Craig Venter and team make a historic announcement: they've created the first fully functioning, reproducing cell controlled by synthetic DNA. He explains how they did it and why the achievement marks the beginning of a new era for science.
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I've been following the reaction to the synthesis of a new life form by the Venter lab with some interest and amusement. There have been a couple of common directions taken, and they're generally all wrong. This is not to say that there couldn't be valid concerns, but that the loudest complaining…
Get in the mood for this bit of news, the synthesis of an artificial organism by Craig Venter's research team.
Here's the equivalent of that twitching hand of Frankenstein's monster:
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Last week I appeared on bloggingheads.tv, talking about life in all its weirdness with science writer John Horgan. The folks at bloggingheads.tv wondered if I'd come back, perhaps bringing along a scientist to talk to. I said, Of course. The scientist I've invited along is Craig Venter.
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What do these three quotations have in common? Hint: it lives in a petri dish.
"To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, and to recreate life out of life." -- James Joyce
"What I cannot build, I cannot understand." -- Richard Feynman
"See things not as they are, but as they might be." -- from…