Looks Geneforge could become reality...

[Unbound Draykon]

If you played Geneforge than you know the risks of creating life, like it go rouge and kill people. Now with that thought look at this link: [/url] A step to artificial life: Manmade DNA powers cell

[Alorael at Large]

Venter is a master of hyping up technical achievements and then following through on them. He's done it again, and should be applauded for it. (Yes, he has an oversized ego even for a big-name scientist, but he's also earned it.) But synthetic life? Not quite yet. He's produced the tool and the proof of concept for it, but short of blindly assembling known genes in a puzzle-piece approach or trying the true mad science of semi-random genomes, we're not going anywhere with this without a lot more work on all the necessary components of life.

 

—Alorael, who still thinks this is cool. The technology certainly isn't ready for mass production yet, but maybe one day you'll be able to order a new pet online and specify exactly what you want, down to the wings, scales, and propensity for sitting on large piles of precious metals.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: WordOne WordTwo

—Alorael, who still thinks this is cool.

Cool, maybe. However, it kind of freaks me out more than anything else.

In my opinion, some things that are science fiction should remain so; this is one of them. Otherwise, we may eventually have a real-life cross between the Geneforge series and Jurassic Park, and I'm not quite ready to face an Unbound anywhere other than G5.

Quote:

The technology certainly isn't ready for mass production yet, but maybe one day you'll be able to order a new pet online and specify exactly what you want, down to the wings, scales, and propensity for sitting on large piles of precious metals.

You left out an ability to breathe fire.

[lampshade]

This is going to create more problems than it will solve.

[The Ratt]

Well I think that creating life will take experimentation more than anything, and that's where you get into tricky waters. All the sensitive individuals will think that it's cruel to create life that may be suffering its entire existence.

 

Honestly, using random genomes is unnecessary. There are obviously certain frameworks that can make life very similar, and all life share some DNA. Did you know humans share 13% of their DNA with sunflowers?

[Alorael at Large]

Hence the puzzle-piece approach. We can take snippets of different genomes, but we don't always understand what everything does or what small differences in genes between species mean. Actually creating truly novel species is a long way off yet.

 

But when we get there, well, I don't see the dire predictions amounting to much. Jurassic Park doesn't turn disastrous because it's full of dinosaurs, it turns disastrous because it's full of dinosaurs and rather short on basic safety precautions. Now, creating problems I'll grant. Someone is likely to design, say, a pollution-eating microbe that ends up being a massively invasive species that ravages an ecosystem. It's just a matter of playing it as safe as possible and, if you're so inclined, praying. It's worked reasonably well for technology so far.

 

—Alorael, who will be convinced that new life is really around the corner when nobody writes Nature papers after finding critical functions for previously ignored bits of DNA. We still have a lot to learn about genomes before trying to make them ourselves.

[Lilith]

honestly creating a microbe that can survive in the wild is a pretty difficult task, it's unlikely we could do it by accident

 

bacterial DNA mutates fast enough that if you just let bacteria reproduce in a safe comfy petri dish for a few generations, by the end of it they'll already have enough genetic defects that they won't survive very well outside of the aforementioned safe comfy petri dish

[Unbound Draykon]

You know i just realized something, this could be another version of 2012. It all starts with a mad scientist who creates and releases a type of modified lizard, not very different from an Unbound One. Of course from G4's description of an Unbound One is that they terrifying and nearly indestructable giant monstrosities. Even if he only made one it mean nukes would have to be deployed to destroy it.

[GIFTCockroach]

Yeah, I really doubt Unbounds will be created within 2 years.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Unbound Draykon

You know i just realized something, this could be another version of 2012. It all starts with a mad scientist who creates and releases a type of modified lizard, not very different from an Unbound One. Of course from G4's description of an Unbound One is that they terrifying and nearly indestructable giant monstrosities. Even if he only made one it mean nukes would have to be deployed to destroy it.

What?

I mean seriously, what? I'm so confused right now.

