| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Therion Ware" |
| Date: |
18 Dec 2004 02:59:51 AM |
| Object: |
'Artificial life' comes step closer |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4104483.stm
'Artificial life' comes step closer
By Roland Pease
BBC radio science unit
Researchers at Rockefeller University in the US have made the first
tentative steps towards creating a form of artificial life.
Their creations, small synthetic vesicles that can process (express)
genes, resemble a crude kind of biological cell.
The parts for their "vesicle bioreactors", as they call them, all come
from diverse realms of life.
The soft cell walls are made of fat molecules taken from egg white.
The cell contents are an extract of the common gut bug E. coli ,
stripped of all its genetic material.
This essence of life contains ready-made much of the biological
machinery needed to make proteins; the researchers also added an
enzyme from a virus to allow the vesicle to translate DNA code.
When they added genes, the cell fluid started to make proteins, just
like a normal cell would.
Jelly fish
A gene for green fluorescent protein taken from a species of jellyfish
was the first they tried. The glow from the protein showed that the
genes were being transcribed.
With a second gene, from the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus , the
researchers got their cells to make small pores in their walls.
These let nutrients in from the surrounding "soup", so that the cells
could function, in some instances, for several days.
Albert Libchaber, who heads the project, stresses that these
bioreactors are not alive - they're performing simple chemical
reactions that can also happen in cell-free biological fluids.
But the research is one strand in a new field called synthetic
biology, where the aim is to re-design entire organisms, or recreate
them from scratch.
The bio-entrepreneur Craig Venter, who headed the commercial venture
to decode the human genome, is currently trying to strip a bacterium
down to the minimum set of genes needed for survival.
Synthetic virus
Two years ago, another team showed that polio viruses could assemble
themselves from off-the-shelf chemical components mixed in a
test-tube.
And several chemists are exploring the kinds of chemical reactions
that may have preceded life.
Albert Libchaber's hope is to build up towards a minimal synthetic
organism, with a designed cell wall, and a mixture of gene circuits
that would let it maintain itself like a living cell.
As these constructs become more lifelike, the rest of us will have to
start rethinking the nature of life.
"This is rather philosophical," says Dr Libchaber.
"For me, life is just like a machine - a machine with a computer
program. There's no more to it than that. But not everyone shares this
point of view," he told the BBC.
He also stresses that there is no danger in the experiments. Not only
are his cells artificial, they can function only in the nutrient
medium he supplies them.
He said: "If you take our system out of its environment, it just
doesn't function."
Details of Libchaber's work with Vincent Noireaux have been published
by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4104483.stm
Published: 2004/12/18 07:43:23 GMT
© BBC MMIV
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| User: "chibiabos" |
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| Title: Re: 'Artificial life' comes step closer |
18 Dec 2004 08:01:34 AM |
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In article <ras7s0hst6pka32id5nseas3h3efopg0i1@4ax.com>, Therion Ware
<autodelete@city-of-dis.com> wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4104483.stm
'Artificial life' comes step closer
By Roland Pease
BBC radio science unit
Researchers at Rockefeller University in the US have made the first
tentative steps towards creating a form of artificial life.
Their creations, small synthetic vesicles that can process (express)
genes, resemble a crude kind of biological cell.
The parts for their "vesicle bioreactors", as they call them, all come
from diverse realms of life.
The soft cell walls are made of fat molecules taken from egg white.
The cell contents are an extract of the common gut bug E. coli ,
stripped of all its genetic material.
This essence of life contains ready-made much of the biological
machinery needed to make proteins; the researchers also added an
enzyme from a virus to allow the vesicle to translate DNA code.
When they added genes, the cell fluid started to make proteins, just
like a normal cell would.
Creationists won't buy this. They will argue (rightly) that the
experiments are merely taking something that's already alive and
rearranging it.
To get their attention you'll have to start with inorganic materials
and end up with a cat, something like the Miller-Urey experiments on
steriods.
But, even then, the creationists will say you cheated because "you
didn't make the dirt."
-chib
--
Member of S.M.A.S.H.
