First Synthetic Organism created

[Mike]

Guardian Article about the first synthetic cell created by scientists. Very exciting research and the application of this technology is practically limitless. Personally I would like to be re-sequenced to change my eye colour from brown to blue - what about you?

[johnriley1uk]

They needed a bacterium shell to do this, so it wasn't creating life from scratch.

I think the most chilling aspect of this is that if we could create life, what does that make us and our ability to exist and think? It diminishes us to a cauldron of teeming chemicals and banishes the concept of a soul.

When life can be mixed in a kitchen and computers can think we may need to reassess our position in the order of things.

[liz.brownlloyd]

The nearer towards science, the farther away from religion... I suppose it depends on where we go with it. I'd love an inteligent house and a robot that does the housework and the fridge that automatically orders milk when you run out of it and a washing machine that washes, drys and iron clothes want you want them... However John is cheaper...

[mr_e]

I honestly don't know what to make of this, part of me is thinking "awesome!" because of the possible uses in medicine and pollution control, the other is thinking "uh-oh!" because of the ethics issues and the potential for weaponisation (much further down the line). Anyone else read Oryx and Crake?

The good news is that that we lack the ability to do anything much beyond bacteria at the moment, as its way too complicated to sequence. At the moment...

John, if you get the urge there are some interesting-looking studies on human consciousness. However, they almost all seem to end up going into chemistry, psychology and biology to fairly high levels so maybe not too accessible.