[Xaiya]

No. If they make it, they know what chemicals to use that would kill it without much trouble. Nukes would just be overkill...

[everyday847]

Originally Posted By: Free as in phase space

But when we get there, well, I don't see the dire predictions amounting to much. Jurassic Park doesn't turn disastrous because it's full of dinosaurs, it turns disastrous because it's full of dinosaurs and rather short on basic safety precautions. Now, creating problems I'll grant. Someone is likely to design, say, a pollution-eating microbe that ends up being a massively invasive species that ravages an ecosystem. It's just a matter of playing it as safe as possible and, if you're so inclined, praying. It's worked reasonably well for technology so far.

This actually has basically happened before, as I recall. I believe it featured in a cracked article that I can't find at the moment, but the above almost happened--except the end result would have been the eradication of all edible plants had some wise scientist not reread the paper and cried foul.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: everyday847

This actually has basically happened before, as I recall. I believe it featured in a cracked article that I can't find at the moment, but the above almost happened--except the end result would have been the eradication of all edible plants had some wise scientist not reread the paper and cried foul.

hahahahahaha yes because it would somehow be possible to make some kind of miraculous disease that could wipe out all edible plants, despite the fact that there are thousands of plants that we eat and no single natural disease, honed by billions of years of evolution, has managed to threaten more than a handful of them

please don't trust cracked.com as a source of accurate and unbiased scientific evidence

[Slawbug]

you really just need to make inbeforetheapocalypse.com already

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

you really just need to make inbeforetheapocalypse.com already

http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm

too late

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

hahahahahaha yes because it would somehow be possible to make some kind of miraculous disease that could wipe out all edible plants, despite the fact that there are thousands of plants that we eat and no single natural disease, honed by billions of years of evolution, has managed to threaten more than a handful of them

please don't trust cracked.com as a source of accurate and unbiased scientific evidence

Hey, I remember that article. It was an excerpt from a book that one of the columnists wrote about scary ways the world ended.

The genetic tinkering that the author claimed was going on was engineering a bacteria in the roots of nitrogen fixing plants that would vastly accelerate the decomposition of nonliving plant material, with the goal of making biofuel from corn husks from the millions of acres of cornfields in the US. Of course, one of the dangerous side effects of this is the production of ammonia. While NH3 is a common industrial fertilizer, it would be made in far too large of a quantity for the plant to be able to survive such a high dose (something the 13 ppm, if I recall the article correctly). He claimed that the bacteria would spread, and be able to produce enough ammonia to kill off vast swathes of crops, global famine; civil unrest; collapse of governments; societal breakdown; extinction of humanity; vast damage to the biosphere; the whole nine yards.

Of course, there's a little concept known as "yellow journalism" that you might want to look up before you start believing everything you read on internet sites were "journalistic standards" is sometime they mock CNN for.

[Lilith]

yeah, messing up nitrogen fixers would be pretty bad for the world food supply but again i still find it hard to believe that a heavily genetically modified bacterium could outcompete wild ones

[everyday847]

I hardly trust cracked for the science of it; I'm a chemist. I meant only that potentially hazardous experiments in biological engineering are hardly new and that there's nothing especially apocalyptic about the fact that someone's made a bacterial genome from scratch.

 

Lilith, the microbe in question wasn't causing any kind of disease; it would--supposedly--alter the atmosphere's ammonia content. While, of course, this is laughably improbable, it wouldn't be the first time that microorganisms irreversibly altered the composition of Earth's atmosphere.

 

EDIT: whoops, missed that post. In any event, I'm not saying that it's particularly likely to. The oversight isn't that the scientists didn't realize that they were for-sure upping the ammonia content of the atmosphere to unsafe levels; it's that they didn't realize that there was a reasonable chance that they would.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: everyday847

While, of course, this is laughably improbable, it wouldn't be the first time that microorganisms irreversibly altered the composition of Earth's atmosphere.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't microbes the only thing that has irreversibly altered the earth's atmosphere?

