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Scientists Developed Artificial Structures That Can Self-Replicate
First time accepted submitter mphall21 writes "New York University scientists have developed artificial structures that can self-replicate, a process that has the potential to yield new types of materials. In the natural world, self-replication is ubiquitous in all living entities, but artificial self-replication has been elusive. The new discovery is the first steps toward a general process for self-replication of a wide variety of arbitrarily designed seeds."
Towards Grey goo.
Or big nations making mechanical viruses as weapons, and ultimately... those creations at risk of being turned against their creator through malfunction, hackers, or worse.
And no doubt it will be called (wait for it) Project Genesis.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
...they've created an artificial structure that can self-replicate. The bad news is that it's Ice-9.
If this thing self-replicates to resemble a Robert Patrick, we're all screwed.
...if you are allowed to have complex raw materials.
Fire self replicates. Fallen-down dominoes self-replicate. The line between "chain reaction" and "self replication" is very blurry.
i hope we have enough zpm's to power the shield before the replicators get here.
They took DNA, a natural structure that can replicate, and modified it without breking that property. I wouldn't call it artificial self-replication.
Look, it's a watch that self-assembles!
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
I see the first five responses were about science fiction scenarios in which nanomachines destroyed human life.
All that's really necessary to prevent the machines from getting out of control, however, is to design them with some chemical dependencies. If it needs gold or it can only incorporate carbon from certain uncommon molecules to grow then it can't get very far. Plus, natural selection will be true in part with any self-replicating thing. If they get out they'll have to struggle for resources just like any other form of life. There isn't any reason to automatically assume they'll be better at it simply because they're artificial.
There are even scenarios in which it might be nice to design nanomechanical organisms with the express purpose of setting them free; I'd sure like an organism that got along by fixing the carbon in carbon monoxide, the ozone in smog, and the nitrogen in nitrogen dioxide to replicate itself. It could make Los Angeles habitable again, and its reproduction would be limited to the rate at which we produce pollutants.
They're basically doing PCR-like reactions to clone DNA-like polymers. Same as DNA amplification has been done for years.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Until we scorch the skies and they find a new fuel to power themselves!
(Moral: Perhaps always a way that we don't think about something happening, happening)
Does General Hammond know about this?
There is nothing to FEAR but NOTHING itself; and I fear there is a whole lot of nothing going on. --scorpivs
"BTX's seed consists of a sequence of seven tiles -- a seven-letter word."
Bingo!
Wow, totally didn't see that coming :)
http://www.gibby.net.au
Welcome our Replicator overlords.
The Remote Self-Replicating Robot Explorer Probe. Be afraid.
That assumes your machines don't mutate, ala Jurassic Park.
I've also heard that the "grey goo" scenario is a bit overstated given that:
Organisms have already evolved optimal survival strategies over the millennia and if nanobots were made of organic material they would be "prey" to some of these.
- and -
The energy requirements for taking on such a task is unlikely to be satisfied in the current environment (especially if made of non organic materials)
Until the organism gets tired of smog and goes to the ozone layer. or the carbon monoxide eating one mutate to dioxide and the plants starve then when all suffocate. "but it would be limited by the amounts of pollutants we create"? no it would go after that small but very necessary amount needed. humans are notorious for screwing up there own environment because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
...Plus, natural selection will be true in part with any self-replicating thing. If they get out they'll have to struggle for resources just like any other form of life. There isn't any reason to automatically assume they'll be better at it simply because they're artificial.
You're absolutely right, except you're not taking into account the very mechanism that has allowed almost all current species to survive over the eons; mutation. And unless that is kept in check, then any new self-replicating "organism" will likely follow those same evolutionary lines. Chaos theorists will have a field day with this.
Personally, I'm a little more concerned at whatever targeted resource is identified to "feed" these...our planet isn't exactly thriving these days with options...perhaps we'll be smart about it and "feed" it human waste. We seem to be damn good at making a shitload of that.
DNA does NOT self-replicate, it's just a polymer.
It is (relatively) easy to use it as a template to make copies using PCR, and of course a variety of enzymes use it as a template to make copies. But it doesn't just "copy itself", no.
Professor Farnsworth: "Bad news, everyone! Look at this infinite series representing the mass of successive generations of Benders. It's nonconvergent!"
stock up on bullets
Moya?
Self replication of artifices (self repairs..) is what is going to be needed to long term voyages.
