and dependencies of all currently known sequences (yeah right, like we're going to sequence every living organism on the planet) we could at least reasonably predict what the effect of NEW sequences might be. Until then the human race is the three-year-old. The gun is loaded. (waiting for the bang...)

Dennis Dumont

Re:Biology as the next Programming language

[The_Sledge]

Mod parent up please. That's as good an explanation as any. I agree, just because we "can" doesn't mean we "should".

For now, cue the Frankenstein references in the replies to this article...

Re:Biology as the next Programming language

[Anonymous Coward]

isn't the right to handling loaded, fully-automatic weapons, with the safety ground off, to three-year-olds what the second amendment is all about?

Re:Biology as the next Programming language

[element-o.p.]

Just a few weeks ago, I caught a show on Discovery about a new field of study called "epigenetics". In a nutshell, after the human genome project, scientists discovered that there are different diseases triggered by the exact same genomes -- something that the study of genetics alone didn't predict. After a lot of research, they discovered that it's not the just the genomes that determine our characteristics; it's the combination of genomes and a handful of other chemicals that bond to the genomes. So not only do we have to map the DNA sequence of every living thing on the planet, but we also have to map how those DNA sequences interact with various other molecules.

I think your fears are only scratching the surface of what could happen. Not just bang -- KABOOM!!!

Re:Biology as the next Programming language

[tknd]

As usual everyone is going to go off and talk about people creating their own viruses and other Frankenstein sort of issues. But there is actually a new field opening up called bio-computing.

This is interesting because the concept is this: instead of using biology to create living lifeforms or things that affect living things, we're instead interested in using the biological building blocks to do computations for us. For example if we can create a bacteria with DNA that will only replicate 1000 times before it stops, then we've effectively implemented an algorithm using biology that counts to 1000 and stops. This is interesting because the nature of cells is naturally parallel so suddenly we break all models based on the Turing machine. This potentially could be a fast ticket towards solving NP before the physicists really understand quantum physics.

Re:Biology as the next Programming language

[The_Sledge]

The trick is making sure it *STOPS* at the 1000th replication.

At least we can hit the reset button on a computer, or at worst, we can yank a plug out. I don't see a reset mechanism or a power-off switch on whatever the hell these guys are building. My fear is no matter how foolproof we think we've made it, being humans, and being "man-made" it will have a bug in it.

Hollywood loves this kind of scenario. I can sense yet another "man plays God, runs harmless experiment on subject, experiment goes horribly wrong because some idiot miscalculated something, subject mutates into green gooey blob..." movie in the making.

I'll buy the popcorn and probably watch it, but I'd like it to remain in "make believe"-land.

Re:Biology as the next Programming language

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Three year olds are not members of the militia, for any reasonable definition of that word.

Eighteen year olds, yes (in fact, probably a couple years younger, from historical precedence).

time to debug

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh, finally PR94839 is fixable

if (me.sees(female.is_hot()) {
      self.panic();
  }

to

if (female.sees(me) {
      female.swoon();
  }

Re:time to debug

[Anonymous Coward]

I beleive that would require a visitor pattern in the female object, as it needs to accept me.

Re:time to debug

[drevillaugh]

if (female.sees(me) { female.swoon(); } to if (female.sees(me) { female.swoon(); } else { me.gay(); }

Re:time to debug

[jediknil]

Certainly does need debugging...you're missing a close paren in both versions.

You are correct!

[spun]

We could not synthesize DNA with over 5,000 base pairs until recently. Obviously, natural DNA has more base pairs than this. Yes, you are correct, life exists on earth, and we did not create it. Glad that's sorted out.

Re:You are correct!

[everett]

I think my children would disagree with you as to whether or not I had any role in creating two of the billions of lives on Earth. The mailman probably agrees though.

Re:You are correct!

[orclevegam]

I think my children would disagree with you as to whether or not I had any role in creating two of the billions of lives on Earth. The mailman probably agrees though. Just because you can jump off a cliff doesn't mean you created gravity. And before anyone gets all pedantic on me, yes I know mass creates gravity, and therefore everyone is creating a bit of gravity, but you get my point. Also, this is not in any way shape or form a car analogy, so don't even mention them.

Re:You are correct!

[ArsonSmith]

And we still haven't been able to reproduce artificial gravity. Unless you consider acceleration effects such as when driving a car to be a form of artificial gravity.

Re:You are correct!

[bckrispi]

I think my children would disagree with you as to whether or not I had any role in creating two of the billions of lives on Earth.

Perhaps. But the mailman wouldn't. :P

Just so long as you don't use the term.....

[3seas]

... intelligent design, science will be safe from religious ridicule.

When the dust settles...

[The_Sledge]

Reminds me of a joke I heard a long time ago...

A doctor dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter meets him at the Pearly Gates and checks him in. After he's registered, St. Peter says to him, "Look at the time: you must be hungry! Heaven Cafeteria is serving lunch, why don't you get yourself something to eat?"

The doctor goes to the cafeteria and notices the long line. He immediately cuts in at the front, only to hear loud protests. "I'm a doctor" he says, "I'm a busy man, I don't have time to wait in line."

The others say, "You're in heaven now, we're all the same here, get to the back of the line and wait your turn!"

