WASHINGTON (AP) -- Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer.

Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life."

"It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways -- in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."

That first cell of synthetic life -- made from the basic chemicals in DNA -- may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you'll have to look in a microscope to see it.

"Creating protocells has the potential to shed new life on our place in the universe," Bedau said. "This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role."

And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.

Bedau figures there are three major hurdles to creating synthetic life:

# A container, or membrane, for the cell to keep bad molecules out, allow good ones, and the ability to multiply.

# A genetic system that controls the functions of the cell, enabling it to reproduce and mutate in response to environmental changes.

# A metabolism that extracts raw materials from the environment as food and then changes it into energy.

One of the leaders in the field, Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School, predicts that within the next six months, scientists will report evidence that the first step -- creating a cell membrane -- is "not a big problem." Scientists are using fatty acids in that effort.

Szostak is also optimistic about the next step -- getting nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, to form a working genetic system.

His idea is that once the container is made, if scientists add nucleotides in the right proportions, then Darwinian evolution could simply take over.

"We aren't smart enough to design things, we just let evolution do the hard work and then we figure out what happened," Szostak said.

In Gainesville, Florida, Steve Benner, a biological chemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution is attacking that problem by going outside of natural genetics. Normal DNA consists of four bases -- adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine (known as A,C,G,T) -- molecules that spell out the genetic code in pairs. Benner is trying to add eight new bases to the genetic alphabet.

Bedau said there are legitimate worries about creating life that could "run amok," but there are ways of addressing it, and it will be a very long time before that is a problem.

"When these things are created, they're going to be so weak, it'll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab," he said. "But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen." E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Saw this too good posting.

I saw a vid on wetware a little while ago pretty freaky stuff it was basically a living computer made out of the brain looking shit. Can you imagine having an organic processor in your pc one day?

I saw a vid on wetware a little while ago pretty freaky stuff it was basically a living computer made out of the brain looking shit. Can you imagine having an organic processor in your pc one day?

The next step with that possibly would be inserting one in the brain.

The next step with that possibly would be inserting one in the brain.

that would kick ass

eeekkk

Cant believe I always missed this... That'd be fucking crazy!

we were supposed to have flying cars by now, ill believe this when i see it

Yeah fucking right. WE will never be able to "create life" mark my words.

Yeah fucking right. WE will never be able to "create life" mark my words.
Based on what exactly?
Also what is 'life' representative of for you?
Is it a simple single celled organism capable of reproducing or a fully fledged concious entity?

The next few decades you're going to witness some mindblowing shit go down. Creating simple lifeforms is the tip of the iceberg.

Based on what exactly?

Common sense...

Also what is 'life' representative of for you?
Is it a simple single celled organism capable of reproducing or a fully fledged concious entity?

Sure a single cell organism is life...

The next few decades you're going to witness some mindblowing shit go down. Creating simple lifeforms is the tip of the iceberg.

Like I said humans will never be able to create the simplest forms of life. Some scientists might think they are close but they are full of shit. Like I said mark my words its NEVER going to happen. If there comes a day that these scientists clame they have done it look really close at what they have actually done befor you accept their word at face value.

Nevermind Evil, I forgot you were into Intelligent design and that kind of religious thing.

Nevermind Evil, I forgot you were into Intelligent design and that kind of religious thing.

I believe in science too...

I believe in science too...
Well thats strange because Intelligent Design is the antithesis of Science.

Well thats strange because Intelligent Design is the antithesis of Science.

I believe God designed the laws of nature. All science tries to do is understand what God has already gave us not the other way around. I'm not arrogant enough to believe humans are as intelligent as God, thats why I don't believe this will ever happen.... I could be wrong, wait for see.

Well thats strange because Intelligent Design is the antithesis of Science.

thats not true at all, intelligent design means finding god through science, basically you believe in a creator because of the intricities found inside nature, I think its something like that anyway its just theres alot of baptists type who claim intelligent design when they are really fundamentalists and they kind of make it look like what your saying meepins, I personally prefer just to take the agnostic approach and say I don't know the nature of reality but I definetly do see both sides

anyways I'm not really sure where I stand on this issue but I really don't think anything in the universe is beyond understanding including creating life, travelling through time etc etc

thats not true at all, intelligent design means finding god through science, basically you believe in a creator because of the intricities found inside nature, I think its something like that anyway its just theres alot of baptists type who claim intelligent design when they are really fundamentalists and they kind of make it look like what your saying meepins, I personally prefer just to take the agnostic approach and say I don't know the nature of reality but I definetly do see both sides

anyways I'm not really sure where I stand on this issue but I really don't think anything in the universe is beyond understanding including creating life, travelling through time etc etc

They may feel thats what they are doing but the truth is - there is nothing scientific about intelligent design. It's faith dressed up with pseudo-science.
Have you seen anything from the Intelligent Design museum in Kentucky? They claim baby dinosaurs were on Noahs Ark.
Another example of what they are about : to account for the same species turning up in parts of the world seperated by vast oceans.. they claim they piggy-backed on a log....

http://www.sanctus1.co.uk/blog/uploaded_images/science_vs_faith-721964.png

There are crazy people on both sides. I takes alot of patients to sort out the truth... and no matter what side your on being able to admit you could be wrong is the most important thing of all because your not going to get anywhere without an open mind...

http://www.creationism.org/

Here are a few things I found about evidence for humans living with dinosaurs, I can't really say I buy into it all but it's very interesting and makes you think.


http://www.dinosaursandman.com/research/WALKING_WITH_DINOSAURS.pdf

http://www.parentcompany.com/great_dinosaur_mistake/tgdm.gif

"There is also good evidence which supports the Biblical framework that man and dinosaurs have co-existed at some time in the past. The Paluxy River bed near the city of Glenrose, Texas, contains dinosaur footprints. For many years reports have circulated that human footprints including giant tracks are to be found there also. I spoke with a man in the area who says that in 1911 a flash flood came through and washed all the sediment away, taking the river bed down to its limestone base. He walked out one day and found nine human tracks.

