Artificial Life

Science and technology are the two most awesome things ever.  Period.  If we were to try and visualize the abstract concepts we throw around every day, science would be the tyrannosaurs lion cyborg that could also shoot nukes and travel at mach 2.  Love would be a hippie with fairy wings stuck in his back, and if he felt particularly threatening, a pretty pink sparkly wand.

I googled Tyrannosaurs Lion and this came back- its somehow more awesome than what I was picturing.

Science is awesome because it looks at a world around us goes, "That's pretty good thing you got there with your axe and chopping down trees and all.  Now go sit in the corner with this coloring book and we'll show you how one really chops down a tree."

And then the chainsaw was invented.

So, recently scientists have looked at life and been like, "That's a pretty good thing you got there mother nature, with your life and species and ecosystems.  Now go sit in a corner and we'll show you how one really creates life."

Yep!  We've officially crossed into the realm of playing God and have managed to artificially construct life in a way nature never, ever intended it to be.  Really! In a move that's just asking for the human race to get smitten, scientists inserted synthetic DNA into live cells and left for weekend- and when they came back the cells had multiplied according to  the man-made instruction set.  The researchers then high-fived, and left the office holding maybe the greatest card in the "worked harder than you did, so make me dinner" argument ever.

I made life today!  I deserve some time on the couch with a beer!

Alright, alright, I'm being a little over dramatic.  We've got a ways to go on the artificial life front before Lord of the Rings fans can actually create their own hobbits to boss around.  Advance life forms, like you, me, or a hobbit, are still in the realm of science fiction according to the project lead of the "playing God" team of scientists in this CNN interview.  Heck, even advanced cells are still a few years of research off.

At the end of the day, though, we've still created cell colonies you can never find in nature- because mother nature had no hand in their creation.  We borrowed some of her techniques, sure, but no natural selection was ever performed on these cells, no environmental pressures.  Just a bunch of really smart dudes, some expensive equipment and a Petri dish.  Or if you happen to be a bible thumper, a bunch of researchers made a bunch of cells that God did not intend for Earth.  That's got to be a chilling thought.

God would be about as awesome as science if he would smite more cities with lasers.

It shouldn't be, though.  Smart scientists are taking the first steps into something fantastic.  Think about where this could lead for a second- one day, when BP screws up again, there doesn't have to be a big environmental calamity.  We just release the strain of cells that eats oil for breakfast, and when they're done, eat themselves so the ecosystem isn't disturbed.

Or the T-Virus.  That's another place this could lead to.  You zombie apocalypse fans have something to get excited about, it seems.

I want to make an important point here- these cells are different from other things we've genetically engineered.  We're not taking a plant and inserting some firefly genes in it to make it glow at night (although we can do that and it is indeed just as cool as you're imagining it).  These cells have the potential to do things that nothing in nature has ever done before.

We've taken the first step toward organic technology, and if Babylon 5 is to be believed, that's one amazing step.