A few weeks later, waiting patiently on line for lunch, the doctor notices a man come dashing in wearing scrubs and a lab coat, stethoscope around his neck. He butts in at the head of the line and no one utters a peep. "Hey," he says to the guy in front of him, "Who does that guy think he is?"

"Oh, that's God," says the guy, "He likes to play doctor."

One day it's going to bite us back, hard!

Re:When the dust settles...

[fahrbot-bot]

Or this:

Jesus and St Peter are playing golf. The 6th hole is nothing but water from the tee to the green.

St Peter says, "I'd use a five iron". Jesus says, "Arnold Palmer would use a 7 iron"; tees up and hits the ball right into the water. Jesus says, "Do Over?".

Again, St Peter says, "I'd use a five iron". Jesus says, "yes, but Arnold Palmer would use a 7 iron"; tees up and again hits the ball right into the water.

Jesus then walks out onto the water to retrieve is golf balls as the next party walks up to St Peter. The man says, "Hey, who does that guy think he is, Jesus Christ?" St Peter says, "No, Arnold Palmer."

Procedural Abstraction

[Aram Fingal]

In the article, Venter says that they will need something similar to high level programming tools in order to accomplish useful modifications. I think that there is already plenty of evidence that genetic systems have procedural abstraction. In talking about gene activation, Biologists often use the term "ordered cascade" to describe what's happening when one gene activates a few more and those genes, in turn, activate other genes. If you think about it, it's exactly like subroutines of a program. Construction of the bacterial flagellum, for example, starts with the activation of one gene, which activates others, leading to the contribution of about 25 genes. These genes contribute various parts of the flagellum and activation of the cellular machinery to put it together and attach it to the cell wall.

Re:Procedural Abstraction

[Pennidren]

The problem is that the subroutines of this program are not abstracted in terms that are meaningful to us.

Re:Procedural Abstraction

[wikinerd]

Venter says that they will need something similar to high level programming tools in order to accomplish useful modifications.

A low-level language acts as an effective gatekeeper against those who don't understand the underlying science. I'm not sure what would happen if script kiddies and self-appointed "experts" had access to a high-level language.

Re:Procedural Abstraction

[Hellpop]

Well, I always felt like I was recursive...

Right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the people worried about this have no worry that if you can program using DNA, we could have literal "virus writers" ...

Of course, that could also raise some interesting new questions: if we can create a dangerous virus, how will we know which ones evolved and which ones were intelligently designed?

Re:Right...

[Henneshoe]

If some programmer "writes" a virus we just need a team of programmers to reverse engineer it and "write" an anti-virus. I can see it now Mcaffee Biological Edition Pro 2009. Annual subscription...$99.99.

Will it make me run slower?

all your base-pair are belong to

[Anonymous Coward]

you know the rest

Super specie

[ctdownunder]

I humbly contribute the following definition. "A super specie is a specie that can change it's own DNA consciously."

Re:Super specie

[tnk1]

I humbly contribute the following definition. "A super specie is a specie that can change it's own DNA consciously."

I had no idea.... Coins have DNA?

malware

[pikine]

As a programmer, I'm most excited by the possibility of a new platform and the programming jobs that will be created by it.

That definitely gives a new meaning to "virus" and "worm." Oh wait... Don't you botnet me.

"As a programmer, I'm most excited by the

[circletimessquare]

"As a programmer, I'm most excited by the possibility of a new platform and the programming jobs that will be created by it."

brings new meaning to the phrase "script kiddie"

Re:"As a programmer, I'm most excited by the

[PachmanP]

brings new meaning to the phrase "scripted kitty"

There fixed that for you

Monster Debugging

[MOBE2001]

As a programmer, I'm most excited by the possibility of a new platform and the programming jobs that will be created by it.

And who's going to debug all the billions of self-reproducing monsters you unleash into the world, pray tell?

Re:Monster Debugging

[geekoid]

Brings a whole new meaning to a 'Raid' controller.

RAID!

Re:Monster Debugging

[megaditto]

They are gonna debug themselves.

God has already developed some nice genetic debug tools for us: interspecies competition, predator-prey relationships, survival of the fittest, and all that.

doomsday

[cytg.net]

alot of doomsday prophecies here, virus me this virus me that, whos afraid of the big bad
Anyway, at least every single combination of anything useful or otherwise destructive will be patented from here to the end of days .. So SHOULD some half witted idiot decide create a killer virus in his basement, at least he'll be sued to death.

This will give rise to

[Anonymous Coward]

KHAAANNN!

Why bother hacking marijuana?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cannabis is already an annoying weed that will grow nearly anywhere.

Re:Why bother hacking marijuana?

[Khyber]

Because Kudzu grows damn near as fast as Bamboo does, and once it gets started there's not much you can do to stop it's proliferation. The yields would theoretically be higher (no pun intended) due to the rapid spread of the plant.

Also, Cannabis helps to create topsoil thanks to deep-penetrating roots that will break up rock and clay.

And hey, why do Cannabis growers bother to mess with the plant's genetics? For better results and yields, just like most other seed genetics companies do. Hardier, or faster growing, or drought resistant. There's many reasons for hacking Cannabis.

