Slashdot Mirror
Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life
Aditya Malik writes "Wired has an interesting story up about how a lab led by Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School, is building 'protocells' from artificial molecules which are very close to satisfying the conditions for being 'alive.' 'Szostak's protocells are built from fatty molecules that can trap bits of nucleic acids that contain the source code for replication. Combined with a process that harnesses external energy from the sun or chemical reactions, they could form a self-replicating, evolving system that satisfies the conditions of life, but isn't anything like life on earth now, but might represent life as it began or could exist elsewhere in the universe.' This obviously raises some questions about creationism, not to mention some scary bio-research-gone-wild scenarios."
Why? You don't imagine that something as fragile and immature as this could actually compete outside the lab do you?
Hell, take an existing microbe and remove the genes that regulate its pH level and it will kill itself in a few generations.
It wasn't you who sent the death threats to the LHC physicists was it?
How we know is more important than what we know.
That seems slightly ironic in this particular case, simply because these protocells were "created" by this Jack fellow. I don't believe in Jack.
He tried to create a phallic looking creature.
Similes are like metaphors
Since the scientist did the (almost) creating here, what questions would this raise? Now if the (almost) alive protocells had popped into existence by random chance and from a void of nothingness, that would raise some uncomfortable questions.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
This reminds me of a joke:
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this, let's say we have a man making contest." To which the scientist replied, "OK, great!"
But God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"
Why does this raise any questions about creationism? To the best of my knowledge, there are essentially no creationists who argue that life was created by humans or any other intelligent organisms(unless they are squirming around on the stand, trying to avoid the establishment clause). And nothing in any current evolutionary hypothesis precludes artificially constructed organisms any more than they preclude artificially constructed computers and hammers. The fact that we can, almost, produce simple organism analogs doesn't mean anything one way or the other, though I suspect that it will be a very convenient mechanism for exploring the capabilities of (relatively) low complexity structures, and will provide the opportunity to do evolutionary experiments from well defined baselines.
As for the bioresearch gone wild scenarios: all advances in knowledge create the potential for trouble; but I suspect that it will be quite some time before any synthetic organism becomes much of a threat. The world outside is an incredible hostile place, crawling with microbes that have been slitting each others' throats in innumerable horrid ways for millennia. The interaction will be something like this:
[Synthetic wimp organism]:"Hi, I'm synthetic."
[Hardbitten wild bacterium]:"I fucking killed my own family over a nanogram of glucose."
[SWO]:*gulp*
[HWB]:"Hey, look, one of the thousands of antibiotic compounds secreted by fungi as part of the brutal chemical war of all against all."
[SWO]:*Dies horribly*
Recall that bacteria have had around 4 billion years to turn Earth into a nanopocalyptic wasteland. Sure, they're everywhere, but they aren't dismantling everything else for parts. If this were a real risk, it would already have happened.
All organisms self replicate. Just because something is lab-made doesn't mean it would magically not be subject to evolutionary forces.
Having not been made by natural evolutionary forces, it's unlikely they would be fit to survive in any natural environment. These things have not been instilled with any defenses against things looking to eat them including bacteria. Didn't read the article, but I would guess they aren't capable of digesting molecules, they probably have to be presented with ready to go "nutrients" to replicate, move or do anything. You don't find that anywhere in the real world, in fact, as I recall you don't even find that in your bloodstream. ATP is what your molecules use for power, but you only get that once your cells import glucose and your mitochondria turn it into ATP.
In other words, they have absolutely no way to eat anything they would need to survive.
In evolutionary biology, a major cause of extinction, at least in theory, is called "changing rules." If you're an organism doing well, you're highly adapted to your environment and proliferate. Think of the dinosaurs, they ruled the earth, bigger was better. Mammals were barely hanging on for dear life, small, furry, warm blooded, nocturnal didn't make sense at the time. If the rules suddenly change though through environmental shift, you might not be fit for the new environment. The asteroid hits, an ice age happens, and suddenly cold-blooded huge lizards can't cut it and massively go extinct. The only reason reptiles remain today is that there was significant variation in that clade that allowed some of them to survive in the new game.
