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World-First Working Eukaryotic Cell Made From Plastic
Zothecula writes "Previously, chemists have managed to create artificial cell walls and developed synthetic DNA to produce self-replicating, synthetic bacterial cells. Now, for the first time, researchers have used polymers to produce an artificial eukaryotic cell capable of undertaking multiple chemical reactions through working organelles."
What scientist could resist? I picture one in the lab, cackling wildly, "It's alive. IT'S ALIVE!"
Without their creation being able to replicate, it is essentially not a cell. All they've done now is having made a compartmentalized catalyst.
I hope not, given that it's written at a 6th grade level and it's only two sentences. But hey, if you're a 5th grader that's probably pretty good!
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Again, the press release is misleading. Worse, it fires back on the real and great accomplishment by suggesting it is something that it is not.
The scientists managed to squeeze key enzymes into different minuscule compartments of a cell-like structure. That in itself is fascinating and a great achievement; but that doesn't make an eukaryotic cell. It does not replicate; it does not synthesize the lipid-like structures; it lacks a cytoskeleton and a complex organization; the reactions going on are few and very simple. It is as much an eukaryotic cell as a neural net algorithm is a working brain.
However, it has working enzymes within little bubbles within other bubbles, which can be called "compartmentalization", a feature of eukaryotic cells that distinguish them from bacterial cells.
Nonetheless, this is a considerable achievment that has both a practical side and is a working model with potential to make in vitro experiments helping to understand the processes that go on in the real cells.
I'm a third grader, you insensitive clod!
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
"Every living thing contains DNA."
That we know of.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Thats nothing. we've created an entire marine organism made of plastic. we track its age (it was born in 1988) and migratory habits throughout the seasons. we also monitor its feeding patterns and chart its growth too. remarkably enough it has almost no known predator, but seems enirely peaceful.
it might not really be alive but...i want to believe.
Good people go to bed earlier.
> breed uncontrollably
Oh wait. You are an engineer. Never mind.
I think some things have RNA instead of DNA. And some things that are non-living have DNA, like viruses (or viri? whatever).
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Actually, modding it informative would have been funnier than modding it funny
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Fun fact: there is no clear definition of life that anyone can come up with. It's like Justice Potter's quote on porn: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it..."
There are definitely RNA based viruses. It's debatable whether they qualify as "alive." Self-replicating RNA mollecules likely preceeded any DNA based life, whether you'd want to consider RNA replicating "life" is up to you.
Personally I'd agree that RNA based viruses are living.
Mules can't reproduce*, yet are still clearly living. Meanwhile fire can reproduce but is clearly not living. That suggests that "able to reproduce" is not a strict requirement.
(* Well okay, there have been some extremely rare instances of mules reproducing, but as a general rule they're infertile)