Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life
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.
Szostak’s protocells are built from fatty molecules that can trap bits of nucleic acids that contain the source code for replication. Combined with a process that harnesses external energy from the sun or chemical reactions, they could form a self-replicating, evolving system that satisfies the conditions of life, but isn’t anything like life on earth now, but might represent life as it began or could exist elsewhere in the universe.
While his latest work remains unpublished, Szostak described preliminary new success in getting protocells with genetic information inside them to replicate at the XV International Conference on the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.
“We’ve made more progress on how the membrane of a protocell could grow and divide,” Szostak said in a phone interview. “What we can do now is copy a limited set of simple [genetic] sequences, but we need to be able to copy arbitrary sequences so that sequences could evolve that do something useful.”
These membranes, with the right mix of chemicals, can allow nucleic acids in under some conditions and keep them trapped inside in others.
That opens the possibility that one day, in the distant past, an RNA-like molecule wandered into a fatty acid and started replicating. That random event, through billions of evolutionary iterations, researchers believe, created life as we know it.
#31 – pedro,
#3 you do know that guano is a very expensive comodity. [sic]
Oh please. Next you’ll claim that the Bible is the number one best seller in all of history … oh wait …
Perhaps popularity does not indicate real value. However, at least bat shit makes plants grow. That means it really does add value.
#12
> we are tampering in God’s domain.
If your deity is omniscient, then is it not the case that it knew and expected that we’d “tamper” in its domain? If it is omnipotent, why would it care?
#34 – pedro,
I agree that bat guano is a marketable commodity with value as a fertilizer, thus making it infinitely more valuable than the bible, yes.
#9 – Booboo
“And that is one of my main complaints about the religious frame of mind. Anyone who disagrees and wants to think differently is seen as persecuting you.“.
I’ve heard exactly the same thing from adherents of Atheism. “You damn religious guys, you disagree with us acolytes of Atheism and you want to think differently. Persecuting bastard!!”
There are zealots and extremists in pews on both sides of the aisle, m’hijito. And a proselytizing Atheist zealot is not any more pleasant than a Bible-thumping deist zealot.
#37–Mustard==another complaint of mine about religionist is they just make shit up.
Like you just did. Non-religious folks never talk about being persecuted–unless they are gay and or trying to get an abortion, the only complaint I hear is the non-religious just want to be left alone and/or not have public money spent to encourage religious stupidity.
I suppose when you make up a god, making up facts is no stretch.
I don’t recall a single claim of persecution on this blog from non-religious, but many such claims from the religious. Going outside this blog reveals the same state of affairs.
Please provide any support for your position and in its absence, recognize you make shit up rather than admit to simple truths.
Live long and prosper.
#38 – Booboo
>>I don’t recall a single claim of persecution
>>on this blog from non-religious, but many such
>>claims from the religious.
I recall several. You and Scottie come immediately to mind.
And the lack of claims of “persecution” on this blog may stem from the fact that the majority of posters here are Godless f*cks, so they don’t heckle one another about that.
>>Going outside this blog reveals the same
>>state of affairs.
Tell that to the families of the millions and millions of people killed by some of the more infamous Atheists in history.
Oh, wait. You can’t claim anything, once you’re dead. I guess you win there!!
#39 – Mister Mustard,
#38 – Booboo
>>I don’t recall a single claim of persecution
>>on this blog from non-religious, but many such
>>claims from the religious.
I recall several. You and Scottie come immediately to mind.
No denial from me there. I have felt persecution. I do have no representation in our government. I am forced to endure the godvertisement on my money.
As for the murderous atheists, yes there have been some. However, the killing is typically in the name of an ideology, not the lack of one. Communism is the most common banner under which atheists have committed atrocities. The deaths were far more in the name of communism than atheism, or in Stalin’s case, probably plain simple extreme paranoia.
This is proof, that not only is there no God, we are becoming gods, and we were created by advanced human beings from another planet who did the same thing with our civilization. Ancient Astronaut theory at its best.