Sarcastic Middle-aged Atheists with a Sense of Humor
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| User: "johac" |
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| Title: Re: 'Artificial life' comes step closer |
19 Dec 2004 03:21:51 AM |
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In article <181220040601344934%chib@nospam.com>,
chibiabos <chib@nospam.com> wrote:
In article <ras7s0hst6pka32id5nseas3h3efopg0i1@4ax.com>, Therion Ware
<autodelete@city-of-dis.com> wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4104483.stm
'Artificial life' comes step closer
By Roland Pease
BBC radio science unit
Researchers at Rockefeller University in the US have made the first
tentative steps towards creating a form of artificial life.
Their creations, small synthetic vesicles that can process (express)
genes, resemble a crude kind of biological cell.
The parts for their "vesicle bioreactors", as they call them, all come
from diverse realms of life.
The soft cell walls are made of fat molecules taken from egg white.
The cell contents are an extract of the common gut bug E. coli ,
stripped of all its genetic material.
This essence of life contains ready-made much of the biological
machinery needed to make proteins; the researchers also added an
enzyme from a virus to allow the vesicle to translate DNA code.
When they added genes, the cell fluid started to make proteins, just
like a normal cell would.
Creationists won't buy this. They will argue (rightly) that the
experiments are merely taking something that's already alive and
rearranging it.
I don't give a fat frog's ***** what the creationists think. They can yap
all they want, but it is an important experiment in that it supplies
some information as to how the first living organisms were formed.
Without membranes, you just had various molecules reacting in soup.
With membranes, the organisms could take on form they could specialize
depending on what reactive species they took up, they could reproduce,
and biological evolution could start up.
To get their attention you'll have to start with inorganic materials
and end up with a cat, something like the Miller-Urey experiments on
steriods.
But, even then, the creationists will say you cheated because "you
didn't make the dirt."
The problem is that even if simple chemicals were combined in the lab in
such a way that one ended up with a recognizable biological organism, a
very big problem would still remain. How would we know that it was the
first organism in nature? We wouldn't. The first living things were
tiny, probably something like bacteria and left no trace. We will
probably never know what the common ancestor of all life was.
Still the ability produce something living from something not, would by
itself strongly reinforce current scientific thinking on the subject.
The fundies will go on yapping regardless.
-chib
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
Which raises the question: Can a people that believes more fervently
in theVirgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened
nation?-Garry Wills, New York Times 11/04/04
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| User: "Uncle Dollar Bill" |
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| Title: Re: 'Artificial life' comes step closer |
18 Dec 2004 07:59:26 PM |
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On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 06:01:34 -0800, chibiabos <chib@nospam.com> wrote:
In article <ras7s0hst6pka32id5nseas3h3efopg0i1@4ax.com>, Therion Ware
<autodelete@city-of-dis.com> wrote:
<snip>
When they added genes, the cell fluid started to make proteins, just
like a normal cell would.
Creationists won't buy this.
It's really sad that it's necessary to even give a fig. But it is.
:-\
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| User: "Jez" |
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| Title: Re: 'Artificial life' comes step closer |
18 Dec 2004 05:30:40 PM |
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Therion Ware wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4104483.stm
'Artificial life' comes step closer
We've had artificial life for years.....they're called Christians.
--
Jez
'Realism is seductive because once you have accepted the reasonable
notion that you should base your actions on reality, you are too often
led to accept, without much questioning, someone else's version of what
that reality is. It is a crucial act of independent thinking to be
skeptical of someone else's description of reality.'-
Howard Zinn
Skype callto://hellward
NFS Porsche Unleashed, Hot Pursuit 2, Underground.
Yeowww
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| User: "Uncle Dollar Bill" |
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| Title: Re: 'Artificial life' comes step closer |
18 Dec 2004 08:02:43 PM |
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On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 23:30:40 +0000, Jez
<iced_spear@NODAMNSPAMpipex.com> wrote:
Therion Ware wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4104483.stm
'Artificial life' comes step closer
We've had artificial life for years.....they're called Christians.
They're not artificial life, they and most of their fellow
non-Christian godbots are more like a malignant leukemia. It's life
turned against itself, that's true. A plague we'd all be better off
without (even them). But life just the same. :-\
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