New life.....or not

I think it's interesting to not only question the definition of "life", but also the definition of "artificial". If someone cuts up a few painting and sticks bits of them together, have they created a new painting? If true, this is an impressive achievment, but I don't think it qualifies as creating new life any more than gene therapy does.

Incidentally, mules can occasionally reproduce, although this has only been seen in (very few) females.
 
Schneibster said:
You might find some controversy about virii.
Click to expand...
<derail>
Aggh! The plural of virus is viruses!
</derail>

I guess my only quibble with the news stories about this (though I admit the one cited here isn't so bad) is that this isn't such a giant leap forward as they're letting on. Around 2002, they built the polio virus from scratch. Later, they did the same for a flu virus. So now, they've synthesized a relatively simple chromosome and then implanted it into a bacterium.

By the way, in the news stories about those earlier accomplishments, they went on about how this could be used in biological weapons. You can get the information (sequenced genome of a virus) on the internet, and synthesize your own nasties. . .

Also, is this really sparking much of an ethical debate? If so, the only place I've heard about it is in these brief news stories like this. In other words, it's a "debate" that seems to be the creation of the press alone.
 
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