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Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life

 
 
Reply Wed 10 Sep, 2008 11:37 am
Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life



Quote:
A team of biologists and chemists is closing in on bringing non-living matter to life.

It's not as Frankensteinian as it sounds. Instead, a lab led by Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School, is building simple cell models that can almost be called life.

While his latest work remains unpublished, Szostak described preliminary new success in getting protocells with genetic information inside them to replicate at the XV International Conference on the Origin of Life in Florence, Italy, last week. The replication isn't wholly autonomous, so it's not quite artificial life yet, but it is as close as anyone has ever come to turning chemicals into biological organisms.
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Type: Discussion • Score: 5 • Views: 2,184 • Replies: 6
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McGentrix
 
  2  
Reply Wed 10 Sep, 2008 11:52 am
@Robert Gentel,
in 4.5 billion years when this new life rules the Earth, I wonder if they will believe in Intelligent Design?

(This is a joke and I do not support ID.)

(I hate that I have to make disclaimers like this to rule out rebukes.)
Bi-Polar Bear
 
  2  
Reply Wed 10 Sep, 2008 12:11 pm
@McGentrix,
several years ago I was stung repeatedly by a mess of yellow jackets and, seeking revenge, found their underground nest and one morning poured gasoline down it and set it to burn.

I told squinney that years from now when insects made pilgrimage here to worship they would remember this as the day God destroyed the world.
OmSigDAVID
 
  2  
Reply Wed 10 Sep, 2008 01:37 pm
@Bi-Polar Bear,
Quote:
Re: McGentrix (Post 3396653)
several years ago I was stung repeatedly by a mess of yellow jackets and,
seeking revenge, found their underground nest and one morning poured
gasoline down it and set it to burn.

I told squinney that years from now when insects made pilgrimage here
to worship they would remember this as the day God destroyed the world.

I 've heard of bees doing that to Bears who raid their hives for the honey.



I have the OPPOSITE:

Years ago, I had a big, beautiful Golden Retriever dog, named Mike.
He spent most of his life comfortably indoors, but I had some large size water dishes
out on the patio for him. There came a time that I deemed my patio cluttered
with too many dog water dishes strewn around,
so I emptied one of them and stored it on a structure for sheltering garbage cans.

Several years thereafter, I chanced to stroll near the disused dish,
and, looking downward, I saw that leaves from my maple trees had fallen in,
and that a thriving ecosystem was flourishing below accumulated rain water;
all kinds of little fellows frolicking around in there.

It occurred to me, that if thay had a Creation myth,
it woud be of me carrying Mike 's dish over to the garbage can storage shed.
If their society had a Space Program, it woud be to get out of the dish.
Maybe, during moments of silent contemplation, some of them looked up
into their sky and poured out their innermost thoughts and desires,
hoping that I was up above, benevolently looking down upon their world.
Perhaps there was debate among members of that aquatic community
within which citizens who believed in My existence were subjected to scorn,
by the more materialistic among them, because none of them had actually seen Me.
When I was looking down into their little society, if any of them had tried to crucify Me,
I woud not have let him get away with it.

Maybe I shoud have given them the One Commandment:
Thou shalt use fonetic spelling.
dlowan
 
  2  
Reply Wed 10 Sep, 2008 04:29 pm
@OmSigDAVID,
Good grief!

OmSig's been human (and FUNNY) again!!!
Steve 41oo
 
  2  
Reply Fri 12 Sep, 2008 03:08 am
@dlowan,
I doubt he wrote it.
OmSigDAVID
 
  1  
Reply Sat 13 Sep, 2008 02:01 am
@Steve 41oo,
Right, STEVE wrote about my dog 's water dish.
0 Replies
 
 

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