Posted Aug 20, 2007 at 10:56AM by Mabie A. Listed in: Biomedical Technology, Biology Tags: Italy, DNA
Ó

artificial life - Image 1And so mankind forges on ahead with playing God. Even with stem cell research yet to gain acceptance from various sectors of society, here comes yet another surefire controversial scientific conquest: artificial life. It has been approximated by experts that in three to ten years' time, "wet artificial life" would have been made possible.

But before you go raising that moral eyebrow, scientists are quick to point out that this would ultimately benefit man (who else) especially in finding potential solutions for all those problems hounding us, be it environmental (ie. containing greenhouse gases, getting rid of toxic waste) or conquering fatal diseases. However, it is to be expected that there will be major hurdles to overcome before the endeavor can prove to be a success:

  • A container, or membrane, for the cell to keep bad molecules out, allow good ones, and the ability to multiply.
  • A genetic system that controls the functions of the cell, enabling it to reproduce and mutate in response to environmental changes.
  • A metabolism that extracts raw materials from the environment as food and then changes it into energy.
Says Mark Bedau, Protolife of Venice, Italy's CEO, "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways -- in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict." Synthetic lifeforms would have to be made from the basic DNA chemicals. "Creating protocells has the potential to shed new life on our place in the universe. This will remove one of the fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role."

Things are still quite vague on the matter, and a lot of questions are only starting to form about it. But we are betting that this will spark another intriguing debate that could very well just outlast as all into the centuries and beyond.


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6 Comments


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   by 1 poster (Unregistered) - 2007-08-20
 » People

People are idiots how can you try to play the lord your only gonna bring horrible things 2 yourself

   by Dr. Moreau (Unregistered) - 2007-08-20
 » this is not artificial life

and its not "created"

this is mutations at dna level in order to give abilities and change the behavior of some organisms

the problem is that we are not prepared for playing with this things(we already have a lot of problems with natural diseases with similar behavior), if they make something wrong we will end with a new virus or a new organism so powerfull and so resistant that will kill humanity or at least a lot of people and we all know that the US Army, Rusia and China will try to make biological weapons with this

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   by Dr.Kissmyass (Unregistered) - 2007-08-20
 » this is not artificial life

yep, i know its not.

Remember Sweden will try make biological weapons out of it too!!!

   by PS3Rider (Unregistered) - 2007-08-21
 » ...

HAS NONE OF THESE SCIENTISTS SEEN THE MOVIE 'EVOLUTION'! THERE MAD I TELL YOU.... MAD!

   by .. (Unregistered) - 2007-08-22
 » jon

your all just a bunch of conservatives. You only live once and there is a chance that this may make it so you can live much longer. Anything that has a potential reward is going to be risky, greater reward means greater risk. So what if they ***** up and exterminate humanity, then were all dead and we wont be able to complain. But what if they succeed and create organisms that create vaccines for every disease and problem known to man?

Evolution was a movie btw, and in RL the evolved organisms are made to help us, but then in about 10-30 years they are converted to mind eating zombies and we all die. But in the beginning they were awsome, so its alright, lol

   by lol (Unregistered) - 2007-08-24
 » well...

grey goo just jumped to the top of the list of most probable ways the world's going to end



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