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Playing God? ITT Elephants the size of daschunds. And raptors.
Ninto
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Think it's a long way off?
Think again.
NY Times
Essentially what they've done is re-created, base pair by base pair, an existing viable genome. Combine this with the final step, add the ability to mix and match base pair genomes, and what we have is an end-to-end process of custom-making lifeforms from scratch.
Personally I think this is amazing news. Yes it has the potential to be dangerous, but the applications are almost endless. Biofuel anyone?
As for D&D, I'm mostly posting this to hopefully fuel the inner creative scientist and geek in you all. What life form would you create if you could? Some kind of biofuel would be my #1, I think. I'm struggling to think of other valuable possibilities, here...
Think again.
NY Times
ROCKVILLE, MD—January 24, 2008—A team of 17 researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has created the largest man-made DNA structure by synthesizing and assembling the 582,970 base pair genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0. This work, published online today in the journal Science by Dan Gibson, Ph.D., et al, is the second of three key steps toward the team’s goal of creating a fully synthetic organism. In the next step, which is ongoing at the JCVI, the team will attempt to create a living bacterial cell based entirely on the synthetically made genome.
Essentially what they've done is re-created, base pair by base pair, an existing viable genome. Combine this with the final step, add the ability to mix and match base pair genomes, and what we have is an end-to-end process of custom-making lifeforms from scratch.
Personally I think this is amazing news. Yes it has the potential to be dangerous, but the applications are almost endless. Biofuel anyone?
As for D&D, I'm mostly posting this to hopefully fuel the inner creative scientist and geek in you all. What life form would you create if you could? Some kind of biofuel would be my #1, I think. I'm struggling to think of other valuable possibilities, here...
Ninto on
Posts
I always wanted to ride a giant Cockatrice.
As for what I would create... an algae that converts carbon dioxyde into breathable oxygen at a prodigious rate or something that can turn saltwater into drinkable water. Genetic alchemy FTW.
Barring that, I would create a race of semi-intelligent humanoids with basic motor skills but after I realized we still have rednecks, I didn't feel like reinventing the wheel.
Muldoon from Jurassic Park would like to consult with you on that.
Wouldn't you have to Save vs. Petrification or turn to stone?
More Bioshock please, kkthx.
"Oooooh, look here Mr. B, Adam!"
Living action figures.
Inter-active car personalities.
Flashing neon ties.
Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp.
Midiclorians.
The possibilities are endless.
Clearly this research needs to be used to create a subservient race of cat girls.
All-purpose, multi-cultural catgirls?
The Vac - My Science Fiction Epic
Fortune Pancakes - My Gag-A-Day Comic
Like, huge shrimp.
Mmm...
What I want is a monkey with four asses.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
you bet. And I shall be their tentacled god!
BWA HA HA!!!
I should have seen this coming.
However, what we do have is quite inspiring.
My question for you is: What's the optimal place for the extra asses? I think a set on one foot would be fun - they could kick their own ass with ease.
D:
Seriously, it might be this (don't look unless you want your childhood ruined...)
I for one want my custom grown replacement parts so I don't have to worry about things failing as I get older. Just pop in a new one!
Once you've got everything else sorted and can actually design an organism from scratch then I suppose being able to make a basic starter kit that can turn into whatever you program it to be is going to be worthwhile, but even then I don't think that building a bacteria bit by bit is going to be quicker and easier than modifying an existing one unless you start messing about trying to get a starter kit that can replicate itself. But in that case, again you might as well go with something that currently exists or you might not want any replication at all (in order to keep control over what you've made for ecological or economic reasons)
Why not both? Genetic engineering, and cybernetic enhancements would trump everything, unless you're thinking full cyborgization, which would be great as well...
Anyhow, I fully support any serious advancements in science. Luddites and fear-mongers be damned, FOR SCIENCE!
So, space travel, or mandatory sterility?
Yeah this progress has been compared to silicon chip design, where a step is made to improve the process considerably rather than redesign things from the ground up. I guess the point that's being made is that because it's a synthetic process from the ground up (except for the actual design part) it makes it much much easier to mix and match gene sets from different organisms. They are information sets, with a synthetic generation process, allowing for copy/paste operations on genetic code sets, or possibly even individual genes.
This is a production efficiency revolution.
There's no evidence they hunted in packs, either. Popular culture has lied to us.
We mix and match genes a lot on the smaller scale when modifing organisms, its really not that hard (even in humans, the tricky part comes in where to put the gene, the reason we've not seen a gene therapy revolution is because the original gene chosen was too close to something that caused cancer if you overwrote part of it.) In bacteria and suchlike you just don't care where they end up since you can just select for the one or two out of millions that have your mutation where you want it.
Is it really that much easier for them to translate genes into the basic form that into something that can be transferred across kingdoms - again its not like putting human genes into bacteria, or bacterial genes into eukaryotes is anything new nor fundamentally different from translating them into a basic language. It all happens at the theorectical stage rather than involving a difficult practical process.
Suppose its paving the way for something truly exotic, thought again you need protein design from scratch to really make use of it, where part of the design brief is something that can not interact with any existing organisms replication systems (i.e nanotech as designer viruses without the risk of information from them spreading to pathogens etc)
It's still cool, but too soon for any major change to come from it.
need to get my coat from the cleaners.
This neo-feudalism would be more tolerable if our betters had fancy titles.
You sure you don't want one thats half-man, half-bear, and half-pig??