[everyday847]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: everyday847

While, of course, this is laughably improbable, it wouldn't be the first time that microorganisms irreversibly altered the composition of Earth's atmosphere.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't microbes the only thing that has irreversibly altered the earth's atmosphere?

They are indeed.

[Thaluikhain]

Originally Posted By: Unbound Draykon

You know i just realized something, this could be another version of 2012. It all starts with a mad scientist who creates and releases a type of modified lizard, not very different from an Unbound One. Of course from G4's description of an Unbound One is that they terrifying and nearly indestructable giant monstrosities. Even if he only made one it mean nukes would have to be deployed to destroy it.

Yeah, it could. Orrrrrr...it could create a ginormous electric guitar, which threatens the world with the power of rock. And only clowns in veloceraptor suits could deal with it for some reason.

Anyways, this new science is strange and frightening. Just like every new science from the dawn of time, for a few years until people got used to it.

[Lilith]

the oxygen catastrophe is so much cooler than the ultraviolet catastrophe if only because it's a real thing that happened instead of a mathematical artifact

[Randomizer]

Nothing is likely to happen for a while. In a version that I read, they made a typo in constructing the genome sequence and spent 3 months locating it to make a viable construct. So they aren't that close to doing more than duplicating nature.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

you really just need to make inbeforetheapocalypse.com already

http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm

too late

I just checked the site, and it's amazing how many ways there are to end all life on a planet. The one I really like is where the Andromeda galaxy will crash into our own (and yes, I know it's true); I know none of us will be around to see it, but it should cause a truly spectacular night sky.

It also makes me wonder about all those failed end-of-the-world predictions for 2000....

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

It also makes me wonder about all those failed end-of-the-world predictions for 2000....

Bah! Everybody knows that Nostradamus predicted that the world would end in 2012, like the Mayans! He never said anything about the year 2000! Besides, it's not like modern scientists are better informed than primitive tribes and philosophers living hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go incinerate this pile of New Age literature that this one friend of mine left at my house. I swear, Professor, I had NOTHING to do with it! It's not mine!

[The Mystic]

I'm not talking about the 2012 stuff, but predictions made for how the world was supposed to end in 2000. I heard some really wild stories, to say the least, many of which I can't post here without receiving an official warning.

[Enraged Slith]

It's end-of-existence theories like these that make me half-hope that we live in a sort of protective God bubble. If we're just a coincidence of nature, it's only a matter of time before something happens.

[Jerakeen]

But it is only a matter of time before something happens.

 

We could hedge our bets by finding a way to live off-planet, but the obstacles are considerable.

[tehpineapple]

I rally thought the whole "watermark" thing was very cool. And don't fret you worry-warts. I'm sure Venter's team will invent some sort of "discipline wand" to take care of any rogues they unintentionally create.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

It's end-of-existence theories like these that make me half-hope that we live in a sort of protective God bubble. If we're just a coincidence of nature, it's only a matter of time before something happens.

Don't most religions have some sort of end-of-the-world scenario, though?

Dikiyoba.

[Dintiradan]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

It's end-of-existence theories like these that make me half-hope that we live in a sort of protective God bubble. If we're just a coincidence of nature, it's only a matter of time before something happens.

Don't most religions have some sort of end-of-the-world scenario, though?

Some have beginning-of-the-world scenarios, but as Aughra tells us, it's all the same.

[The Mystic]

Ah yes.

Originally Posted By: Aughra

The Great Conjunction is the END OF THE WORLD! Or the beginning.

And a short time later:

Originally Posted By: Aughra

End, begin, all the same. Big change. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad.

[Lilith]

oh man guys don't do this to me

 

i am already attempting to build up my nerd cred by watching Labyrinth and Highlander for the first time, don't make me buy even more movies

[Dintiradan]

Wait, we're supposed to watch the movies? I thought we just had to read the Wikipedia summaries, and that counted as enough.

