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6 de Octubre, 2007

Hacking the Human Being?

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FOR THE FIRST time in the history of humankind, an artificial life form has been...created.

Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.
The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes. It is certain to provoke heated debate about the ethics of creating new species and could unlock the door to new energy sources and techniques to combat global warming.

Mr Venter told the Guardian he thought this landmark would be 'a very important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before.'"

—I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer

Hypothetically scary things.

Especially because I can just see the GOP grabbing this as one of those anti-monster platform pitches they use to cover up the fact that they have nothing but fear to run on. "I swear to you! If I am president there will be no talking dishmops!"

I can actually feel all the Sci-Fi writers waking up right now.

 The Unapologetic Mexican has been known to scribble a few things besides meandering, verbose, self-congratulatory blog posts. However, they are rarely as fun. Finally, let it be known that Nezua first dared bust out this Habanero of Truth at exactly 12:05 PM.  | Top | View blog reactions

Comentarios (3)

Jose dijo:

Well it isn't sci-fi if it's really non-fi :-X

Palabras por Jose spat forth on el 6 de Octubre, 2007 at 12:56 PM

nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez dijo:

well of course sci-fi did this many years ago. but here is a new marker in the actual world, and that pushes the challenge further for fiction. as well as provides new hard science to jump off of.

Palabras por nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez spat forth on el 6 de Octubre, 2007 at 12:59 PM

RC dijo:

How about FearFi? I can get really excited about this new development only if the genome is different enough that it cannot interact with other genomes already naturally occurring. Monsanto's corn GMOs are a total disaster and have made the genome field one where some fear may be warranted. It is important that we are looking for ways to perhaps convert plastics back into a far less toxic and polluting fuel, or to recycle other waste into some kind of energy that does not lead to Greenhouse Effects. Equally important would be the continuing tissue culture research {stem cells, etc} that would eventually lead to substitute organs instead of transplanted organs.
The other legitimate fear factor is that the "new" {but perhaps not soon improved}
genome entities will be owned by corporations like Monsanto. Scary.

Palabras por RC spat forth on el 7 de Octubre, 2007 at 07:08 AM