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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 09/09/2008 : 17:09:32
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.....I can't wait to read the apologetics!
Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life 
While his latest work remains unpublished, Szostak described preliminary new success in getting protocells with genetic information inside them to replicate at the XV International Conference on the Origin of Life in Florence, Italy, last week. The replication isn't wholly autonomous, so it's not quite artificial life yet, but it is as close as anyone has ever come to turning chemicals into biological organisms.
"We've made more progress on how the membrane of a protocell could grow and divide," Szostak said in a phone interview. "What we can do now is copy a limited set of simple [genetic] sequences, but we need to be able to copy arbitrary sequences so that sequences could evolve that do something useful."
By doing "something useful" for the cell, these genes would launch the new form of life down the Darwinian evolutionary path similar to the one that our oldest living ancestors must have traveled. Though where selective pressure will lead the new form of life is impossible to know.
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Little by little, 6,000 years gets farther into the past.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 09/09/2008 : 17:17:21 [Permalink]
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You know exactly what they'll say: It shows that life can only be created by Design. Therefore, ID and/or YEC is once again demonstrated by actual science.
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 09/09/2008 : 17:24:10 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by the_ignored
You know exactly what they'll say: It shows that life can only be created by Design. Therefore, ID and/or YEC is once again demonstrated by actual science.
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Yeh, but they'll wax lyrical saying it because it puts abiogenesis, in a multitude of forms, well within the realms of possibility, indeed, probability. It's gonna be a fun set of reads.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 09/10/2008 : 00:28:35 [Permalink]
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| My guess is that they'll ignore this research as long as possible. Threads with any (ID)creationist participation will be at least a year in the future. |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 09/10/2008 : 03:14:34 [Permalink]
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I think they'll start squealing after the paper is peer reviewed and published, and National Geographic runs an article on it. Should be about 4 to 12 seconds afterward, depending upon whether they are inhaling or exhaling at the moment.
I've noticed that, since the Archeoraptor debacle, they do  s them some NG 'cause their rank & file think it's a scientific publication like Mad Magazine or the Monthly Trollop.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 09/10/2008 : 05:06:49 [Permalink]
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| It's called the knowledge of good and evil, they've already got an excuse. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
 Posted - 09/10/2008 : 09:18:47 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by the_ignored
You know exactly what they'll say: It shows that life can only be created by Design. Therefore, ID and/or YEC is once again demonstrated by actual science.
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LOL....exactly! It will prove their point....lol |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 09/10/2008 : 10:28:00 [Permalink]
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Woe to poor humanity. As with Prometheus, the wages of such hubris shall be as Pandora's curse. Or something. Cool stuff though.
I wonder if it's fair to say these are truely artificial organisms - they're using bits and pieces of once lving things as building blocks, no? It's like saying Frankenstein is an artificial organism. |
-Chaloobi
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 09/10/2008 : 18:15:36 [Permalink]
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I wonder if it's fair to say these are truely artificial organisms - they're using bits and pieces of once lving things as building blocks, no? It's like saying Frankenstein is an artificial organism.
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But the bit and pieces seem to be mostly DNA which are (relatively) easy to create de novo. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2008 : 06:59:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
I wonder if it's fair to say these are truely artificial organisms - they're using bits and pieces of once lving things as building blocks, no? It's like saying Frankenstein is an artificial organism.
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But the bit and pieces seem to be mostly DNA which are (relatively) easy to create de novo.
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I'm thinking this is really just a reshuffling the pieces of an existing biological system - it's not using anything new. Truely new life, IMO, would be starting from scratch chemically - using something other than DNA as a genetic code for example. If someone designed a self-replicating, self-repairing robot, now that would be interesting. (Ok, this IS really intersting, don't misunderstand me. I'm just picking nits as a way to avoid doing my job. ) |
-Chaloobi
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2008 : 08:24:28 [Permalink]
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Yeah, but what we can do now is to predict the shape of a protein from its sequence. And from its shape, we can predict how it is going to interact with other molecules and hence its function.
It is already being done.
So, by taking the process the other way, you can, basically, design a protein sequence that will fit your needs.
And from there, building a DNA sequence nucleotide by nucleotide is something that is already commonplace.
Also, I'd think they might want to use RNA instead of DNA, its more polyvalent and there are good indication that life started this way. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2008 : 13:16:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
While his latest work remains unpublished, Szostak described preliminary new success in getting protocells with genetic information inside them to replicate at the XV International Conference on the Origin of Life in Florence,
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Does he offer up anything new on where the protocells might have originated from, or were they just there? |
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2008 : 14:56:42 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Bill scott
Does he offer up anything new on where the protocells might have originated from, or were they just there?
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He is quoted as saying that they only could have originated from "a magic man." Scientists are now seeking this magic man for questioning.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2008 : 16:53:12 [Permalink]
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Bill S. said:
| Does he offer up anything new on where the protocells might have originated from, or were they just there? |
The protocells would have formed from fatty acids or phospholipids in water. The property of those molecules, a hydrophobic and hydrophilic end, makes them self assemble into "cells" or membranes in water.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2008 : 20:50:24 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Bill S. said:
| Does he offer up anything new on where the protocells might have originated from, or were they just there? |
The protocells would have formed from fatty acids or phospholipids in water. The property of those molecules, a hydrophobic and hydrophilic end, makes them self assemble into "cells" or membranes in water.
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Micelles. Very much like oil in water (or vinegar if you're tired of ranch dressing). Except at the microscopic level. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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If this works out…
