'Artificial life' breakthrough announced

If this is true then the guy will make some serious money over the next few years. Things like artificial oil/skin/hair the mind boggles at the potential.

This really isn't much of a breakthrough. They took a slightly pared-down genome sequence from one living species of bacteria, "printed" it chemically, and inserted it into a different species of bacterium that had its own DNA removed. They had done something else with the exact same result before, except they extracted the pared down genome from a living bacterium of a different species rather than making it from scratch. It is the combination of the techniques of bacterial genome transplant and DNA printing - two things that are not exactly new anymore.

Still scary though!

Heh - so when will Arnold Schwarzeneagger get the call to go into action?

Heh - so when will Arnold Schwarzeneagger get the call to go into action? I dunno, he'd probably have to team up with Chuck Norris this time... Just wait till the "Adult" industry get's hold of this technology, scary thought. lol

Hmm so how can the creationists explain how this is possible? Can't use the "it's impossible for life to be created, scientists can't do it, so god did."

Hmm so how can the creationists explain how this is possible? Can't use the "it's impossible for life to be created, scientists can't do it, so god did." this is how ( not that ID proponents are the'creationists' that you may be thinking of) : link to article below Has Craig Venter Produced Artificial Life? "Artificial life, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, has arrived." So proclaimed The Economist on May 20th, after a team of scientists headed by J. Craig Venter [2] announced that it had replaced the natural DNA in a bacterial cell with DNA they had artificially synthesized. According to U... [More]

You never know, if we do eventually reach the level of being able to engineer life as we see fit we might do a better job than God apparently did.

Must we really turn this into another petty "believers vs skeptics" debate? As I said in the other thread, I'm completely fine with this, and I'm religious. I don't see why everyone is getting their knickers in a twist. Look at it this way, if God created us (ID position) , and we created this, than God created this too. There ya go, problem solved.