1. PMitchell says:

    yep I took the engine out my car and put in another just like and signed my name so now I’m a car manufacturer

  2. Jake says:

    Got bioweapons?!

  3. moss says:

    I love dropping by and reading comments on real science from dodos who haven’t yet figured out Legos.

  4. KMFIX says:

    If computers can make life.. Sarah Conner.. Still so screwed…

  5. SparkyOne says:

    Jesus another CO2 pledge drive

  6. deowll says:

    #1 pretty much got it. The removed the DNA from a cell and put in a copy they made of the DNA that belonged in the cell and it worked.

    That isn’t life from scratch and it doesn’t mean a business would be well advised to do it. It does suggest they can read the DNA correctly and write anything they want in DNA. Unfortunately it doesn’t even suggest they understand what they decoded or encoded. It was plagiarism pure and simple.

    Um I think they stuck a URL in there somewhere but it would have been in binary I suppose? Anyway they marked their cell’s DNA so if you clone it they can tell if they get a sample. Of course you could remove that section.

  7. qb says:

    My mom is a computer.

  8. copywrong says:

    They wasted space in the DNA encoding 3 quotes.
    They should have added a copyright notice.
    And DRM.

  9. qb says:

    CBC’s Quirk and Quarks had a good interview today with Dr. John Glass.

  10. Username says:

    #1 flawed analogy. Your analogy only works if you take the “engine” from a Lexus, stick it into a BMW, and your new frankenstein started spitting out copies of itself. So yes you now have the means of manufacturing as many copies of the new car as you like, even if you just took an existing “design” to seed the process.

  11. Dale says:

    Is it accident that the cells look like eyes watching? The world is watching this..and if there are other worlds out there, they’re watching too.

  12. smartalix says:

    #1, #6,

    You don’t understand. To use the car analogy, if you removed the engine and replaced it with one where all the parts were those you cast yourself using a design different from the original (a different fuel injection system or air intake, for example) and assembled into an engine, you’d be closer to the truth.

    This was not a 1-1 replacement of what already existed. These guys took the basic amino keys and built a completely new DNA sequence from it. Then it worked, reproducing itself.

    Then again, it doesn’t matter a rat’s ass if you are impressed or not. The commericalization of this tech will proceed whether or not you believe in it.


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