[extropy-chat] from Robert Bradbury (1)

[Damien Broderick]

Robert is having trouble with his email. He asked for this to be fwd'd:

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Google is reporting many newspapers are reporting on a new "reproducing"

virus that has been developed by one of Venter's ventures.  Its ca-ca.
I've filed an extensive commentary that I hope will soon be published
on nanodot.org.  The problem isn't with the science (I expect they are
doing reasonable science).  The problem is with the lack of
understanding
of biology by reporters and how they may copy something that could be
initially misreported.

This tends to feed into the discussion of how much information and
complexity
one actually requires to produce self-replicating systems.  It isn't
much compared
with the current capacity of our computer systems (from an information
storage
perspective) but its currently in excess of what we can affordably or
easily manufacture.

Thanks,
Robert