The tracks were 16 inches long and nine inches across, indicating the man had a pretty big foot. The stride was six feet. My informant reported that evidently something happened, because the stride changed to nine feet, indicating the track-maker started to run. Not being a scientist, and thinking the tracks unimportant the finder did not show them to anyone. Later on floods eroded these tracks away and they are gone.

Yet other tracks have been taken from the river bed. One particular track was 16 inches long, 9 inches across and showed the ball of the foot, the arch, the heel, and toes.

I have seen the hole in the river bed from which the track was cut. We found tracks before and after the one taken out of the river, but they are not as good since erosion has taken its toll. However, the impressions of the toes, arch, and heel are still observable. Yet, scientists for the most part who have not gone out and examined the area, refuse to believe that humans existed with dinosaurs and do not feel it is a worthwhile project to make first-hand observations.

In the summer of 1971, I had the privilege of working with a research team which spent most of the time sandbagging the Paluxy River bed, pumping out the water, scraping away the debris down to the limestone, washing it, and looking for footprints. We found some footprints and followed one series under the bank of the river by lifting off the overlying material back about 12 feet. Layers (up to 8 feet) of dirt rock debris and limestone were removed using earth moving equipment in order to continue our examination of the flat limestone surface under the bank. This find was unique. The evolutionist has often told us that human footprints could not exist in this river bed if dinosaur prints were there also. Man did not live at the same time as dinosaurs. Some of the evolutionists have gone as far as to say that all these footprints were carvings by Indians.

It is rather difficult to carve a footprint under eight feet of solid rock and dirt. Finding these tracks under the bank erases the possibility that these are carvings. Some people claim they are erosion marks. Erosion can do strange things with rock, but is seems to me that erosion could hardly be responsible for a set of prints having the ball of a foot, arch, heel, and a few toes visible, left, right, left, right, left, right, at three foot intervals. The eighth track of this particular series crosses a three-toed dinosaur track. Then there is a gap of about 15 feet and another human track. The series then continues off into the river.
Several scientists were invited to evaluate these tracks. Scientists should be fair and come up with valid conclusions. One man looked at the tracks, put his foot inside, and seeing how it fit so beautifully, remarked that the tracks definitely were made by an organism!

Another observer said that since they definitely looked like human footprints, they must have been made by an animal now extinct which had man-like feet. These scientists could not acknowledge human footprints with dinosaur prints because of their premise that dinosaurs and humans did not live together: remember, they claim that dinosaurs died out 70 million years ago.

These tracks are genuine. Because of them and other finds scientists must drastically change their thinking. There is strong evidence that man and the dinosaur were contemporaries."

Here's an article by someone that believes the Paluxy River footprints my not be genuine.


http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/paluxy.html

Pics of the footprints, make up your own mind.

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/taylor-all-14.jpg

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/taylor-3B-seminar-untouched-java.jpg

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/taylor-3b-overlay-animation.gif

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/taylor-3b-bashed.jpg

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/taylor+3-1972.jpg

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/taylor+1-cast-1970.jpg

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/morris-track.jpg

They may feel thats what they are doing but the truth is - there is nothing scientific about intelligent design. It's faith dressed up with pseudo-science.

I think your getting the wrong idea of what intelligent design means because of what the baptist type fundamentalists do to give it a bad name.

It has nothing to do with "faith" in anything its simply a theory about the nature of the universe that there is some sort of intelligent force behind things instead of reality being some random accidental joke.

imo taking the "reality is an insane accident" stance is no more valid or scientific than intelligent design

btw thats a cute picture but it has nothing to do with faith and science not intellgent design vs. random occurence

I think your getting the wrong idea of what intelligent design means because of what the baptist type fundamentalists do to give it a bad name.

It has nothing to do with "faith" in anything its simply a theory about the nature of the universe that there is some sort of intelligent force behind things instead of reality being some random accidental joke.

imo taking the "reality is an insane accident" stance is no more valid or scientific than intelligent design

btw thats a cute picture but it has nothing to do with faith and science not intellgent design vs. random occurence
I get what you're saying but Intelligent Design is pretty much what I described, you're describing an intelligent entity is reponsible for the laws of nature which is seperate from the guiding hand that creates individual species in ID.

I can't understand the last bit about the diagram, it's illustrating the difference between science and faith - I gave an example of why ID is faith not science.

dont worry an emp will wipe them out

I get what you're saying but Intelligent Design is pretty much what I described, you're describing an intelligent entity is reponsible for the laws of nature which is seperate from the guiding hand that creates individual species in ID.

I can't understand the last bit about the diagram, it's illustrating the difference between science and faith - I gave an example of why ID is faith not science.

Why does it have to be seperate? The theory of evolution relies on the fact that we live in a non-logical universe that started from something we can't yet comprehend. Why can't that something be the intelligence I call God?