These artificial bugs are barely managing to survive in an environment tailored to them, they can't replicate on their own. They also appear to have no variation. If they get out of their environment, they have no chance of survival. It's precisely because they're subject to evolutionary forces that they have no chance.
Oh dear. It's a fat lipid with some RNA in it, not a magic eight ball. It's trivial to see exactly what would happen if this stuff was released into the environment: extinction, and likely in seconds. To work on this stuff they have to build huge clean rooms for precisely this reason.
My grasp of physics is much better than my limited knowledge of biology.
And yet you feel the need to open your mouth and proclaim doom.
How we know is more important than what we know.
There is strong evidence that dinosaurs were in fact warm blooded and were not reptiles. Many actually lived in colder climates in the northern regions of the globe.
The information wants to be free, I just give it somewhere to go.
Male and female humans can rarely interact successfully (or at least satisfactorily).
Oh boy, are you doing it wrong!
Speaking of self replicating, I had sex last night with a supermodel (almost). Well, I guess that depends on what is meant by almost. Also, the definition of supermodel might be relevant here 8^)
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Ok here is some more evidence
Bone structure and histology
Growth rates
Predator/prey ratios
Speed and agility
Rate of evolution
Similarities with birds
Parental Care
Bone Isotope Composition
Insulation
Arctic Faunas
Should I go on? There is a ton of evidence for each of these items that indicate that dinosaurs were warm blooded. There speed, growth rates and similarities with birds to the most obvious one.
The information wants to be free, I just give it somewhere to go.
Strong evidence? Jurassic Park doesn't count as evidence.
The 'problem', if one may state it as such, is in your presentation of the options...
A. the universe always existed
B. it was created by something/someone.
That's really three options...
A. the universe always existed
B. it popped into existence due to something, we don't know what - we may never find out
C. it was created by someone, and we call that someone God.
B and C are distinctly different; just because I have no explanation of what caused the Big Bang, doesn't mean 'God did it'. Even if scientists told me right now that it's impossible to find out what caused the Big Bang (which is very likely), it doesn't mean 'God did it'. 'God did it' isn't an answer to a question - it is a belief. I have no problems with beliefs (Hello, I'm an agnostic), but too often the 'God did it'-approach is used as a substitute for actual answers.
Back on-topic... you don't ultimately need one or the other having to always have existed. Keep in mind that the prevailing idea is that 'before the universe existed' is a problematic sentence as there is no 'before the universe existed'.. time, if you will, did not exist until the universe began.
"Having not been made by natural evolutionary forces..."
A dude in a lab is just as much a force of evolution and nature as a comet fueling a primorial soup or whatever you think triggered life on Earth. You don't GET to go outside the system. There is no unnatural .
When the researcher adds the next improvement to these globs of goo that allows them to survive better they will have evolved inside the system of nature which includes the petri dish they may someday live in.
And if it comes to pass that one day they evolve into a symbiotic arm for amputees or a blob that eats chicago, that will be natural as well.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
Well, there goes about 99% of all the scientific "research" I have done in my life...
Since when were high school students 'free thinking'? At least the ones reading wikipedia are actively searching out information rather than only learning it because they have to. Yeah, I just watched Good Will Hunting for the first time last week ;) While the story is pretty exaggerated it has some truth. I didn't learn anything at university that I didn't already know, or couldn't have just learned by reading a textbook. Seriously. I was in fact much more interested in learning before I went to university, but part of that was just personal circumstances. I spent a lot of time during high school doing coding in my spare time, but since I had to start doing it for coursework/my job I just want to relax in my spare time..
If by a wikipedia whore you mean someone who will only have a cursory glance at the subject and not look into it in any further detail, then I agree though.
For something as nebulous as the definition of 'life' though, you could start in worse places than wikipedia for seeing a few different opinions. I'm seeing a lot of yahoo question and answer sessions whenever I google for info these days, and some of the answers are atrociously wrong, though presented in such a way as to try and sound like the person knows what they're talking about.
which is totally what she said
vote it into office?