When this programming work gets

[zappepcs]

outsourced to India, can we look forward to seeing incarnations of Hindu gods? Or perhaps a call center rep that can simultaneously use two headsets, hold two conversations, and use to computers at the same time to read from two poorly written support scripts?

And where, oh where, does a two-headed marmoset controlled domestic robot fall in Islamic law?

I used to be a paranoid...

[mangu]

they are proof of some supreme cosmic being who shaped the world just to piss me off

Whenever I think somebody, anyone, not just supreme cosmic beings, is trying to piss me off, I think: am I really that important? Why, exactly, would anyone make an effort to piss me off? Nah, probably just a coincidence.

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[orclevegam]

Whenever I think somebody, anyone, not just supreme cosmic beings, is trying to piss me off, I think: am I really that important? Why, exactly, would anyone make an effort to piss me off? Nah, probably just a coincidence. You're trying to piss me off aren't you?

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[geekoid]

Like those egomaniacs that think "My children are deformed, God must be punishing me."
WTF? you did something so awesome, God himself took an interest in you AND made your children suffer?

Meh. I'll stick to being an Atheist. God never punishes me, the Devil never tempts me, and I get to do good deeds just because they are good.

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[Bob-taro]

Like those egomaniacs that think "My children are deformed, God must be punishing me." WTF? you did something so awesome, God himself took an interest in you AND made your children suffer?

If, for the sake of argument, you accept the premise of an omnipotent God, he may actually be able to pay attention to each and every one of us, and not just the "most important ones".

Meh. I'll stick to being an Atheist. God never punishes me, the Devil never tempts me, and I get to do good deeds just because they are good.

How does an atheist define "good"?

Regarding the actual article, consider these 2 sayings: "Knowledge is power", "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". I love science, but sometimes the power that is being put into fallible, corruptible human hands really concerns me.

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[ArsonSmith]

And sharing is equalizing. Knowledge is only power if you are the only keeper of that knowledge. Power only corrupts if you are the only one with the power.

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[repapetilto]

One way an atheist could define good is "a type of adaptive decision making that leads to making altruistic and innocuous decisions when ones actions could foreseeably affect the well-being of others, with the ultimate result of gaining all the advantages of living as a part of a community." Theres probably someone out there who has worded it better, thats just off the top of my head, but the basic idea is its in your own best interest to act "good" because as long as most other people are doing the same everyone benefits. Also if you go around pissing people off eventually its goign to be the wrong person and it won't end well for you.

People, being social animals, naturally live their lives this way for the most part anyway, ethics and all that are just philosophical justifications for what people already know "feels right." Of course theres some cases (abortion for example) where there is no obvious guiding instinct so the ethical rules mentioned above need to be generalized to take that situation into account as well. At which point the philosophy has come to be its own guiding principle. Thats not really inherently bad or anything, just worth thinking about. Anyway thats a rough Atheists guide to justifying good behavior.

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[Anonymous Coward]

I get to do good deeds just because they are good.

You should get together with Falwell. You are just as arrogant and insufferable as he is. Apparently there is an area of commonality.

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[amRadioHed]

I think you are severely underestimating just how fun it is to piss you off!

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[amRadioHed]

How does an atheist define "good"? Same way a theist decides which religion is right.

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[zoips]

Oh for god's sake (lowercase 'g' to ensure I get your god, not just some other random god), morality is not the sole domain of theistic belief. There are plenty of other moral theories that can define "good" and "right" from "bad" and "wrong" without having to resort to the will of god, or having the existence of god as an axiom, or anything else associated with some sort of theism.

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[Sproggit]

So you are implying that as an atheist, I am unable to be a good person, because the only yardstick YOU have to define being good is your religion?

So by definition, if you were deprived of the teachings of whatever dogma you follow, you would be an evil person, not because of what you do, but because you don't do it to follow that particular dogma's idea of "good"?

This atheist defines "good" as treating others with the deserved modicum of respect and care.
An atheist can also define "good" by whatever standards they feel is correct.

This is the difference between us, I take responsibility for my definition of "good". You, your lot, (and by "your lot" I mean, the witch burners, aborigine torturers, jet plane into high rise building fliers, you're all the same to me), think that as long as you can take a holiday from responsibility by passing it up to some "higher being" / (voices in some camel drivers head / revelations made by a sci-fi author to make money) you're perfectly justified in not being very damned "good" AT ALL!!

As an atheist I'm mentally grown up enough to make my own decisions and "spiritually" grown up enough to accept the consequences for them, without looking for some ethereal being to give me a free pass from being just another creature that dies and fades away because I claim to be "sorry" for not being "good".

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[squiggleslash]

How does an atheist define "good"?

This is probably why we have people flying planes into buildings. I'm not saying that all theists are incapable of telling the difference between right and wrong; far from it, I believe the vast majority of people, regardless of whether they think they're getting it from a belief about what "God" wants, are capable. Indeed, as society has become more complex and issues pushed to the fore, we've seen religions themselves forced to adapt because of massive opposition from parishioners to tenets of those religions that are obviously bad.

But some people still think they're getting their morals from a religion. And a handful believe that so strongly they do set aside the basic principles of morality, of treating (or perhaps better expressed as respecting the wishes of) your neighbour as you'd want to be treated, of avoiding unnecessary suffering, of respecting the freedom of other individuals; and they fly planes into buildings because they think God's telling them that's a great idea.

