Genetic Engineering, Taken to the Next Level

by **Just_essence** on Sat Jan 05, 2013 11:39 am

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/347263/description/Factory_of_Life
Number one, I have to say I'm jealous I wasn't in that team. If you didn't want to read the article or if I screwed up the URL, TL;DR: This is about a company that can change lifeforms to a client's desire: Biofuels for future energy, consume CO2 from the air, etc. Whatever one would want (to a reasonable level). Somewhat contradictory. But it is very surprising that it came around this time in our civilization.

by **TA1LGUNN3R** on Sat Jan 05, 2013 4:52 pm

Cool stuff. Widespread applications for the near future.

-TG

by **Viceroy63** on Mon Jan 07, 2013 12:16 pm

I read that article about half way. Boy is that a long article. =) I will read the whole article later on when I have more time at my leisure. But for now I just wanted to say that Man can not improve on what God already created. Man has a lot of reading and learning to do before he can beat God at His game.

I'm not a geneticist but it seem to me that while we can form protein molecules, as they do form in nature and put them together in a lab, it eventually comes down to the programming of life. The DNA is the language codes that need to be broken down, understood, written and read.

It takes 3 Billion pairs of genetic letters in the right sequence to make up a human being. The same letters in a different sequence could form a Rhino or other creature. But 3 Billion is a lot of reading if you ask me. Even if we are just talking about some simple bacteria with a half a million genetic letters, That's still a whole lot of reading involved.

I don't think we can expect to see something, anything new and viable in our life time. Not if we are talking about creating something from the ground up.

by **GreecePwns** on Mon Jan 07, 2013 12:25 pm

Just_essence wrote:http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/347263/description/Factory_of_Life
Number one, I have to say I'm jealous I wasn't in that team. If you didn't want to read the article or if I screwed up the URL, TL;DR: This is about a company that can change lifeforms to a client's desire: Biofuels for future energy, consume CO2 from the air, etc. Whatever one would want (to a reasonable level). Somewhat contradictory. But it is very surprising that it came around this time in our civilization.

Wow. This is absolutely fascinating.

Viceroy63 wrote:I read that article about half way. Boy is that a long article. =) I will read the whole article later on when I have more time at my leisure. But for now I just wanted to say that Man can not improve on what God already created. Man has a lot of reading and learning to do before he can beat God at His game.

I'm not a geneticist but it seem to me that while we can form protein molecules, as they do form in nature and put them together in a lab, it eventually comes down to the programming of life. The DNA is the language codes that need to be broken down, understood, written and read.

It takes 3 Billion pairs of genetic letters in the right sequence to make up a human being. The same letters in a different sequence could form a Rhino or other creature. But 3 Billion is a lot of reading if you ask me. Even if we are just talking about some simple bacteria with a half a million genetic letters, That's still a whole lot of reading involved.

I don't think we can expect to see something, anything new and viable in our life time. Not if we are talking about creating something from the ground up.

Wow. This is absolutely fascinating.