The biologist Dr. Craig Venter has announced that he expects his experiments to create artificial life to be successful in about 4 months. The first thing he had to do was create a synthetic genome. A synthetic genome cannot survive on its own and needs a host cell. The good doctor has been using human cells but so far that doesn't seem to work. Artificial life isn't really artificial if it requires host cells from another species. It's just genetic modification.
Two questions come mind right off the bat. First, why would he want to create a new life form when there are 1,589,361 separate species on the Earth? Second, what's the objective?
I don't have an answer for the first question except to say that human DNA has been under attack since biblical times (that's for another day and post). As for the second question, the answer leaves me scratching my head and saying, "What the heck!" Apparently, the objective is "to create bacteria that transform coal into cleaner natural gas." That ain't so bad, I guess. But, the other part is to create "algae that soak up carbon dioxide and turn it into hydrocarbon fuels." Huh? Let me see if I have this right . . . He wants to create new algae that we can feed carbon dioxide to that will make benzene and methane that's going to create more carbon dioxide when it's burned? But haven't the greenies been telling us that methane and carbon dioxide is destroying the ozone and creating a ginormous carbon footprint that will end up killing us all when the sun goes super nova? Good ol' Dr. Moreau (remember that creepy old movie?) is creating a new life form that will make something that has been the scourge of the Earth according to Al Gore. Maybe this all a front for Gore to work out plans to sell us more carbon credits to cover the new carbon dioxide that will be created by the new bacteria if Dr. Venter's laboratory can get it the recipe right. I wouldn't bet on that happening though.
You can read the article here if you're in the mood.
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