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Author Topic:   Scientists create life in a test tube
Tranquility Base
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 23 (13520)
07-14-2002 10:27 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by frank
07-12-2002 12:11 PM


I personally don't have a big problem with scientists synthesising life.
But everybody knows that viruses use the incredibly complex translation/transcription/metabolic circuitry of living cells so of course this has not yet been achieved.
A virus is like a word macro (a list of MS word commands). It's like a 12 year old hacker saying he can write MS word when all he did was write a macro. But 12 year olds grow up (sometimes into Bill Gateses) so I don't have a problem with future scientists synthsesing life. It will be a big project but not impossible.
This all has absolutely nothing to do with issues concerning the origin of life.

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 Message 1 by frank, posted 07-12-2002 12:11 PM frank has replied

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 Message 14 by frank, posted 07-15-2002 2:58 PM Tranquility Base has replied

  
Tranquility Base
Inactive Member


Message 16 of 23 (13599)
07-15-2002 9:24 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by frank
07-15-2002 2:58 PM


Frank
I wont completely disagree with you on that becase we are trying to whittle down genomes to their key pieces.
The way we are currently approaching the problem is to whittle down simple organisms like yeast and Mycoplasma Genitalium to a minimal set of genes that still works. We can probably get it down to about 200 genes. This could be construed as being like an ancestral genome. But then from there we have to somehow make all the chemicals and membranes of a mother cell including it's genome. It will be quite unlike how it could have occurred in evolution.
So of course some lessons for evoltuion will be learned but if someone make a cell tommorrow it doesn't make evolution any more likely. They'd eqaully be showing us what God did with the design step alrady done!
[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 07-15-2002]

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Tranquility Base
Inactive Member


Message 19 of 23 (14116)
07-25-2002 3:45 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by singularity
07-25-2002 3:04 AM


You really want to a length of string debate do you? There are a hundred good reasons to expect there to be a sharp discontinuity between allelic variation and the origin of new genes.

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Tranquility Base
Inactive Member


Message 22 of 23 (14158)
07-25-2002 7:57 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by John Paul
07-25-2002 5:33 PM


Yes, by macro I am meaning my own definiton which I have given here before. There is nothing wrong with having my own definiton of macro becasue there is no agreed dfinition in the mainstream literature either! As genomes get reeled in and developmental biology becomes better understood we will all get a pretty good handle on it IMO.
I agree that macro essentially comes down to novel limbs, organs, physiological systems, cellular systems and gene families.

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