Nature: First life with 'alien' DNA

[Olowkow]

An engineered bacterium is able to copy DNA that contains unnatural genetic letters.

I don't exactly understand how momentous this is, but Huffington Post has picked up on it quite quickly. This is where our resident experts will hopefully offer their opinions and explanations for us laymen.

For billions of years, the history of life has been written with just four letters — A, T, C and G, the labels given to the DNA subunits contained in all organisms. That alphabet has just grown longer, researchers announce, with the creation of a living cell that has two 'foreign' DNA building blocks in its genome.

Hailed as a breakthrough by other scientists, the work is a step towards the synthesis of cells able to churn out drugs and other useful molecules. It also raises the possibility that cells could one day be engineered without any of the four DNA bases used by all organisms on Earth.

 

[ehcks]

I seem to remember a video game where scientists engineered cells to create drugs. It didn't work out well for anyone involved.

 

[Olowkow]

I guess I'm really wondering whether this might be a good time to tell Ray Comfort and Ken Ham, and all the fundamentalist politicians "Neener neener!".

 

[Mister Earl]

I guess I'm really wondering whether this might be a good time to tell Ray Comfort and Ken Ham, and all the fundamentalist politicians "Neener neener!".

Comment on the article:

Bill Payer • 2014-05-08 12:49 AM

Proof yet again that life is far far too complex to simply arise from nothing unassisted. Today we have even more proof that life is created rather than simply arising from goo on it's own. It takes thoughtful creativity, mastery of genetics and a highly sophisticated lab to bring forth life. Unless you are God of course.

 

[smartcooky]

Hailed as a breakthrough by other scientists, the work is a step towards the synthesis of cells able to churn out drugs and other useful molecules. It also raises the possibility that cells could one day be engineered without any of the four DNA bases used by all organisms on Earth.

Might it also raise the possibility that something like DNA could be a universal common denominator for life throughout the cosmos, and whole alien species might be based on a DNA variants that use some of the other nitrogenous bases.

 

[theprestige]

I guess I'm really wondering whether this might be a good time to tell Ray Comfort and Ken Ham, and all the fundamentalist politicians "Neener neener!".

I guess it depends on your point of view. Either it's always a good time, or it's never a good time.

Speaking of points of view, yours doesn't really get you anywhere with theists, and here's why:

To an atheist, anything man can do must be mundane. But to a theist, anything man can do must be divine. What you take as evidence of the former, a theist will take as evidence of the latter.

But good luck in your quest to find that one gotcha argument that will silence Comfort and Ham forever!















Comfort and Ham is the name of my Blues Traveler cover band.

 

[SingularMan]

This is interesting. I don't know what the exact significance of this study is, but I know that there will have to be a lot more research done before using additional base letters will have some kind of practicality. The code could come more diversified in theory, but at the same time, it seems like this would increase the rates of genetic mutation.

 

[Brainache]

I for one welcome our new d5SICS and dNaM genetically enhanced overlords...

 

[Olowkow]

I guess it depends on your point of view. Either it's always a good time, or it's never a good time.

Speaking of points of view, yours doesn't really get you anywhere with theists, and here's why:

To an atheist, anything man can do must be mundane. But to a theist, anything man can do must be divine. What you take as evidence of the former, a theist will take as evidence of the latter.

But good luck in your quest to find that one gotcha argument that will silence Comfort and Ham forever!

Comfort and Ham is the name of my Blues Traveler cover band.

I'm using them as a metaphor for what it will take to sway the fundamentalists, of course. But I agree that silencing them forever is pretty much impossible, because there is always another level of requirement that becomes a refuge for the religious.

And Mister Earl's post of the comment captures this:

Bill Payer • 2014-05-08 12:49 AM

Proof yet again that life is far far too complex to simply arise from nothing unassisted. Today we have even more proof that life is created rather than simply arising from goo on it's own. It takes thoughtful creativity, mastery of genetics and a highly sophisticated lab to bring forth life. Unless you are God of course.

Even finding life on one of the moons of Saturn or Jupiter would just be more evidence of creation I guess. God just didn't think it was important to mention other creations in the earth Bible.

 

[Dinwar]

The Creationist nonsense aside, this is pretty cool stuff.

Most researchers have long acknowledged that our genetic code isn't THE genetic code--other codes are entirely possible. It's one of the reasons for concluding that all life is inter-related: because life could have different codes, the fact that we don't is proof that we arose from a common ancestor. This enhances that argument.

