Man creates life?

[Neo48]

CBC News - Technology & Science - Scientists create first synthetic cell

In that link you will find an article that details the creation of the first genome by man (sort of like the synthetic creation of a new species).

Is it a necessary discovery and are you excited or afraid? Discuss...

And please spare this topic of the science vs. religion arguement. I know it could be a difficult discovery to handle for some to but we all know that people who believe in one side tend not to know much about the other (myself included).

[Xander]

Interesting stuff indeed. I may have missed it, but is there any indication of what they intend to do now? Hopefully they put it to good use after 15 years of work.

[BenoitRen]

I don't like this kind of research. There are more pressing matters than toying with life itself.

The door that is meant to be opened here is the notion of harnessing a whole organism that can be customized to be good at doing something we want it to do.

Great, the next generation of slaves.

[Neo48]

Slaves? Who knows, that would mean skipping the artificial intelligence/robot stage (ie. "The Matrix").

I may have missed it, but is there any indication of what they intend to do now?

I think they want to try creating a whole single cell organism from scratch which I suppose could be possibe because apparently we have the tools to manipulate the smallest building blocks of life.

[Zucca]

I read this a while ago too. Still, I do not have an opinion.
It's interesting, yes.

[Semix]

Personally my opinion is to carry on researching this.

[Wing-0]

I find it interesting. A synthetic organism designed to perform a certain task is an interesting concept.

@Benoit: Who cares? We already use animals for many tasks. A bacteria is just as ethical a tool as a horse that pulls a cart, a dog that guards your house or a cow that you eat.

What has a deeper ethical problem is creating life like this. Not because "Oh gee, God reserves that right for himself", but because of the reasons that research is being funded NOW.

It just happens that Craig Venter, the leading researcher of this project is being funded by none other than British Petroleum. The company responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

You know, that bigass oil stain on the water that is screwing the ecosystem beyond repair...

Here are the links.

Craig Venter Unravels Energy Crisis With His Discovery - Green Diary

Venter Takes Step Toward Synthetic Cells - Forbes.com

Gulf of Mexico response | Oil spill | BP

[BenoitRen]

@Benoit: Who cares? We already use animals for many tasks.

Yes, but we still treat them pretty well. We know they're living beings just like us.

Creating new organisms is something different altogether.

Side-note: Will people please stop pasting long URLs already?

[Wing-0]

It was necessary. I couldn't just spout the connection between Venter, British Petroleum and the Oil spill near my country with no sources to back my claims. If I deem necessary to post a link with a long URL, I will definitely do it.

I encourage people to read those three links. It's your world, after all.

An oil spill, BP claiming to open a research to fix the problem and a guy leading a team in a research for making a synthetic bacteria, funded by BP sounds fishy to me and many others. And not without good reason.

[Neo48]

Oil companies have control over many things. It will be a difficult day for humanity if we run out of oil or cause massive long term damage to this planet. We are not prepared with a solution to those problems (the oil spill is a good example of this).

[BenoitRen]

You misunderstand. What I have a problem with is people posting long URLs instead of making them into proper links. Why? Because URLs (or any piece of text without spaces) don't properly break to the next line when they're too long to fit in their container, and end up stretching it.

[Wing-0]

Tell me how to do that, and I'll gladly learn it... The same with posting images... =P