God looks like this

[XavierD]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...etic-life-form

is this tech talk? or what?

[ectreeskier11]

venter's a badass.

[Beyond]

Let's hope nobody else gets into god's kitchen.

[Rasputin]

Maybe this will lead to the end by 12/20/2012.

[Bandit Man]

Interesting. Is this that moment in the movie "Legend" when they had the cure for cancer and then it became the Zombie Apocalypse?

[rabbit]

Is this the biological equivalent of Skynet goint sentient?

[Pillsbury]

Let's hope nobody else gets into god's kitchen.

who is this god you speak of and where is the kitchen?

[OSECS]

who is this god you speak of and where is the kitchen?

You're in it brother !

[DeathVan]

He created the "Synthoid", let's hope he creates a lot more, I'd take one, maybe two

[Mofro261]

Not god. He has more money than god. Synthesizing 1M bp's isn't cheap.

[rabbit]

He created the "Synthoid", let's hope he creates a lot more, I'd take one, maybe two

Yes, please.

[squirrelmurphy]

[murph]

venter's a badass.

No doubt. Hopefully he can figure out this algae biodiesel thing.

[10% Groomed]

So.....the article says he creates synthetic life......but I don't see where he creates life. It sounds more like a controlled mutation to me. They start with a cell and replace the DNA in the cell.

Fascinating stuff, but is it really much different than breeding dogs? Pick certain traits (DNA) that you want, and introduce it into a new cell by breeding two dogs.

I don't know. Maybe I'm missing something.

PS. I'm a little leery of "taking chromosomes out of yeast and moving them into bacteria." Forgive me for being skeptical of humanity's ability to manage this in an ethical manner. We can't even handle managing the stock market without greed setting in.

[murph]

The DNA used was entirely synthesized in a lab. So they didn't make the cell, but now it is run off synthesized DNA (no mutation, no macro scale selection, no breeding). At least that's how I read it.

[stuckathuntermtn]

When do I get a talking dog?

[Horu]

^do you really want your dog to be able to talk? think about that....

[galileo]

...Forgive me for being skeptical of humanity's ability to manage this in an ethical manner...

Even if humanity could uphold such ethics, humanity lacks both the competence to manage this as well as the competence to undo the consequences of a failure.

Failure is inevitable. It's not a question of "if", it's merely a question of "when" and "how severe".

I kind of like Earth. I'd prefer humanity to perform such experiments well away from Earth's gravitational pull, even if humanity must wait for distant technology to enable that.

[Meanfruit]

^do you really want your dog to be able to talk? think about that....

Squirrel!

[irul&ublo]

^do you really want your dog to be able to talk? think about that....

[Viva]

While what Venter's group accomplished is certainly an expansion of sorts over work done previously, they didn't synthetic create life as that article suggest.

BTW, Venter is the very first graduate from my graduate program.

[old goat]

Nothing new about this. One celled organism with messed up dna--I think they call that a snowboarder. (sorry).

[hutash]

Making DNA is the (relatively) easy part, creating the rest of the apparatus of a cell is the tricky part. DNA s basically like computer code, but getting a computer to build itself (self replicate,) is a bit more difficult. Still, it is a pretty cool thing. More complex DNA code will soon follow.

[ELski50]

Venter is NOT a badass. This is the same guy who attempted to patent genes in the human genome.

The only reason he is famous is because he is good at swindling dumb rich people to fund his research. That and he's one of a few scientists who actually wants to be famous.

[RaccoonFace]

HERE IS YOUR GOD!!!

okbye