BBC: scientists developed first synthetic cell

[Kuya]

Is this new? Sounds groundbraking.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_a...t/10132762.stm

Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first synthetic living cell.

The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell.

The resulting microbe then looked and behaved like the species "dictated" by the synthetic DNA.

The advance, published in Science, has been hailed as a scientific landmark, but critics say there are dangers posed by synthetic organisms.

Maybe someone with knowledge in microbiology can clarify. Did they actually create life? It doesn't sound like it to me.

[Jememy]

Fuck my life.

[Kuya]

Reading the article fully, no, they didn't create life per se. I just kept hearing that scientists created life which was misleading, but this still sounds promising.

This article was already posted in the hardron thread, but nobody reads that because of the thread title.

[Devia]

This article was already posted in the hardron thread, but nobody reads that because of the thread title.

I read this as the hardon thread and thought I'd missed something.

[Kerberoz]

http://fusionanomaly.net/bladerunnerowl.jpg
"Do you like our owl?"

[Eliseos]

I read this as the hardon thread and thought I'd missed something.

It actually was labeled that as an April fools joke, and then it never got fixed until someone mentioned it a week later.

[Chicomagiko]

I read this as the hardon thread and thought I'd missed something.

Whore like you would read it like that.

[Nekio]

It is a big deal, but it's not as outlandish as they make it seem.

Being able to clone completely synthetic DNA into a cell successfully is a pretty large breakthrough with regards to genetic engineering, but the true complexity of life involves the extremely sophisticated chemical reactions that occur in the rest of the cell as dictated by said DNA.

An appropriate analogy would be looking at computer code as a layperson and switching around variables to make the program do something new, even though you have absolutely no idea how to code. You're pretty limited in what you can accomplish with the pre-existing code, and you still have zero ability to write a complicated program yourself.