Another revolution in genetics: Synthetic life created finally

[Ara]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-genome

It was a dream that began nearly 15 years ago, when Craig Venter, a Vietnam veteran turned geneticist, resolved one day to create a genome from scratch – and with it, make the first ever synthetic life form. Last night, in a dramatic announcement that led some to accuse him of playing God, Venter said the dream had come true, saying he had created an organism with manmade DNA.

The possibilities and impacts on this are still to be discovered.

[Crescent Seal]

And if the microbe were, somehow, to escape the tight security of Venter's lab? "It will not grow outside the lab unless it is deliberately injected or sprayed into a goat. And we don't work with goats."

[9 Kisses]

Cock the hammer

The feat, hailed as an epochal scientific breakthrough by some but an alarming development by others, was achieved by scientists at the J Craig Venter Insititute in Rockville, Maryland using little more than a computer, some common microbes, a DNA synthesizer and four bottles of chemicals.

So you mean to tell me I can make this shit in a dirty sink with a few bottles of God water and my laptop?

I can't wait to start blowing some heads off when it mutates into something cooler than goat cancer.

[paradise!]

and if the microbe were, somehow, to escape the tight security of venter's lab? "it will not grow outside the lab unless it is deliberately injected or sprayed into a goat. And we don't work with goats."

hahahahahahhah +1 +1 +1

[kthx]

It isn't really making new life, it is using current life and manipulating it. Making new life would be starting from something that wasn't a lifeform in the first place.

[Azada]

I think it is referring to "new" as a change or never before seen type of life form. Not "new" as in starting from scratch.

[kthx]

But we have seen it before...