By Rick WeissWashington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 25, 2008; Page A04
Scientists in Maryland yesterday said they had built from scratch an entire microbial chromosome, a loop of synthetic DNA carrying all the instructions that a simple cell needs to live and reproduce.
Venter said the goal is to design novel microbes whose handcrafted genomes endow them with the ability produce useful chemicals, including renewable synthetic fuels that could substitute for oil.
Critics, however, countered that without better oversight of the fledgling field, synthetic biology is more likely to lead to the creation of potent biological weapons and runaway microbes that could wreak environmental havoc.
Venter and others have already made synthetic genomes for viruses, which are about one-hundredth the size of bacterial genomes. Some activists contend that synthetic bacteria pose more dangers because, unlike viruses, they can replicate on their own and can survive a long time in the environment.
Venter said the work was green-lighted by government offices, the National Academies and an independent ethics review board.
What do you think about science being able to create life from nothing within a lab? Is it right or is it wrong?
16 comments:
i think that it is amazing that they were able to do something like that. They should continue to develop it and come up with more knowledge about it. I think that it is right, i mean it's part of science. We could use this for our benefit in the human race.
I think it is amazing that you can create life out of nothing. Just like i think that cloning should be made legal so then their could be at leat two good looking people in this world. I think that the people who came up with all of this stuff are genous.
I think it is pretty amazing that scientists have come up with the knowledge to create a living thing out of nothing. If science can create things out of nothing it shows that we are capable of doing so much more. I also think it is right to do this because it could help us find out more about life.
it is not good the make new life. no one will like it if some one is playing god. but if we can master it all ginetik disesis will be not a prodlom.
I think they should be able to do things like this but only if it is going to help us if they are making things that could hurt people and make problems why would we want that or need it other than for testing things like medications and trying to find out how to treat things but things that are going to hurt people and make people sick are not really helpful but if they can use it for something then it would be ok.
I think that its amazing that we were able to do that. They should be able to continue it. Its part of science. It would benifit us.
I think it is really cool that you can create something out of nothing. They should continue working on and develop it. I think that it is right because we could benifit so much from it.
This is a big achievment for the world to accomplish something like that. I think they should continue to do it and Hix don't assign an essay for this. I think that we could benefit from this so much in the world today.
it is so amazing to do this. they need improve it more so its even better. this helps a ton.
i think its good that they are able to create life. I think they should continue to do this so we gain more knowledge about things like cloning and the human life. I think its a right thing to do because it helps us gain information about human life.
I think that it is really cool how you can do something like that. They should keep doing that. It shows how much knowledge people are getting if they could come up with something like this. It is science so it is right i guess. Hopefully this good benefit us in the future.
In my opinion creating small things that help the world is alright, like environmental protectants and anitbodies. But, I don't think they should try to creat complex orgnaisms like animals and people, it's just wrong. There are too many people already.
I think it's pretty cool taht scientists were able to do that. They keep coming up with more ideas to make something everyday. I think that is good because it not only develops our science skills, but our technology as well and helps us to realize how fast our technology is growing.
I think it's really cool how you can create life from nothing. I don't think its bad because you never know what other discoveries they could make because of this. They should continue to test and experiment with these things.
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i think it is great we should to creat more something like that.it helps us to improve our knowledge more deeply and we have a lot of practice.
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