The Real Eve

[Kanth]

The US researchers built the infectious agent from scratch using the genome sequence for polio.

Scientists are divided about whether a virus is alive.


 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2122619.stm

[Kanth]

http://www.calacademy.org/thisweek/archive/20010425.html

Scientists Create Synthetic Life in the Lab
In an announcement that might seem more appropriate to a science fiction show than a science fair, two research teams revealed that they have created a new "synthetic" life form that uses man-made amino acids to build proteins never before produced on the planet. Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in California and Philippe Marliere in France manufactured their creation from a base bacteria that is infamous for its health hazards--E. coli. One team transformed the bugs into protein producers of unnatural proteins by inserting a genetically engineered protein that accepts the man-made amino acids, while the other mutated the editing function that prevents incorrect amino acids from being incorporated into proteins. Although chemists can manufacture hundreds of strange synthetic amino acids in test tubes, nature has selected only 20 to incorporate into the proteins of living organisms. These synthetic bacteria are the first living organisms to expand that group of building blocks - a milestone that may help scientists develop important new drugs and treatments. The research was published in the journal Science.

Those wacky scientists..

[Wlfgng]

Hort's gonna' love this one

[Elfenwolf]

...And my name is pronounced FrankenSTEIN, NOT FRANKinstein.

[rogwar]

Originally posted by Wlfgng
don't believe in evolution?

look closely at a flounder.

Also look closely at the mullets of the world.

[Hortlund3]

Originally posted by Kanth
...manufactured their creation from a base bacteria that is infamous for its health hazards--E. coli.

Actually that sounds just like another case of scientists taking life and modifying it.

[Kanth]

You're right that one does.

Read the one above it.

Originally posted by Hortlund3

Actually that sounds just like another case of scientists taking life and modifying it.

[AKSWulfe]

Exactly what are babies then?

They aren't new life... they are just modified life. Taking the mom's genetics, and the dad's genetics, and splicing them. Bam! A baby.

So, are babies not new life?
(and this leads back to the two sheep... one created from the other... but is different than the parent sheep the cell came from)
-SW

[Hortlund3]

"Scientists are divided about whether a virus is alive."


Sidenote: scientists like that should be taken out back and shot.

[Hortlund3]

Originally posted by AKSWulfe
Exactly what are babies then?

They aren't new life... they are just modified life. Taking the mom's genetics, and the dad's genetics, and splicing them. Bam! A baby.

So, are babies not new life?
(and this leads back to the two sheep... one created from the other... but is different than the parent sheep the cell came from)
-SW

SW, I dont think anyone has argued that scientists cannot create life by making their old lady pregnant. What they cant do is sit down at a table with a bunch of chemicals and create a baby. Do you understand the difference?

[AKSWulfe]

We can create bacteria... we can create virii.... or however the plural is spelled... according to evolution that's the building blocks of life. How we came to be.

Virtually every bioligist agrees that cells, in the human body, are made up of what appear to be bacteria working in unison.

All them lil' cellular organs are believed to be bacteria that by themselves could only do so much, but formed together in a cell... they can sustain themselves for long periods of time.

So, if we can create the building blocks of life... and we are already to the point where we can create life out of cellular material... how can we not create life?

Our bodies don't even make us out of little chemicals, we are formed of cells. We all started as single cells... then they began dividing.. and dividing... and dividing...
-SW

[Hortlund3]

Can we create bacteria? Or can we modify existing bacteria?

Are we getting into a debate over what constitutes life? I'm still waiting for someone to explain how life started in that "primordial soup", or did you just ignore that part?

[Wlfgng]

DAMN!!!   I'm STILL dividing !!!

[AKSWulfe]

Hortlund, it takes millions of years of observation to find out how it all started. If you pay any attention to the scientific world, there is a moon orbiting either Saturn or Jupiter that is essentially in the state this planet was in billions of years ago before life first came about.

Once we begin research there, which will naturally take a VERY long time of watching and waiting, we will find out how it happens. It happened here... well, if you ignore the whole "built from one man and his rib" dealy.

Read this for some good background on what I was talking about regarding cells: http://www.geocities.com/bioimages/

The study of life is for those who want to know how it all happens and how to do it. Religion is for those who don't care, don't want to care, and just rely on one answer to everything, "God did it."

The fact of the matter is, we have only begun the study of life in the past 500 years.. while life has been in a constant struggle with itself to perfect itself for billions of years.

If you read the Bible, and what we have actually found in terms of the billions of years of earths history through studying... the Bible sure don't make much sense......... but it's ALWAYS open for interpretation.............. if it don't work out, just interpret it so it will.
-SW

[Wlfgng]

can't wait to find life on say Europa..

sooner or later the Creationists will have to deal with that info.