Duvenoy

Actually, he is the real Jeez. It is I who am the imposter, the devourer of souls, the defiler of innocence, dread Lord of the Realm of the Unspeakable!

I plan on following this experiment with great intrest. While it is not abiogenesis per se, it is coming close, or so it seems to me.

I think the described safegurards are suffcent. If the 'bug' get's loose, it will find it's self in a hostile enviorment with scant time to adapt, even for a microbe.

doov

MadMordigan

So how can they know ahead of time that it has only a half degree temperature tolerance?

The same way they knew that human beings could safely travel faster than the speed of sound. They didn't.

Full speed ahead, Chuck.

crocodile deathroll

If you want to answer the question where is the boundary between life and non-life the I think these experiments are completely necessary.
I draw the line at weapons research for it, which is counter productive as I think that only serves to make is less open and lock up all the research in espionage

[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: crocodile deathroll ]</p>

crocodile deathroll

Did you know that Jesus is returning back as a crocodile, because when he was walking on water he was just rehearsing his crocodillian return.

Frivolous

Where was this published?

pz

Did you know that, at the beginning of the 19th century, many chemists argued that organic compounds were vital (intrinsic to life) and that only the hand of god could create them de novo? Then Wohler came along in 1820 and synthesized urea.

Ooops, there went that argument.

I think we should do that again.

scigirl

Hahahah - hey, that's my line!

scigirl

Frivolous

Organic compounds can be incredibly simple when compared to the complexity of even the simplest microorganism.

RufusAtticus

Really? You know the structure of the simplest microorganism that ever existed? Otherwise, such a statement is a meaningless rebuttal.

pz

So? That was one argument the old-time chemists used: organic compounds just seemed so much more complex than inorganic ones. So the new chemists just developed more sophisticated procedures, and proved them wrong.

I have my doubts about Venter's approach, bu it's the same story. We have newer, much more sophisticated techniques. We're going to synthesize organisms at some point, if not right now. Vitalism is dead. You might as well get adjusted to that fact now, rather than later.