[ExI] Holy Schlamoley! Venter's team creates synthetic life!

[Giulio Prisco]

As usual, the press covers this development with some hype. But beyond the
press' hype, this is a spectacular achievement. Especially from a memetic
point of view: we know that life can be engineered as a matter of fact, and
goodbye vitalist mysticism.

--
Giulio Prisco
giulio at gmail.com
(39)3387219799

On May 21, 2010 12:35 AM, "Zero Powers" <zero.powers at gmail.com> wrote:

It was a dream that began nearly 15 years ago, when Craig
Venter<http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/venter>,
a Vietnam veteran turned geneticist, resolved one day to create a genome
from scratch – and with it, make the first ever synthetic life form. Last
night, in a dramatic announcement that led some to accuse him of playing
God, Venter said the dream had come true, saying he had created an organism
with manmade DNA.

The feat, hailed as an epochal scientific breakthrough by some but an
alarming development by others, was achieved by scientists at the J Craig
Venter Insititute in Rockville, Maryland using little more than a computer,
some common microbes, a DNA synthesizer and four bottles of chemicals.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-genome

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