"The avalanche has already started. It's too late for the pebbles to vote." - Kosh
Self replication is masturbation. Now self destruction...
'Self-replication' has a very specific definition, including having a coded representation. I forget the list of very specific properties you need to be considered a 'replicator' but it's more than just 'an ongoing chemical or physical reaction'. Neither of the things you mentioned have all of the properties sufficient to be considered 'self-replication'
Alright, grey goo has the first comment, so how about evolution?
Just when I thought I couldn't get any lower as a bachelor...machines go and gain the ability to replicate - I can't even do that!
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
'Self-replication' has a very specific definition, including having a coded representation. I forget the list of very specific properties you need to be considered a 'replicator' but it's more than just 'an ongoing chemical or physical reaction'. Neither of the things you mentioned have all of the properties sufficient to be considered 'self-replication'
By that argument, is human reproduction "replication"?
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I'm very skeptical which this whole self replicating artificial DNA
Poor poor micheal Behe. Irrefutably refuted by construction of a mouse trap from itself.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This did not work out well on SG-1
They're rather benign on DS-9, except when they malfunction and your "tea, earl grey, hot" is replaced with its gotee'd evil twin.
Scientists have developed...
OK, I have something that's been bugging me for a while.
Scientists discover things. Engineers develop things. Frequently someone can do both, but they're two different processes.
There's this terrible societal misconception that "scientist" means someone who works with technology. It leads to the mistrust of scientists because they're perceived as some ivory tower loonies who're lording technology over the populace.
Scientists are people who apply the scientific method to acquire knowledge. I don't expect CNN to get it, but please, let's at least try to get it right here.
From the article:
DNA replication process involves complementary matches between bases -- adenine (A) pairs with thymine (T) and guanine (G) pairs with cytosine (C) -- to form its familiar double helix. By contrast, the NYU researchers developed an artificial tile or motif, called BTX (bent triple helix molecules containing three DNA double helices)
In order to achieve self-replication of the BTX tile arrays, a seed word is needed to catalyze multiple generations of identical arrays. BTX's seed consists of a sequence of seven tiles -- a seven-letter word. To bring about the self-replication process, the seed is placed in a chemical solution, where it assembles complementary tiles to form a "daughter BTX array" -- a complementary word. The daughter array is then separated from the seed by heating the solution to ~ 40 oC. The process is then repeated.
"While our replication method requires multiple chemical and thermal processing cycles,
I think Megahard above has it right, it sounds like they reproduced the well-known PCR chemistry on some fake DNA. I will admit having fake DNA itself is mildly interesting, but not exactly novel (folks like DIYBio do this at the hobbyist level - or at least buy made-to-order DNA sequences from labs - and I've seen hackerspace Bio'ers doing PCR literally in a kitchen sink). "Self-replicating" a DNA sequence via a PCR-like reaction is kind of like gluing a row of magnets to a board, dipping it into a bucket of more magnets and being surprised to find that your original magnets now have an exact copy of the N/S pole arrangement stuck to them. Self-replicating structure? Technically maybe, but not exactly the gray-goo scenario it's cracked up to be.)
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Make sure the machines have a lysine dependency (but cannot manufacture it themselves).
Also, just make them all female.
That should do it!
Until it mutates into something that's not so restricted, and if it then has huge food sources it can devour alone it'll spread like wildfire. On a much less sci-fi note, a true global pandemic is still one of those really scary scenarios despite all the hype. If it first spirals out of control and you have people fleeing everywhere breaking quarantine it could get really, really nasty.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You mean they will struggle like rabbits and foxes did in Australia when Europeans brought them there? Introducing new species into an existing ecosystem quite commonly screw things up, and then we are still talking about life forms that are rather similar to what is already there. I imagine that some sort of artificial life form, that the existing species have no "evolutionary experience" defending themselves against, could do a lot more harm.
Another artificial structure that can self-replicate:
while( fork() );
That will just make them want to fight for the rare material.
Is Slashdot finally admitting that their stories are hopelessly out of date by writing their headlines in the past tense?
The image reminds me of the Kabbalah Sephirot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot
Run-away replication has already happened over forty years ago when the Starship Enterprise was overrun with tribbles. All it takes is a great intellect like that of Capt. James T. Kirk to deal with the problem.
What's that? Star Trek was a work of fiction?
That's different.