You didn't get your morals from the Bible. If you did, at the very least you'd be beating your wife and kids every Sunday. Atheists need little more than the same social pressures and education in empathy that you experienced to know the difference between right and wrong.

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[darkvizier]

...sometimes the power that is being put into fallible, corruptible human hands really concerns me.

Precisely! That's why we need to synthesize fallible non-human hands!

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[Bob-taro]

One way an atheist could define good is "a type of adaptive decision making that leads to making altruistic and innocuous decisions when ones actions could foreseeably affect the well-being of others, with the ultimate result of gaining all the advantages of living as a part of a community." Theres probably someone out there who has worded it better, thats just off the top of my head, but the basic idea is its in your own best interest to act "good" because as long as most other people are doing the same everyone benefits. Also if you go around pissing people off eventually its goign to be the wrong person and it won't end well for you.

So basically, you're saying altruism is just sophisticated selfishness?

People, being social animals, naturally live their lives this way for the most part anyway, ethics and all that are just philosophical justifications for what people already know "feels right." Of course theres some cases (abortion for example) where there is no obvious guiding instinct so the ethical rules mentioned above need to be generalized to take that situation into account as well. At which point the philosophy has come to be its own guiding principle. Thats not really inherently bad or anything, just worth thinking about. Anyway thats a rough Atheists guide to justifying good behavior.

What you seem to be calling instinct, I would call a conscience. Interesting answers, though. Thanks.

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[repapetilto]

Right sophisticated selfishness, just keep in mind thats not necessarily a conscious sophistication. And in regards to the instinct vs. conscience issue I guess that just depends on what you attribute the phenomenon of what we call a conscience to; since it's so prevalent it must be something ingrained into humanity in some way (ie an aspect of human nature) so I would say you could call having a conscience a specific instance of instinct, others might reserve the word instinctual for more concrete things though.

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[Bob-taro]

So you are implying that as an atheist, I am unable to be a good person, because the only yardstick YOU have to define being good is your religion?

I'm not trying to continue a flame war, rather I feel the need to clarify and apologize. I don't believe atheists are any worse or better than religious people, but I understand how you could get that from my post, and I apologize. In fact, I have sometimes wondered if people who naturally find it easy to act morally are LESS likely to become Christian because they already feel like they are "pretty good" compared to everyone else.

I define "good" as obeying God and that God's 2 greatest commandments are to love Him, and to love your neighbor as yourself. I was just asking out of curiosity how an atheist defines "good". I expected to get a lot of different answers and I knew they'd be different than mine. Of course, I still think I'm right.

I believe Jesus has helped me to become a better person. I have believed in Christianity most of my life (I went through a time of questioning and doubt in high school and early college), but it's really only in recent years that I've really seen how much help I needed. I used to be a loner, and it's easy to be a "good guy" when you don't interact with people much. Now as a husband and father, when I have people who really rely on me, to the point where a careless word (or silence!) can harm them, I realize I need more help than I thought.

This is the difference between us, I take responsibility for my definition of "good". You, your lot, (and by "your lot" I mean, the witch burners, aborigine torturers, jet plane into high rise building fliers, you're all the same to me), think that as long as you can take a holiday from responsibility by passing it up to some "higher being" / (voices in some camel drivers head / revelations made by a sci-fi author to make money) you're perfectly justified in not being very damned "good" AT ALL!!

Yes, a lot of religious people have done a lot of bad things. That doesn't necessarily make religion bad, it could just mean religion doesn't ALWAYS make people good. You can also point to badness done in the name of atheism (communist persecution of religion, for example). You sound pretty prejudiced against religious people. I've known some very nice Muslims. They aren't all closet suicide bombers any more than all Christians are racists any more than all fps gamers are on the verge of acting out a shooting spree.

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[Sproggit]

Apology accepted. ..."
Yes, a lot of religious people have done a lot of bad things. That doesn't necessarily make religion bad"....

Nope, regardless of whether people did "good" things or "bad" things in the name of religion, they believe, by definition that they are acting either in accordance to what they have been taught or against it.

Either way, by absolving yourself of personal responsibility as a religious person, I "believe" you are wrong.

I AM prejudiced against religious people, because I feel their beliefs are silly and make them do illogical things.
I really think that without their beliefs, they would think things through for themselves, and come to more humane decisions.

I honestly think mankind would be better off without any dogma, hence the generalist approach to religion. So did the communists, BUT their agenda was one of control and power, and keeping it in secular, party hands.

You cant seriously suggest that evil done in name of atheism compares to that done for whatever ethereal being was in vogue at the time?

Thanks for an unusually intelligent (for a religious person) reply BTW.

-------------
The Sproggg

Re:I used to be a paranoid...

[Bob-taro]

You cant seriously suggest that evil done in name of atheism compares to that done for whatever ethereal being was in vogue at the time?

Well, yes, I think I can. Once you devalue the victim, the result is the same. It doesn't matter whether you devalue them because they are "infidels" or because you think they're "holding back" society. Given that most of the world has believed some kind of religion for most of history, in sheer numbers I'm sure there's been more evil done in the name of religion than atheism. Probably both numbers are dwarfed by the amount of evil done for purely selfish motives, though (just watch the news!).

