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Artificial Bases Added to DNA
holy_calamity writes "Researchers have successfully added two 'unnatural' DNA letters to the code of life. They created two artificial base pairs that are treated as normal by an enzyme that replicates and fixes DNA inside cells. This raises the prospect of engineering life forms with genetic code not possible within nature, allowing new kinds of genetic engineering."
All your artificial base are belong to these researchers.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
I eagerly await proper human-animal hybrids, albeit only for the opportunity to make a joke about the right to bear arms.
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
...sounds like they're making some kind of social progress.
There is a place for fear, uncertainty, and doubt when it comes to new science and new technology. Let me rephrase that: There is a place for respect for and investigation of the unknown when it comes to new science and new technology.
Take nanotechnology for example. There is no place for sky-is-falling panic over "new asbestosis" and other possibilities, but researchers seriously should look into things like this to put a real, hard, risk assessment on these possibilities. Let's suppose that by 2015 there will be X amount of this or that nanotech in use. What can we predict about the rate of lung disease and how much, if any, of this will be attributable to nanotech? Is this amount acceptable? If not, what if anything can or should be done to reduce the risk?
Likewise, people doing research in genetic engineering, particularly with totally novel life forms, need to ask themselves "what could possibly go wrong," "what is the likelihood of that happening," "how can the risk be reduced or mitigated," and "should we go to the effort to reduce or mitigate the risk." In many cases, the risk is low, the consequences are minor, and/or the cost of mitigation or prevention is high and the logical choice is to accept the new technology and live with the acceptable risks.
In other cases, the risk is high, the consequences are dire, and/or the cost of mitigation or prevention is low and it makes sense to prevent or mitigate the risks.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Plus, let's face it -- there are articles where the tag is wonderfully appropriate as ironic snark, but this one isn't it. I mean, it's great for articles like this one about mass production of micro fission reactors or this one about the proposed future of military robots. Sometimes, it's funny when the very proposition of something going wrong is itself funny like with an article on a robot controlled by a monkey's brain.
However, dangers and recklessness involved in this project are next to nil. There's no irony and clever cynicism here. There's just the mindless misapplication of an overdone meme in a manner that makes Slashdot look like a bunch of technology fearing idiots. So yeah. While I don't think it's worth getting so worked up about, it is a stupidly applied tag and a failed attempt at humor.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
In other words, you are buying into to all the anti-science propaganda.
No, in other words he's being a rational open minded person who isn't treating science like a holy can't-do-no-wrong religion. The second you stop questioning the possible ramifications of any given advance, is the second you become an unthinking true believer.
Wouldn't it have been nice if someone way back would have stopped and asked "what could possibly go wrong" when they began exploiting crude oil? Or we could go down the list of medications that have been pulled off the market by the FDA because "what could possibly go wrong" wasn't a question seriously considered early on.
Few people here who tag it are even being serious in the first place, but in humor there is terrible truth and the terrible truth is, we have to be very careful how we proceed with new developments and technologies and it needs to be done with the recognition that they can and often have had unintended consequences. That's not anti-science or irrational, that's being a realist.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
Your reference to 'the moderators' as if they are some secret organisation with a nefarious agenda is clueless.
Well done, boy. Our secret is safe again. You will be rewarded by our leadership. B-)