Scientists Creating New Life
 

An article in this weeks New Scientist (snippet below) describes how scientists are now trying to create 'new life'. They are basically trying to take a bunch of chemicals and 'bring them to life' - rather in the same way that life may have originally started on Earth.

Don't think Frankenstein (at least not just yet) - we're talking at a microscopic level for now. The aim is to use it in technology as well as possible cures for human conditions. They're not very far along the path yet - they've defined what they mean by alive (ability to feed, reproduce, evolve etc) but is it a slippery slope?

But it's got me thinking - this is bound to upset some people - and to be honest, I'm not sure what my thoughts are on it yet - so I thought I'd wander in here to see what views anyone else had.

"What are the ingredients needed to create life? Meet the people who claim they are about to find out


YOU might think Norman Packard is playing God. Or you might see him as the ultimate entrepreneur. As founder and CEO of Venice-based company ProtoLife, Packard is one of the leaders of an ambitious project that has in its sights the lofty goal of life itself. His team is attempting what no one else has done before: to create a new form of living being from non-living chemicals in the lab.

Breathing the spark of life into inanimate matter was once regarded as a divine prerogative. But now several serious and well-funded research groups are working hard on doing it themselves. If one of them succeeds, the world will have met alien life just as surely as if we had encountered it on Mars or Europa."

It'll upset the New Earth Creationists and such like (who don't believe in abiogenesis and seem to think evolution is a religion :rolleyes: ) for a starter as it will really blow them out of the water. I suspect many other religios groups will have similar concerns and will be banding the phrase "playing god" about.

Personally I don't have an issue with trying to confirm abiogenesis by experimental means. They just need to be careful with their controls so that they don't create some new lifeform and release it in to the wild.

I somehow feel it could be a dangerous path to follow, bearing in mind what OllyK said above.

Les