- what are the motivations behind this development and what are the
political, ethical and economic implications?!
And the motives and ambitions behind his company Synthetic Genomics?
"Synthetic Genomics has a $600m agreement
<http://cleantech.com/news/4711/exxonmobil-devotes-600m-algal-biofu>
with ExxonMobil to obtain fuel from algae"
Craig Venter was also responsible for attempting to privatise the human
genome:
"Dr Venter became a controversial figure in the 1990s when he pitted his
former company, Celera Genomics <https://www.celera.com/>, against the
publicly funded effort to sequence the human genome, the Human Genome
Project <http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/home.shtml>.
Venter had already applied for patents on more than 300 genes, raising
concerns that the company might claim intellectual rights to the
building blocks of life."
Finally to dampen the wow amazing sci-fi madmangod PR slant that he has
created synthetic life from scratch - what he had done is modified an
existing cell by injecting an artifical synthesised DNA, signed with
markers pointing to his website and even a James Joyce quote, how arty
is that ;).
"To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life."
"The new bacterium, nicknamed "Synthia," replicates and produces
proteins. By any reasonable definition, it is alive. Although it is very
similar to a natural bacterium from which it was largely copied, the
creators put distinctive strings of DNA into its genome to prove that it
is not a natural object. These strings spell out, in code, a website
address, the names of the researchers, and apt quotations such as one
from Richard Feynman: "What I cannot build, I cannot understand.""
Corporate science fuelled by a maverick ego driven genius - Dr.
Strangelove anyone?
For more on the man behind the experiment, seen from a UK leftish/centre
PR newsmag persepctive:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/13/science-playing-god-climate-change
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/may/23/observer-profile-craig-venter?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-genome?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
On 08/05/2011 00:55, Molly Hankwitz wrote:
> hi roger,
> this topic leaves me wordless, but
> a question or comment...is there any
> direction developing or where might one develop to integrate this new non living species manufacture with, say, Bateson's notions of blind person and cane...that they form a third entity, non binary system and human patterning?
>
>
> On May 7, 2011, at 1:08 PM, roger malina<rmalina@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>> yasminers
>>
>> no one seems to have picked up on my previous topic\
>> on the shifting boundary between living and non living
>> systems
>>
>> until now the only forms of life on this planete are those
>> that are derived via darwinian evolution for the primordial
>> soup as they say
>>
>> in 2010 a new life form was perhaps created, the first
>> in 5 billion years
>>
>> Updated: Oct 18, 2010
>>
>> http://www.optimalfunctioning.com/science/creation-first-artificial-life-form-synthetic-cell-craig-venter.html#Q&A%20on%20What%20Synthetic%20Life%20Actually%20Means
>>
>> A brand new living cell and the beginning of an era for artificial
>> life forms! It's official, J. Craig
>> Venter and his team have created the first self-replicating synthetic
>> cell with a completely man-made
>> set of genetic instructions—a never before existing bacteria species
>> has joined the ranks of the living.
>>
>> http://www.optimalfunctioning.com/research/gibson-et-al-2010-creation-of-bacterial-cell-controlled-by-chemically-synthesized-genome.html
>>
>> The cultural implcations of this new step will no doubt take decades
>> if not centuries to be integrated
>> into our deep views on living systems.
>>
>> Roger
>>
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