Artificial Life
 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070820/ap_on_sc/artificial_life

The article does not say if they expect it to be carbon or silicon based life.

Can we even have silicon based life on earth or in the universe?

I'm guessing that playing with the formula comes after being able to create it using nature's recipe.

They admit life needs to be created and they must assemble things just right.
Where have I heard this?


KT

Yea but if MS and Intel got together silicon based life could be in our computers much faster.

That's because they don't have billions of years of natural selection and random chance for it to happen like the first time around ;)

Doh!
:D

Doh! is right.

Just skip all the unknowns, use what works and call it good.
Whoo Hoo!

Assembling temporary "life" in a dish under perfect conditions most certainly does not prove life came about by chance or evolved from single cell "protolife" or whatever they're calling it now ;)


KT

OK this thread is heading for an philosophical intersection with "Is there a God" thread at a 100 MPH.

Bob

Yep.

And I'm not 100% convinced that assembling the pieces instantly give you life, either.

I agree. It would be nice if this thread could focus on the article and the science of the developments and keep the god stuff in the other thread where this article is already being discussed.

Just call me the cat herder. :)

Best,

Kurt

I guess it depends on how life is defined.

From the article:

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.

I think if they can achieve these goals, which I believe they will, it'll be "life".

Best,

Kurt

I was taught that there are seven characteristics of life in high school biology (borrowed from wikipedia):

Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, sweating to reduce temperature.
Organization: Being composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
Metabolism: Consumption of energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of synthesis than catalysis. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. The particular species begins to multiply and expand as the evolution continues to flourish.
Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.
Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism when touched to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun or an animal chasing its prey.
Reproduction: The ability to produce new organisms. Reproduction can be the division of one cell to form two new cells. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from at least two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth

I'm not sure that what they are aiming to create will meet all of those criteria.

This is all well and fine, but how's the immigration laws going to work or not work on these things, lifeforms? Sounds ridiculous, but I'll put money on it that the ACLU and the rest of the wacko's start the lawsuits. What's that old saying, the truth is stranger than fiction.

This is what is refered to as a "Thread Hijacking"...To San Diego we go
:)

I remember covering this in grad school in a course 'Polymer Synthesis'. There are several difficulties with having a self assembling macro-molecule with silicon as a backbone. Namely the reaction temps required often make the synthesis of polymenr liquid chrystals very difficult - these are required (smectic and nemictic membranes). Carbon lends itself much more appealing. Also, the electrolytes needed play well with carbon based polymers. This is also needed for proper transfer of info. I'm not saying it isn't possible just more difficult with what we know concerning self-assembling and replicating molecules.

I will try to look up the reactions in my notebooks - I kept everything!

The funniest thing to me is that anybody can claim to be 100% convinced one way of the other... 99%, sure. But 100%? Thats just not logical... unless you are rounding up, but I tend to think that rounding up to 100% is irresponsible, as it implies a certain "aboluteness" to it all, and I don't like that.

Freaky weird.................

Space Dust: It's Alive and It's ... Us?
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/08/space-dust-its-.html

IIRC, these "findings" were the results of a computer model.

FWIW.

Best,

Kurt

edit: here you go:

In a computer model of inorganic particles in plasma, researchers from the Russian Academy of Science, the University of Sydney and the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics watched plasma-state inorganic dust organize itself, twisting into strands that look and act a bit like DNA:

Yea, I just caught that.

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/070814_dust.htm