 

(Yes, I've watched The Dark Crystal -- and would recommend it over Labyrinth unless you're a big Bowie fan. But I haven't been exposed to a ridiculous amount of pop culture, both present and past. I'm not going to waste time consuming it all, but a quick visit to Wikipedia or another relevant site will stop me from feeling completely clueless in future conversations. Does this make me a poser? Probably, though I never claim to have consumed the media first-hand.)

[Ephesos]

Bowie wins. Try not to look at his pants.

 

The movie is also much much better after having run the Labyrinth campaign.

[nikki.]

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

Bowie wins. Try not to look at his pants.

(I haven't followed this thread, but my Bowie-sense was tingling, and I just had to check in.)

[La paix]

As far as the end of the world goes, this would be interesting to see. I wonder if anything will end up going wrong? Or if anything has already gone wrong? (I.e. calculating numbers that deal with the future beyond this point, such as long-term mortgages.)

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Fractal

Or if anything has already gone wrong? (I.e. calculating numbers that deal with the future beyond this point, such as long-term mortgages.)

I remember hearing about a 105-year-old man whose birthday was messed up in a state government computer system, causing his age to be read as only 5 years old. He received several letters addressed to his (I'm assuming long-dead) parents, threatening them with jail time if they didn't enroll him in kindergarten by a certain date.

Apparently, you don't need a specific year in order to mess up math involving dates.

[Sporefrog]

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I have to give my thumbs up to Alorael's first post, which I think was spot on.

 

Venter is absolutely a king of overhyping a discovery. I must say, to the people who think this is a bad or scary thing, as somebody who has spent the last two years of his life genetically engineering microbes, there is really nothing unexpected or particularly worrisome about this research. I think it's certainly cool, and a step in the right direction, but all he really did was streamline the process of genetic engineering, and make a philosophical impact.

 

People have been adding, deleting, and modifying the genes of microorganisms for decades. All Venter's group did was to synthesize the bacterial genes in the lab, and then add in his watermarked genes. He didn't make any of the stuff of the cell, like the cytoplasm or cell wall, he simply put a large amount of DNA into a already made cell. This is a far-cry from "synthetic life" and a far, far cry from creating new organisms from scratch.

 

The only philosophical breakthrough here is if you actually think there's a difference between taking a "natural" genome and adding in a little extra section, which we've been doing for decades, as opposed to "synthetically" making the genome and adding in the watermarked section. Anyone who still is impressed by the fact that there is nothing special or magical about the building blocks of life is over 50 years out of date.

 

But anyway, as far as danger goes, to my mind this in no way creates a situation that is any more dangerous than our previous situation. Nature has created some pretty scary beasts, none of which have wiped out all life on the planet. And let me tell you, at least for the next few centuries, no human is going to have the knowledge to make something that devastating. There are just too many factors to consider. Most life is constantly mutating and changing, particularly some of the worst pathogens. The idea that we could randomly string something together that would destroy the world is being played out by nature constantly. If we don't have to worry too much about nature doing it on its own, we certainly don't have to worry about us figuring it out anytime soon.

 

 

[Lilith]

having said that, engineering a cold virus to encode the gene for ricin would probably ruin a lot of people's days

[Alorael at Large]

Or just release something with an accidentally toxic byproduct. It doesn't need to outcompete the naturally evolved flora and fauna to last long enough to be catastrophic. Ricin in the water supply would be pretty bad too.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think one could accidentally leave ricin in a genome. He does, however, think that accidents happen, especially when your accidents can involve lateral gene transfers among bacteria.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: I have drunk my fill of eternity

Or just release something with an accidentally toxic byproduct. It doesn't need to outcompete the naturally evolved flora and fauna to last long enough to be catastrophic. Ricin in the water supply would be pretty bad too.

—Alorael, who doesn't think one could accidentally leave ricin in a genome. He does, however, think that accidents happen, especially when your accidents can involve lateral gene transfers among bacteria.

