On PBS last night there was a segment about how scientists are in the process of making life from non-life. It was very interesting. They are now able to chemically construct DNA. Several scientists think they will be able to create simple life forms out of non-life in the very near future. As they gain more knowledge into the process they will proceed to create more advanced life forms. They think it is entirely possible they may be able to create life forms never before known to exist on this planet.
So how many years will it be until they create human life? Unknown at this time. I doubt it will happen during my life, but at some point they will succeed. It’s entirely possible in the future they may be able to create humans with no genetic diseases. The possibilities are endless.
**On PBS last night there was a segment about how scientists are in the process of making life from non-life. It was very interesting. **
I imagine it must have been, because as far as I know, the origin of life from non-living matter is still a complete mystery to scientists. Saw a couple of them say as much on a PBS show a couple of weeks ago, in fact.
Jurassic Park is a cheesy movie but the line that Jeff Goldblum is so true. In the movie he says “You were so busy trying to see if you could do it that you didn’t stop to think about whether you should**” **This quote applies to much of what we do today and it definitley applies here. I hope someone stops to think if we should.
“They think it is entirely possible they may be able to create life forms never before known to exist on this planet.”
I thought this was something interesting to ponder. Why should any new life forms have to resemble the walled-cell life forms now on Earth? The consensus was that making life from non-life was a lot less complicated than building the first atomic bomb. It would just be a matter of time.
Personally, I think it’s all a bit of a stretch. But you never know. At one time people thought cloning a living creature was impossible.
Then there was the proposition that perhaps a meteorite landed on Earth and either provided the building blocks for creating rudimentary cell walls (which would contain the bubbling mud-derived DNA) or deposited its own living organisms. The meteorite hypothesis, to me, seems like a fall back argument when nothing else works. Like lightning providing the “magical spark” to bring Frankenstein to life.
Still, though, wouldn’t it be interesting if all life on Earth was the result of a meteorite’s infection?
There was also this statement on the show, something to the effect of, “For centuries men in white robes have been saying that scientists shouldn’t be doing this or that, or questioning how this works or that works, or asking why. If we had listened, we’d still be living in mud huts.”
I’m sure that was a horrible paraphrase. Hopefully you get the point.
I imagine it must have been, because as far as I know, the origin of life from non-living matter is still a complete mystery to scientists. Saw a couple of them say as much on a PBS show a couple of weeks ago, in fact.
Creating life in a lab, and understanding how life actually began on this planet are two entirely different things, no?
Personally, I find the claim that scientists will be able to make life in the “nery near future” to be optimistic at best.
If we had listened, we’d still be living in mud huts."
Ah, the arrogance of science. God forbid someone should try to restrain it with ethical considerations. Yeah, we’d still be living in mud huts. But we wouldn’t have nuclear weapons, either.
To me the big mystery is the starter button. The simplest life forms, while complicated, aren’t overly daunting. I wouldn’t be surprised if we could synthesize the molecular framework in a lab in the coming decades. Getting it to “live” is another problem. Look at it this way, take a dead organiism. truly dead, not just frozen. As far as I know no one is even close to reviving anything that is actually dead, even though it hasn’t decomposed in any way. Until we can do that building a new living being from scratch is a pipe dream.
As far as I know no one is even close to reviving anything that is actually dead, even though it hasn’t decomposed in any way. Until we can do that building a new living being from scratch is a pipe dream.
Styrrell
I have actually revived a fly. I drowned the fly, then place it in a pile of salt. It came back to life.
Maybe it wasn’t “officially” dead, but it definately was not moving until after the salt.
Oh, and how about resusitation (sp?)? People and animals have been brought back for being “dead”, but this might not be your definition of “dead”. I watched my mom resusitate a still born dog to life. Pretty cool.
I can see what you mean, but what is dead? Let’s say for someone who’s heart stops beating (either from heart attack or drowning), at what point is dead dead?
I think clinical death is measured by loss of brain activity - there’s no getting that back.
Obviously they dont hook up EEGs to every patient in the ER, but if a patient’s heart has been stopped for 20-30+ minutes, it’s assumed that the brain damage is so severe it’s not worth continuing.
When we are talking “life” being created we don’t mean building humans or even mammals. In a lab a suspect they will start with something akin to a virus. To mean “success” will be when scientists build something from individual atoms that can reproduce itself.
"Until we can do that building a new living being from scratch is a pipe dream. "
I don’t think I agree with this. Many systems are much harder to “turn around” once failed or have started to fail than they are to start from scratch.
A few examples off the top of my head is something like the electrical grid. Once you start that blackout wave you have to shut it down and start over…or so I understand. Like a house of cards, building it is difficult but doable. Once it starts to fall down it’s a goner though.
I see your point (kinda), but we know exactly how electrical grids, work. We have no idea what starts “life”. Take a simple one cell entity. You can kill it gently so that very few chemical changes have occurred, but once its dead it cannot be jump started back to life. Note that this is different than freezing something and thawing it out again. My contention is that those things are not dead just hibernating.
Many times we run into systems that when “crashed” leave so much trash behind that it’s more difficult to “clean up” and revive than it is to “rebuild”.
By no means am I biology expert, but as I understand it the body has quite a few systems in place that keep the trash from building up and causing damage. In essence “Death” is th epoint at which the body can no longer keep up with the “taking out the garbage”. So no matter how “gently” you let something die dieing is damaging and irreversibly so.
Once the trash ahs built up the damage has occured, if the trash hasn’t built up there is no death. Once death has occured teh original building blocks are now unusable to sustain life, kinda like a filament of a lightbulb burning out. It’s easier to replace the filament than it is to convert the old one back into a useable filamant again.
