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WorldWeird: Craig Venter creates synthetic life form

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    • CommentAuthorFan
    • CommentTimeMay 21st 2010
     (8263.21)
    > Anyone else find it amusing how we've become so blasé about scientific breakthroughs these days?

    Small steps: it's been a few years since they learned to read/sequence the genome; now, apparently, they have the technology to copy/write the genome ... but that's just an incremental advance, isn't it.
  2.  (8263.22)
    Possibly. I just think if they even revealed a cloned Tyrannosaur people would still be going "meh... it's alright." Perhaps I'm wrong to think such things are mind bogglingy wonderous.
    • CommentAuthorFan
    • CommentTimeMay 21st 2010
     (8263.23)
    I would be blasé if they used reconstructed Tyrannosaur DNA (impressed that the Tyrannosaur DNA had lasted well enough, albeit in fragments, for them to reconstruct it).

    I'd be very impressed if they understood DNA well enough to create a Tyrannosaur from scratch, i.e. to invent the DNA that would produce e.g. a Tyrannosaur.
  4.  (8263.24)
    Anyone else find it amusing how we've become so blasé about scientific breakthroughs these days?

    It’s not as if they’re uncommon. Trying to keep up on them all is like trying to keep up on rock-throwing incidents in the Middle East. Which is pretty cool.
  5.  (8263.25)
    I'm only be impressed when it's fetching me a cold beer.
  6.  (8263.26)
    I'll only be impressed when David has to fetch it a cold beer.
    •  
      CommentAuthorcity creed
    • CommentTimeMay 24th 2010
     (8263.27)
    Poor Synthia, barely a week old and already caught up in a bitter custody battle...
    Link

    "I've read through some of these patents and the claims are very, very broad indeed," Professor Sulston told BBC News.

    "I hope very much these patents won't be accepted because they would bring genetic engineering under the control of the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI). They would have a monopoly on a whole range of techniques."

    A spokesman for Dr Venter, of the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Maryland and California, said: "There are a number of companies working in the synthetic genomic/biology space and also many academic labs.

    "Most if not all of these have likely filed some degree of patent protection on a variety of aspects of their work so it would seem unlikely that any one group, academic centre or company would be able to hold a 'monopoly' on anything.
    • CommentAuthorOxbrow
    • CommentTimeMay 24th 2010
     (8263.28)
    Charlie Brooker in today's Guardian was particularly amused by Venter describing it as
    a "dual-use technology", which is a brilliantly non-specific way of saying "good or evil".

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