Honestly, releasing ricin-producing microbes into a reservoir would probably be much, much less efficient than just growing your engineered microbes in a bioreactor, harvesting the ricin and dumping it in the water supply directly. I mean, I'm thinking from a bioterrorism standpoint rather than an accidental one here.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Honestly, releasing ricin-producing microbes into a reservoir would probably be much, much less efficient than just growing your engineered microbes in a bioreactor, harvesting the ricin and dumping it in the water supply directly. I mean, I'm thinking from a bioterrorism standpoint rather than an accidental one here.

Yes, but that wouldreally only be good for the shock value of "omg there's ricin in the water". It will kill people, sure, but there's so many things that would be so much more effective. Why not just reverse-engineer some Spanish influenza or smallpox? Both killed millions of people in their days, and I don't think most people are vaccinated against either.

[Lilith]

Smallpox would be a pretty good choice, yeah; it's highly infectious, its symptoms are suitably dramatic, anyone born since 1980 is unlikely to have been vaccinated against it, and current vaccine stocks are severely limited. And of course, you don't actually need to kill a lot of people to make a point that won't be quickly forgotten. Target a couple of Ivy League universities and watch them shut down as everyone under 30 flees for their lives.

 

I've probably thought too much about this.

[Sporefrog]

Smallpox or Spanish flu would certainly be pretty bad, but we have a much better understanding of how to contain (and treat, to a lesser extent) viral infections than we did when these pathogens were problematic, and our knowledge in this regard is only increasing. Basic steps towards stopping the spread of disease, such as through hand-washing, and not wandering around in public places while you're hacking out virus particles, would certainly even make something like the Spanish flu a lot less devastating.

 

Maybe the most dangerous pathogen wouldn't be something that is incredibly deadly or toxic right away. Perhaps someone could engineer a pathogen that has, say, a 5-10 year-long dormancy, but is highly transmissible so that it infects large portions of the human population only to suddenly erupt with near-100% deadliness. Anything else I imagine would get quarantined without causing too much harm.

 

Is something like that even possible? I'd say definitely not with our current knowledge. And by the time it is I hope we will have better means of treating (or rapidly developing new treatments for) viruses.

 

Edit: Smallpox treatment

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Treatment

[Sudanna]

You learned that from Pandemic.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: eCool

You learned that from Pandemic.

Yeah, and you should release your virus in Madagascar!

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Sporefrog

Maybe the most dangerous pathogen wouldn't be something that is incredibly deadly or toxic right away. Perhaps someone could engineer a pathogen that has, say, a 5-10 year-long dormancy, but is highly transmissible so that it infects large portions of the human population only to suddenly erupt with near-100% deadliness. Anything else I imagine would get quarantined without causing too much harm.

It's called terrorism because the aim is to scare people, not kill them. If you get a major public institution quarantined so that it can't do business for days or weeks, you've achieved your goal pretty well. Killing a bunch of people 5 years from now isn't necessarily going to be a lot of use to you compared to killing a few, making a few more sick and making absolutely everyone panic.

[Golgoth]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

It's called terrorism because the aim is to scare people, not kill them. If you get a major public institution quarantined so that it can't do business for days or weeks, you've achieved your goal pretty well. Killing a bunch of people 5 years from now isn't necessarily going to be a lot of use to you compared to killing a few, making a few more sick and making absolutely everyone panic.

But What causes more terror than killing many, What would scare you more a disease that could have a small chance of killing you or one that has a large chance of killing you?

[Goldengirl]

Originally Posted By: Sporefrog

Is something like that even possible?

I'd definitely say not. Five to ten years is a long time for a virus. Sure, something dormant like that could spread amongst a lot of people really fast. However, it would certainly not be reliable to suddenly become deadly, as viruses tend to do this thing called mutation, annoyingly enough for everyone.

And if you plan on having the entire virus mutate at once, as seen in our example game, Pandemic, don't hold your breath. The virus would have to mutate in one spot, first, and spread all over again. It wouldn't be able to near instantaneously kill large swathes of the population infected with its predecessor.

Thankfully enough.