Thanks for an unusually intelligent (for a religious person) reply BTW.

LOL ... I'll take that as a compliment. Actually, I get that a lot. I think it's because I try really hard to see things from the other side, and not get too emotional about it. A mentor once told me, "God doesn't need you to defend him." I think a lot of people get worked up when you criticize something dear to them, and getting worked up really limits your ability to sound intelligent.

So 582k?

[Guysmiley777]

582k ought to be enough for anybody.

Re:So 582k?

[little4ce]

582 kilo bases-pairs (ignoring that irritating 1024 power of 2) = 1164 kilo Bytes So in fact 1 megabyte should be enough, right?

Open carry then?

[maillemaker]

I do. I see nothing wrong with protection of life and property, but you don't need a concealed gun to do that.

Well, you don't if open carry is allowed, I guess. There are, of course, many examples of people who actually have protected life and property with a concealed gun.

Basically they should outlaw any gun under five feet long. And bullets should be ridiculously priced, like $10k or something (although every 5ft or longer gun would come with one free bullet). That keeps the right for self defence but gets rid of the morons shooting at each other for fun.

Well, at least it would keep the right of self defense for the rich, at least.

You do realize that people who have concealed carry permits are 5-300 times less likely to commit crimes than people without them, right?

Re:Open carry then?

[Bonobo_Unknown]

You do realize that people who have concealed carry permits are 5-300 times less likely to commit crimes than people without them, right?

I suppose you mean to say: "people who have concealed carry permits and carry firearms are 5-300 times less likely to commit crimes than people that carry firearms without them, right?"

Now that would make more sense...

You think small

[geekoid]

1000 leg chicken. hhhmm and "centiken"? "chickapede"?

Yeah, I think I'll call it a "Chickapede"

No way.

[93,000]

Four breasts. Oh wait, did you say chicken?

Just because we CAN do something...

[maillemaker]

>Just because we CAN do something doesn't mean we SHOULD. If something CAN be done it WILL.

soon tv commercials

[Dan667]

Telling us how great a third arm would be, but it will have all kinds of unpleasant side effects that may happen to a small number of people. Good thing we are all capable of making decisions about big pharma commercials like an informed doctor. sarcasm off.

Waitaminute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hang on... They took 4 strands of not-really-long DNA, stuck the ends together, and then they are getting congratulated on it?

Wow. WTG guys.

Re:Procedural Abstraction -- Prolog?

[ChrisA90278]

will need something similar to high level programming tools in order to accomplish useful modifications. I think that there is already plenty of evidence that genetic systems have procedural abstraction.

Sounds to me like programming in Prolog.

For those who don't know... A Prolog program is a set of patterns and actions. When a pattern is "matched" it action occures. The set is unordered. A more modern and more widely used version of this is the language "Erlang". I think Erlang points to the way we will write very large systems in the future. For one thing it scales well to systems that have many, many cores. Procedural languages just don't scale so well. Also I think this style of programming could be adapted to formal methods, proof of correctness and so on.

Back to DNA. I think DNA simply reacts to patterns in it's environment with all of the DNA "looking" for these patterns pretty much in parallel

FTA

[achenaar]

"(Otherwise it's like) writing Vista in binary," he said. "It's just not going to happen."
Oh how I wish I could take the "in binary" out of that sentence.

It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you

[Goldarn]

Whenever I think somebody, anyone, not just supreme cosmic beings, is trying to piss me off, I think: am I really that important? I used to wonder about this. Then I realized that, since the cosmic beings/universe/whatever are trying to piss my off, then I am, ipso facto, that important. It did wonders for my self-esteem.

Still, I can't help but wonder... is the entire universe against me? Or just the part where light has reached since my birth? Don't laugh; it's an important question.

So... fundies prove God's existence?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Instead they are proof of some supreme cosmic being who shaped the world just to piss me off.

Hmm, so God made fundamentalists to piss off atheists and prove that He exists?

Interesting...

Re:So... fundies prove God's existence?

[jamstar7]

Makes as much or more sense than some of the things I've read that had a relgious stamp of approval on them. Who knows, he might just be right...

I've been reading too much anon news...

[teh moges]

I originally read the title as "Scientologists Build Possibly The First Man-Made Genome"...

It's called transubstantiation.

[Peter Trepan]

You need a genetic sample [of Christ]

Acquire a Catholic who has just taken communion and induce him to vomit, thereby producing a viable sample of body and blood.

Who says science and faith aren't compatible?

Re:It's called transubstantiation.

[fireman sam]

Don't forget the large sample of alter boy DNA.

Re:It's called transubstantiation.

[Anonymous Coward]

He just has to spit. According to Catholic Encyclopedia transubstantiation happens in the mouth, not in the stomach.

Re:It's called transubstantiation.

[danamln]

shouldn't that read the large sample of DNA on the alter boy?

Re:It's called transubstantiation.

[Megaport]

Sorry, they already thought of that. Theologically speaking, the bread and wine are only transubstantiated as the body and blood of christ while they retain the appearance and form of bread and wine.