Never mind.
----NR
Above post is relevant, and the opening clause is funny. This article != grey goo, but it does = another advancement in our genomic/biomechanical technology.
if nanobots were made of organic material
Malicious entities will make sure that is not the case. I know I'd see fit to eliminate that aspect of any weapon.
Remember though, there is no animal on earth that is superior to a simple rifle. We're quite capable of building a bionuke, intelligence goes to places evolution never would or perhaps could.
There we go, now it's a real /. comment.
Also: Did you just cite Jurassic Park?
Nonsense. Evolution excels at finding local optima, but there is nothing in evolution that suggests it will find global optima. With regards to energy requirements, consider for a moment that plants are green and not black. That means, they are not converting the green spectrum into energy at all. Which means, that an artificial plant, which absorbed all natural solar produced light spectrums (sp) would have more energy to work with than a natural plant does, which means it could definitely out compete the natural specimen.
Grey Goo may be an exaggerated scenario, but I find it far more compelling of an argument than the supervirus or nuclear winter types of fears that prevail in the mainstream.
It's going to be so hard to build machines without some chemical dependencies, that having them get out of control really won't be a problem. Nature has been trying to do that for millions of years and molds and bacteria do quite well but all exist pretty much only in a specific environment for whatever type they are. I doubt if we will ever be able to build a robust self replicating machine that will do any better, and I'd bet that when we do build one, it will look a lot like what nature has developed already.
Ok, put a rifle and a panther in a cage together and see who wins. Better yet, put a human sans tools and a panther in the wilderness and see who wins. Spoilers: the panther wins. The point is that it takes a social support network of dozens if not hundreds of people and their accumulated knowledge to produce one rifle and only one large cat to rip your face off. Without our society and thousands of years of accumulated knowledge we're just another bag of meat.
Once we start mucking around on nature's home turf, we're seriously outmatched. Consider that we're just learning to put bits together that can reproduce their own instructions, never mind an entire cell. Prokaryotic life has been at it for 3.5 billion years and has produced organisms that will happily munch on both organic and inorganic compounds. The variety of species or OTU (operation taxonomic units) of prokaryotes is so astronomically large that many microbiologists would conclude that given our current methodologies for culturing them and sequencing their genomes it is not currently possible to say how many in total they may be . Some estimates of the number of OTUs in sampled soil have ranged anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 or up to 500,000 [1]. The sheer mass of prokaryotic life has been estimated to be as high as 5.46 x 10^14 Kg [2].
In short, whatever we think we might be capable of doing in the near future chances are that life has already accomplished it millions of years ago. So if you're looking for bionukes you don't have to go any further than your back garden.
The original article states....
"While our replication method requires multiple chemical and thermal processing cycles, we have demonstrated that it is possible to replicate not just molecules like cellular DNA or RNA, but discrete structures that could in principle assume many different shapes, have many different functional features, and be associated with many different types of chemical species," added Nadrian Seeman, a professor in NYU's Department of Chemistry and a co-author of the study.
Yes... make them as powerful you can for that one PhD thesis or one grant you want to show off oh-so-much... and then wait and watch until some dumbass makes that wrong move at the right time... Hey Oppenheimer never wanted to kill...
The original article states.... "While our replication method requires multiple chemical and thermal processing cycles, we have demonstrated that it is possible to replicate not just molecules like cellular DNA or RNA, but discrete structures that could in principle assume many different shapes, have many different functional features, and be associated with many different types of chemical species," added Nadrian Seeman, a professor in NYU's Department of Chemistry and a co-author of the study. Yes... make them as powerful you can for that one PhD thesis or one grant you want to show off oh-so-much... and then wait and watch until some dumbass makes that wrong move at the right time... Hey Oppenheimer never wanted to kill...
Ok, now put a panther in a cage with an automated defense turret that targets body heat and see who wins.
I would like to be the first to welcome our self replicating overlords!
And what happens when they (meaning 'well' intentioned corporations) put the self replicating matter at the control of IBM's new 'cognitive' computing systems?
I see many bad things happening in the latter half of this century.
That actually depends on the rifle and the animal. I'm pretty sure a simple .32 wouldn't bring down a full grown bull elephant... or, for that matter, even an octopus. And I'd still be interested in seeing the rifle that can take out a large ant colony.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Oh no, they have created the Seed.
Quick, call Protocol Enforcement.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.