fake life

[bopes]

Aren't these (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/24/AR2008012402203.html?hpid=sec-health) guys just a tad bit behind the times? I mean, the world is already full of people who are artificial. Compared to that, fake microbes are small potatoes.

Scientists in Maryland yesterday said they had built from scratch an entire microbial chromosome, a loop of synthetic DNA carrying all the instructions that a simple cell needs to live and reproduce.

The feat marks the first time that anyone has made such a large strand of hereditary material from off-the-shelf chemical ingredients. Previous efforts had yielded DNA strands less than one-twentieth the size, and those pieces lacked many of the key biological programs that tell a cell how to stay alive.

On the basis of earlier experiments, the researchers believe the new, full-length loop would spontaneously "boot up" inside a cell, just as a downloaded operating system can awaken a computer -- a potentially historic event that would amount to the creation of the first truly artificial life form.

[craazyman]

shit my laptop was just in the shop for 4 days because it couldn't spontaneously boot up, even with an operating system installed.

I'll bet if they assemble this thing, it just sits there like a dead worm. And then if they give it a few shocks from the wall socket it'll jump around for a second and that will be it.

But they'll probly get $50 million in venture capital money in the meantime to keep the lab in business and by a Porsche or two for the chief scientist. Ha ha.

[Isaiah Mpski]

He can probably buy his own Porsche.
In acedemic medicine-and there are 100's of such institutions and the like around-salaries run from 50 K per day down to a measley quarter mil per year.:skeptic:

[bopes]

. . . I'll bet if they assemble this thing, it just sits there like a dead worm. And then if they give it a few shocks from the wall socket it'll jump around for a second and that will be it. . . .

Even if they do get it to "boot up" it's still a matter of debate whether such a thing counts as "life" given that viral replication must occur through a host. Guess it depends on one's perspective.

[mdoss2202]

yeah i've been reading all sorts of this stuff for my biology class. it's to the point already where we can genetically engineer our children too. i.e. being 5'6", i can engineer my son to be 6'6" and give him a specific hair color if i wanted to. kinda scary if you ask me. i'm not sure why we need to create artificial life in the first place...?