Thus larger crumbs of the bread (particles, in latin) are dropped into the wine to avoid the precious body being wasted, yet smaller detrius, such as dust or tiny little crumbs are considered to no longer have the appearance of bread, and thus can no longer be held to be valid material. They are not the true body of christ anymore even though they fell of bread which was considered to be so.

Human vomit or bile, in my theological opinion, is not valid transubstatiated matter, so you would not get a DNA match on Christ. Dexter would have to go after him instead I think....

-M

Third arm, I think not

[geekoid]

Prehensile penis for the win!

what if...

[theheadlessrabbit]

What happens when microsoft's programmers start writing code for life forms?

all the bloat in their code will certainly lead to an obesity epidemic in their life forms.

and at some point in every living thing's life, they will get the blue screen of death...

wait a minute.....

people already get fat and die....does God work for Microsoft?

I'm not

[nguy]

As a programmer, I'm most excited by the possibility of a new platform and the programming jobs that will be created by it.

The thought of the average programmer hacking DNA is pretty scary.

Re:I'm not

[Anne Thwacks]

Not as scary as the secretary using MS visualGenome drag and drop while painting her fingernails!

Chris Rock posts on /. ?!

[Anonymous Coward]

And everybody's talking about gun control,
got to get rid of the guns.

Fuck that. I like guns. You got a gun, you don't have to work out.

I ain't working out. I ain't jogging. You got pecs, I got Tecs.

Fuck that shit. You don't need no gun control.
You know what you need? We need some bullet control.

Man, we need to control the bullets, that's right.

I think all bullets should cost $5000. $5000 for a bullet. You know why?

'Cause if a bullet costs $5000, there'd be no more innocent bystanders. That'd be it.
Every time someone gets shot, people will be like, "Damn, he must have did something.
"Shit, they put $50000 worth of bullets in his ass."

People would think before they killed somebody, if a bullet cost $5000.

"Man, l would blow your fucking head off...if I could afford it.
"I'm gonna get me another job,
"I'm gonna start saving some money...
"and you're a dead man.
"You better hope I can't get no bullets on layaway."

So even if you get shot by a stray bullet...you won't have to go to no doctor to get it taken out.

Whoever shot you
would take their bullet back.
"I believe you got my property."

That's right, man.

-- Chris Rock (Video Script

job marketing!

[minusthink]

"As a programmer, I'm most excited by the possibility of a new platform and the programming jobs that will be created by it."

Yes! This certainly isn't more far reaching or profound then a new job market and it's opportunities!

Human genome sequenced for $10,000?

[Kevin143]

>the price of sequencing a human genome has dropped from hundreds of millions of dollars to about $10,000

Wow, sign me up. Last time I check (today) it costs about $1,000,00 to sequence a human genome.

Re:Human genome sequenced for $10,000?

[Teancum]

the price of sequencing a human genome has dropped from hundreds of millions of dollars to about $10,000

Wow, sign me up. Last time I check (today) it costs about $1,000,000 to sequence a human genome.

Is that the equipment and supplies, or does that include labor costs?

The costs for sequencing have certainly dropped significantly over the years, and can be compared to Moore's law at that. The rest is just extraction of data from a storage medium (DNA).

If you have the $1 million USD available, I'll help broker you to sequence your DNA today. For $10 K, I might still be able to find somebody, but it will take a bit longer. I don't think this figure is that far off as you are indicating here.

Of course scientists can create life!

[JulianConrad]

What do you think life is -- some kind of miracle?

That would the explain the dreams I've had lately

[JulianConrad]

Something about a white trash guy in the desert, and an old black woman in a corn field.

synthetic smallpox virus now within our reach?

[ekrock]

It doesn't even need to be a "super" virus that we haven't seen before. The smallpox virus's genome has been sequenced and published in publicly-available literature back when everyone assumed you could never synthesize it from scratch. Smallpox has a DNA genome that is only 186,000 base pairs long--shorter than Venter appears to have already synthesized. This means that Venter, or anyone who has the same technology, could probably synthesize the smallpox genome from scratch. Now I'm absolutely not a virologist, scientist, or doctor of any kind, but it seems like at that point, you'd only need to insert that genome into a capsid that was "good enough" to shoehorn the viral genome into a human cell (even if the capsid being used wasn't the actual smallpox capsid). After that, the genome would take over the cell, start churning out copies of actual smallpox virions, and the WHO has already noted that a single human infected with smallpox constitutes an immediate global health emergency due to its infectiousness, its lethality, and the fact that most of the global population hasn't been immunized. I'm no fan of the Commerce Department's export control system by any means, but this technology appears potentially far more dangerous for producing weapons of mass destruction than any nuclear weapon development tool ever was. If we wind up in a situation where anyone with a master's in biology and a lab can synthesize smallpox, it seems naive to assume that no one will do anything stupid or malevolent. Twelve Monkeys, anyone?

Re:synthetic smallpox virus now within our reach?

[jericho4.0]

From the abstract of "Chemical Synthesis of Poliovirus cDNA: Generation of Infectious Virus in the Absence of Natural Template":

Full-length poliovirus complementary DNA (cDNA) was synthesized by assembling oligonucleotides of plus and minus strand polarity. The synthetic poliovirus cDNA was transcribed by RNA polymerase into viral RNA, which translated and replicated in a cell-free extract, resulting in the de novo synthesis of infectious poliovirus. Experiments in tissue culture using neutralizing antibodies and CD155 receptor-specific antibodies and neurovirulence tests in CD155 transgenic mice confirmed that the synthetic virus had biochemical and pathogenic characteristics of poliovirus. Our results show that it is possible to synthesize an infectious agent by in vitro chemical-biochemical means solely by following instructions from a written sequence.

