Synthetic DNA put into cell....
 

OMFG this is so awesome!!! GO science!!

This could be all sorts of awesome or all sorts of crazy bad.. prolly mostly awesome though.

Scientists made some synthetic DNA and put it into an empty cell.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=127010591

:D I'm even more excited about this, than I was when they mapped the Neandrethal genome!!!

I dont think the world needs humanity creating new organisms. Just look how we've messed everything up with everything else we've made, imagine what a self replicating human made organism could do to mess things up.

I was reading about how one of the synthetic self-replicating organisms they're trying to create is a little "bacteria-like" being that would eat oil slicks in the ocean and then die out after a limited life cycle. Sounds pretty sensible to me.

Oh, and I take issue with the statement "Just look how we've messed everything up with everything else we've made" How have artificial hearts harmed the world? The Polio vaccine? Yo-yo's? Broadway plays? Poetry? Windmills? Table Tennis? Beer? And I could go on and on and on ...

You my friend, need to not let the very real negative things that man has done obscure your vision of the good things man has done ... and the wondrous.

Here's a completely different science fact to make you happy. When the Apollo missions were landing on the moon, they left a mirror on the surface. They now can measure the distance between the Earth and the Moon to a degree of accuracy they could not achieve before ... by bouncing a light off of that mirror and measuring how long it takes to come back to Earth. And that is how we now know that the Moon is moving 1.5 inches away from the Earth each year!

Sorry I should have worded that better:
Just look at all the other things we've messed up.

DNA is one of the most complex things known to man, and we are still having trouble mastering simpler things. Imagine if that oil slick consuming bacteria is botched in some way and instead of stopping at oil in the oceans it continues onto all the other oil it can gain access to, I'm not sure exactly how that bacteria would work but it is possible. It took years to develop the bacteria used to produce somthing as simple as insullin.

Look at all the problems that arose when we discovered radioactivity and jumped all over it, we ended up with a bunch of people having to be burried in lead caskets, and a radioactive cookbook.

Sour puss! :p

yeah, all humans ever do is mess things up, what with their art, culture, philosophy, and medicine.

Fuck humanity, I'm going to become a canine and fight another one of my species to the death over a food bowl.

I think the apparent value of humanity depends on the breadth of one's lens. Personally, I'm inclined to do as you're doing and judge humanity on human terms, in which case our myriad failings are easily compensated by Cicero, Sophocles and George Eliot. In terms of our impact on the overall health and future of planet Earth, though, we're absolute shit and pale to dogs.
Not to suggest that I agree with Renatus, only that a worldview wherein our species doesn't come out on top isn't completely baseless and absurd.

Please read my second post.

I did. I think you've watched too many bad sci-fi movies.

Nah just alot of PBS. The radioactive cookbook for example is a reference to Marie Curie's cookbook that too this day is highly radioactive. The lead lined coffins are reference to a number of products that were released trying to sell the "miracles" of radioactivity, including radioactive medicine, and home appliances that turned some people so radioactive they really needed lead lined coffines. As for the Bacteria used for producing insullin, that is somthing we were taught in biology class about DNA splicing.

Yeah but synthetic insulin has been manufactured for quite some time now, but the first bacteria genome was mapped in 1995, and the human genome in 2008. Genetics has progressed by leaps and bounds since bacteria producing insulin, they had no where near the same technology and knowledge as we do now.

Basically, don't let misanthropy turn you into a Luddite. Technology is pretty nifty.

Yeah, technology is pretty nifty (says most of us using these interwebs!)

That's why the average human life span worldwide has gone from about 20 years old in the Neolithic age to 67.2 years old in 2010.

While one should be mindful of the negatives, the positives far outweigh them.

There's also so much we don't know still. What we know about the universe is a fraction of a fraction. So wouldn't it be for the best to get to know what's closest to us before we can begin to understand more?

And science is AWESOME!!

if its gonna make my life easier. then go for it.

". The idea is to use the four chemical constituents of DNA — named A, T, C and G — to put together a synthetic genome. " website

I guess it would kill them to list the whole names adenine, thymine, cytozine and guanine, however I guess they assume we all took biology.


So aside eugenics having a more then awesome start with this, and prototypical xenobiology having an oppertunity to give us what MIGHT be out there. I think this is epic and await the epistemological hedonists to start their usual shitstorm and begin outward acting on their terrorist ways.

Could you translate that last post into English?

What does this have to do with a human breeding program? Eugenics is a retarded idea put forth by dumb-ass ignorant religious victorians... and carried on far to long, much to the detriment of many innocent people both in the United States and Europe.

Arguably the father of genetics, Gregor Mendel whom single handedly brough eugenics and genetics altogether into light we also have more kinds of peas because of him :D, and with his principles we have super yummy corn and peas to munch on, so I dun complain. :3

Eugenics isnt just a selective breeding program but also a refinement process, if you will the creation of a biological being means its a matter of discoveries before we can recreate a human being. a neosapian [lawl exosquad] if you will, and likely it will be given traits that would have been cultivated from specimens, with this idea in culling and creating a selective breed, this is eugenics, as far as translating the prototypical xenobiology, we can make new creatures and possibly even harness them for new purposes, imagin living vehicles and ships...relying on only a ganglia for its firmware rather then risk torturing a thinking being...I'm a sick dreamer but the idea that we are making creatures is appealing to me, even if its just a moneran.

this brings the song Plastic world from Colony 5 I qoute;
"Next chapter -- design your own child
All you need is fantasy
Inspiration is all around, in every magazine
We have the means
It's our specialty, actually

Don't compensate -- imitate
Don't compensate -- operate

A Plastic World
Everyone wants a model look-alike
A Plastic World
No one cares how you look inside

First step -- immorality
Next step -- immortality"

Maybe we are one step closer to this world envisioned? ell I'm waiting for cyberization to kick in. Sign me up for that shit!

Please dont pin Eugenics on Christianity, when Eugenics is clearly against Christianity.

I'll leave this right here...

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


*coughs*

Gregor Johann Mendel (July 20, 1822[1] – January 6, 1884) was an Augustinian priest and scientist, who gained posthumous fame as the figurehead of the new science of genetics for his study of the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants. Mendel showed that the inheritance of these traits follows particular laws, which were later named after him. The significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century. The independent rediscovery of these laws formed the foundation of the modern science of genetics.

Genetics is eugenics without it being applied towards human beings.... arguably this same principle is why we have several species of cats and dogs...

*coughs* Ashera cat, cocker spaniel, anthrax*coughs* We've been breeding selectively and creating a species, just suprisingly its not been done with humans or at least the idea to the worlds knowledge hasnt been pushed into practice since the easly 1940s...

If you insist on me being specific about the implied fact that ape and I were speaking of humans, well I dont know what else to say I already said it all.