Scientists succeed in creating first man made cell

[Apocrypha]

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

And so the bio revolution begins.

I was laughed at basically at a table of older ministers last year when I told them their generations battle was against moral relativism. When I am in my 50s it would be "who and what is human".

Imagine a couple coming to be in counseling and asking if they can have their child modified in the womb to have a higher neuron count for intelligence and higher muscle mass so it will be more athletic and not prone to obesity.

Do you say "NO" or "MAYBE" or do you punt it? At what point does life become the movie Gattica?

[deltaguitar]

Originally Posted by Apocrypha

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

And so the bio revolution begins.

I was laughed at basically at a table of older ministers last year when I told them their generations battle was against moral relativism. When I am in my 50s it would be "who and what is human".

Imagine a couple coming to be in counseling and asking if they can have their child modified in the womb to have a higher neuron count for intelligence and higher muscle mass so it will be more athletic and not prone to obesity.

Do you say "NO" or "MAYBE" or do you punt it? At what point does life become the movie Gattica?

Doesn't sound like they created the cell. They just reprogrammed it.

[mental]

Originally Posted by deltaguitar

Doesn't sound like they created the cell. They just reprogrammed it.

They didn't even write a very good program from he sounds of it.

This type of news article is all sensationalism. They are basically tinkering with what already exists. They aren't creating anything.

In this article (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37256799...ience-science/) they are quoted as saying

"We can write anything we want," said Arnold. "The problem is that we don't know what to write."

This raises the question of what they are "writing" for. The answer is that there is a machine (millions of different and highly specialized machines actually) that reads/writes and acts on the genetic code. Those claiming to have created a cell are like me changing some information on my hard disk and claiming that I have created a computer.

A good book related to this is

http://www.amazon.com/Signature-Cell...4392553&sr=8-1