Re:synthetic smallpox virus now within our reach?

[ekrock]

Yes, polio virus is one of the shortest known, which is why they chose it for that experiment. Venter's technology appears to put far longer viral genomes within potentially easy reach.

We are so screwed

[nurb432]

We don't have enough information to be playing around with this stuff. One mistake and we wipe out all life as we know it.

Perhaps someday, but not yet.

Re:We are so screwed

[Teancum]

One mistake and we wipe out all life as we know it.

Oh, come off it. Don't you understand even the basics of genetics here?

Almost all "mistakes" in genetics will result in a crippling nature to nearly any genome. Even if you succeed somehow in making a "mistake" that is going to be in the long run something beneficial to a particular genome, how is that any different than the billions or trillions of similar kinds of "genetic mistakes" that happen like this all of the time in nature every day?

In addition, this quest for a minimalistic genome is also going to be something that will be very easily killed outside of a laboratory. Assuming that you actually take this artificial genome and create a completely unique artificial prokaryote, it will still lack most of the genetic defenses that the rest of life on Earth has developed over billions of years. Or assuming that "God" created us in 7 "days", he still provided protections against this sort of thing happening and going amok.

In short, this is an overblown claim that simply won't happen, and is completely unjustified to even suggest in the first place.

I agree that some intelligence behind genetic manipulation may create a sort of monster like some of the very dangerous computer virii that have been developed... but even those have required some considerable thought about how they were put together and designed, and even in the case of computer virii a simple "mistake" will more than likely make it not work.

This is an exceedingly "safe" line of scientific research. Don't get your panties in a bunch here and certainly don't go alarmist on anybody unless you have really developed a rational argument against this sort of research.

Re:We are so screwed

[nurb432]

if you want to have a rational discission of the potential dangers, you can leave your misguided concept of 'god' out of things.

And for the record i do agree the chances are small of the worst case scenario happening, i think the chance is still high enough to be concerned considering what is at stake.

I operate under the premise that if there is a way to totally hose things, 'man' will find a way.

Re:We are so screwed

[geekoid]

No, you will not be able to create a virus with a mistake. Mistakes end up as a useless liquid. TO create a virus to wipe out mankind would take a very deliberate act,and about 25 more years of study.

playing god

[hibji]

So I heard about the quest to create synthetic life before. However, I haven't heard any outrage from the crazies, or any real opposition at all. No congressional hearings, etc... Honestly, I haven't heard of any excitement either. Creating life is truly within the realm of god. It will be one of the triumphs of humanity, certainly worth a Nobel at the least.

Re:playing god

[Anonymous Coward]

However, I haven't heard any outrage from the crazies, or any real opposition at all. No congressional hearings, etc...

It's often the things you don't suspect that come back to bite you in the ass later. That should seed at least a few minds. lol.

Creating life is truly within the realm of god. It will be one of the triumphs of humanity, certainly worth a Nobel at the least.

While I agree with you that it would deserve at least a Nobel, and I also agree that it's a major milestone in our pursuit of knowledge, I don't really see it as being in the realm of god anymore than figuring out how to take advantage of the laws of physics in order to fly is. What we've done here is basically reverse engineered a natural programming language. In that, I just personally don't see it as creating life, we're just working with a pre-existing toolset.

For me personally, the only way we will ever truly create life, is when we bring life into being that is not based on a natural programming language but something else entirely. Like a non-organic living machine. Until then we're just hacking together code for a compiler that "someone else wrote", so to speak. I'm an atheist, so this is a figure of speech.

First Man-Made...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone else read the title as "Scientists Build Possibly The First Man-Made Gnome"? Once it started talking about DNA, I was getting excited about the possibility of intelligent lawn gnomes.

Oh well, I suppose a man can dream.

Re:First Man-Made...

[Anne Thwacks]

Before or after intelligent congressCritters?

At this point...

[OrtegaPeru]

I just hope that if we're all going to perish from some programmed plague, I'll at least have time before I die to drag whoever made it out into the street and spank them really really hard in front of everybody. I'm not one to fear-monger, but it just seems wrong to mess with this kind of stuff at all until we as a species have gotten things like school-shootings and suicide bombings under control.

minimal genome

[mapkinase]

An idea of a minimal genome is unproductive. It is like an idea of a minimal phrase or minimal sentence. It is true that you have to have ribosomal RNA and proteins and transcription factors, but as for the rest - you still have to have something, but for some species it is A, and for others is B. You have to have "0", but it is not enough, you have to have either "A", "B" or "C".

None of 0A, 0B or 0C could be called a minimal genome, and 0 is not enough.

Re:minimal genome

[Teancum]

Why is a minimal genome unproductive? I don't "get it" when you make such a blanket statement like this.