It also has some practical implications--it can be used as a tracer to identify artificial organisms, for example.

I don't think it increases the possibility that alien life will have a genetic code like our own, however. It merely proves conclusively that other codes are possible; it does not say that they are necessary, or preferred in any way.

Even finding life on one of the moons of Saturn or Jupiter would just be more evidence of creation I guess.

It'll revive an old, old argument. THere used to be a line of reasoning that went something like: Life is the reason for the Universe. God wouldn't do anything without a reason. Therefore, all the celestial spheres must obviously be occupied. They even went so far as to describe probable lifestyles for inhabitants of other worlds. I don't recall how they addressed the Crucifixion off hand.

 

[dlorde]

This is interesting. I don't know what the exact significance of this study is, but I know that there will have to be a lot more research done before using additional base letters will have some kind of practicality.

As I understand it, there's some interest in producing more exotic yet safer GMOs. The new base pair may permit the production of novel protein types, also acts as a 'dead man's handle' so that the organism can't survive without a synthetic nutrient, and would radically reduce the chances of undesirable gene transfer to native organisms. Whether all that pans out, we'll have to wait and see...

 

[Dinwar]

Here's a question: does this make the organism a new species? There's an absurd resistance to calling organisms that have adapted to human interaction novel species; a novel genome is far, far greater a change than are between any two sister species, however. I'm tempted to call them a new domain, if not higher (though I'll admit that's the taxonomist, not the cladist, in me talking). But I'm curious to see what the counter-arguments are.

 

[Mister Earl]

I'm tempted to call them a new domain, if not higher (though I'll admit that's the taxonomist, not the cladist, in me talking).

We'll probably have to, at some point, lump all synthetic life under one category. What's latin for "junk drawer"?

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Even finding life on one of the moons of Saturn or Jupiter would just be more evidence of creation I guess. God just didn't think it was important to mention other creations in the earth Bible.

John 14:2
King James Version (KJV)
2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

 

[Dinwar]

We'll probably have to, at some point, lump all synthetic life under one category. What's latin for "junk drawer"?

"Problematica", I believe. But it's already taken, several times over. As is Incertae sedis. If you've ever got a few hours to kill in a paleontology department, browsing the "Problematica" section of each group in the Treatise isn't a bad way to do it.

The problem with lumping them together, however, is that while it's convenient for the sake of putting things in drawers it's horrifyingly bad at describing ancestry. Not really a taxonomic problem, strictly speaking, but it's a serious flaw in modern nomenclature--we try to put things in some sort of evolutionary order these days (well, most of us, usually). Not sure how that'd work with artificial life.

 

[ddt]

Comment on the article:

Bill Payer • 2014-05-08 12:49 AM

Proof yet again that life is far far too complex to simply arise from nothing unassisted. Today we have even more proof that life is created rather than simply arising from goo on it's own. It takes thoughtful creativity, mastery of genetics and a highly sophisticated lab to bring forth life. Unless you are God of course.

Wrong. On the contrary, this discovery that there are other functioning nucleotides apart from the four (*) actually used in DNA, is a powerful argument against the "too complex to arise unassisted" argument from the creationist/ID side. It shows that other chance combinations of nucleotides arising in the primordial soup would also have been able to bootstrap life. This is underscored by the fact that these experiments show that their enhanced DNA (a) can copy itself, and (b) produces functioning RNA and protein.

(*) five if you count U which occurs in RNA instead of T in DNA.

 

[Aridas]

John 14:2
King James Version (KJV)
2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

So Jesus has prepared a place for believers in him on other planets? Sounds rather Mormon of you.

 

[jimbob]

Arias, I think you're probably being a little harsh on Red Baron Farms. My reading is that is a quote which they think would be used as justification should (sentient?) life be discovered elsewhere.

 

[Aridas]

Arias, I think you're probably being a little harsh on Red Baron Farms. My reading is that is a quote which they think would be used as justification should (sentient?) life be discovered elsewhere.

Harsh? No. It's pretty much just pointing out a direct implication of using that verse in the particular way it was being used. If they wish to use the verse as you describe in the context where Red Baron Farms used it, they would need to explain why it doesn't mean exactly what I pointed out or agree with the statement.

 

[jimbob]

Ah, I read your post as supposing that Red Baron Farms believed that to be a valid argument, whilst I read that post merely as predicting the argument that would be used with no comment on its validity.