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[ChairmanPoo]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703559004575256470152341984.html

[SHAD0Wdump]

For a moment I read: Vester creates first synthethic cell

[Siquo]

Awesome.

Take that, God! *middle finger* It took you billions of years!

[Pathos]

inb4 some sort of fanatic (political or religious) tries to shut the project down.

I don't really understand the concept of "you shouldn't play God" (off anyone who's not a Muslim, anyway) as Western religion claims that we were made in God's image. Surely the divine image goes beyond the physical into the potential of the concept of the creation of life.

For a moment I read: Vester creates first synthethic cell

My new avatar... Instilling a need to... Leer... Provocatively...

[LeoLeonardoIII]

That's nice that it's entirely synthetic, but something tells me we'll still benefit greatly from splicing bits and pieces like we have been doing, for a long long time. Just because the bits and pieces are already in the right configuration, so it saves a lot of time and effort.

But being able to piece things together bit by bit does give us the ability to actually "debug" the genetic coding process. Which is pretty fantastic.

Of course, they should be very careful otherwise they'll just do what the Atlanteans did, creating blue-green algae that kills every other living thing and putting us all back to square one evolution-wise. That's why they were banished to Europa from Middle-Earth in the first place! Meddlesome jerks!

[warhammer651]

interesting... Can I have one as a pet?

[LeoLeonardoIII]

If you pet it, your finger would crush it. Or you would miss, failing to pet it.

It didn't really say in the article if it could purr. And as it's single-celled, perhaps we can assume it has no fur.

There isn't much to recommend this thing.

[Jackrabbit]

It's funny, one of the critics of this was a woman I was listening to at a lecture on Wednesday. Just thought I'd share that.

This is cool, I like this. It has a lot of potential.

[warhammer651]

If you pet it, your finger would crush it. Or you would miss, failing to pet it.

It didn't really say in the article if it could purr. And as it's single-celled, perhaps we can assume it has no fur.

There isn't much to recommend this thing.

I get to play God with it with no moral consequences if it dies.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Well I fail to see why you couldn't do the same with a bunch of blue-green algae. I mean, unless your morality extends to bacteria, in which case OMG your white blood cells are committing a genocide in your body right now! Oh and how could you eat an innocent turnip! And so on.

[alway]

"To set this novel bacterium—and all its descendants—apart from any natural creation, Dr. Venter and his colleagues wrote their names into its chemical DNA code, along with three apt quotations from James Joyce and others. These genetic watermarks will, eventually, allow the researchers to assert ownership of the cells."
Hehe. http://dresdencodak.com/2009/07/12/fabulous-prizes/

[Cthulhu]

inb4 some sort of fanatic (political or religious) tries to shut the project down.

I don't really understand the concept of "you shouldn't play God" (off anyone who's not a Muslim, anyway) as Western religion claims that we were made in God's image. Surely the divine image goes beyond the physical into the potential of the concept of the creation of life.

For a moment I read: Vester creates first synthethic cell

My new avatar... Instilling a need to... Leer... Provocatively...

For all his trolling and girlfriend stuff, I love Pathos.

The company has a $600 million contract with Exxon Mobil Corp. to design algae that can capture carbon dioxide and make fuel.

 

Maybe they can get a contract with BP to make a cell that eats oil and secretes love.

[ChairmanPoo]

actually, that's one of the ideas that Craig Venter has been musing around for years. Well, the oil eating part.

[Euld]

Awesome.

Take that, God! *middle finger* It took you billions of years!

Or 24 hours, ish.  Unless you believe so strongly in evolution that you automatically read it into the Bible and see Darwin's face in your spaghetti.

Mmm spaghetti...

[Cthulhu]

I don't think it should be considered heretical or whatever the fundies are saying.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, can't appreciate an artisan's work if you can't understand it, and all that.