Yes, we do need to come up with understanding more of the structure of DNA sequences, but some significant work has already been done along those lines. We certainly understand what sequences of DNA are needed to produce a given amino acid in the protein building process, and have certainly identified specific proteins that are in a genetic sequence. While still "cutting edge science", it isn't exactly an "unsolved problem" in genetics.

Still, I would have to admit that there is some missing information in decyphering genetic sequences. And it will take somebody with strong cross-discipline skills to figure out the problem you are talking about here.

I expect that the quest to build a complete genome/artificial procaryote will eventually lead to understand much of this other genetic machinery that is needed. By comparing this simple genome with other more complex examples, we will be able to better understand why these "extra parts" you are discussing show up for different species.

To use another example.... can you possibly imagine what some 19th century engineer would think of an iPod if they tried to reverse engineer the device? That is the kind of problem facing geneticists at the moment, as a simple and basic model of a computer simply wouldn't be available to one of these engineers. They might be able to figure out what an LED does from breaking it apart, or be able to figure out some of the principles of electronics, but there is more than a century of engineering development that goes into an iPod that they would have to reproduce in order to really understand how it is all put together.

In the case of genetics.... we are dealing with billions of years of evolution and trying to understand why some genomes were able to succeed and others failed at reproducing or adapting to change. We are missing the original examples that caused the whole thing to get started in the first place... and so this is an attempt to try and do just that. It will be very interesting to see what the absolute minimal genome that still is "alive" could become.

Re:minimal genome

[mapkinase]

I think you did not understand what I said. "Simple" is not "minimal".

space seed

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't need a bunch of napoleons running around.
Superior ability breeds superior ambition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Seed

I'll take...

[briancnorton]

I'd like my DNA reprogrammed to have a faster metabolism, low cholesterol, perfect teeth and, uh, hmm... Bigger feet.

Ooh, and the ability to optically cloak myself...

Re:I'll take...

[Technopaladin]

So you want to be a protoss?

Mod parent up

[Megaport]

Wow, I just spent the time and watched the video in the parent post. The video is a lecture titled. "Programming DNA", and it totally blew my mind even though I considered myself to be fairly up-to-date on these sorts of topics.

If you are a software engineer (or hacker) and have an interest in DNA hacking, its a must-see. For instance, about half way through the lecture you'll suddenly realise the true significance of the first man made gnome - and understand why it is important in a way that none of the news (even so called science-news) has reported so far.

Cheers, and thanks for the link!

-M

Oh yes, I can't wait!

[repvik]

PETA vs. Ballmer!

When can we expect

[Arancaytar]

A DNAclipse plugin?

salute

[darkob]

I, for one, salute our genetically engineered overlords!

Decompiler

[Botia]

Does anyone know of a decompiler, preferably open source? I'd like to do a little work and add this to my resume.

Re:Decompiler

[Teancum]

Yes.... it is called a sequencer. Only good ones aren't so cheap.

I'm sure that eventually somebody will offer some open source designs that will eventually work for sequencing a genome, but we are still at the stage of designing the tools that will make the tools that will do the job.

Some "hackers" have also done a fairly good job of adding some comments to the source code as well, but you are free to try and add your own if you think you can make some headway in trying to figure out some of the functions as well.

Re:Decompiler

[Botia]

It would be nice to decompile it into a higher level language, something with functions and objects, etc. Comments would be a plus, but I'm sure we can figure out what stuff does by messing with it and recompiling. :)

obligatory meme

[darkvizier]

In Soviet Russia, Windows runs you!

Created by the scientists?

[HikingStick]

Pardon me for reading the article (read about it in a couple of places, actually), but the scientists reassembled a replica of the genome using hundreds of partial sequences ordered from different labs. All they did was assemble them. It's no insignificant feat, but it is far from creating a new genome.
C'mon y'all. Would you say someone programmed a pieces of software if all they did was copy/paste code snippets from existing code, lined them up, and compiled it (they add nothing of their own). It takes smarts, yes, but it is not coding.

In comic book terms...

[Dr. Cody]

This reminds me of post I saw on Slashdot where someone mentioned that Stan Lee (I think) had admitted that the Thing's thing was in fact made of rock, too.

It's not the answer which is disturbing; it's the fact that there is an answer.

just a first step - long way to go

[peter303]

The genome wasnt even tested to see if it worked. Thats like writing a computer program, getting it to compile, but not running it.

Woooo!!

[superash]

Wired is reporting that researchers have created the longest synthetic genome to date by threading together four long strands of DNA

Wooohooo! I'm buying stocks worth 582k of synthetic cloth companies. I'm telling you guys, DNA strands will be _the_ thing come 2020. You never know what these crazy researchers end up doing!

Get to it already!

[Anonymous Coward]

Start making those cat-girl sex-slaves we keep seeing in hentai movies!

Think BIGGER.

[kevinaswell]

This guy is saying the new platform for programming would basically be lifeforms themselves, correct? Well, even if I completely missed the point I'll just continue because I'm sure that isn't far off anyhow. With those type of skills, think of all the HUGE possibilities that open up. With direct control over molecular life and the way they behave, I see no reason we shouldn't be able to just...send one in my brain and have it boot another cell out and completely replace it, with the old cells same functions. And with this direct control, there is room for improvements that can be implemented by our technological advancements. With direct control, we could improve our brain. And then the can of worms will REALLY open.