Synthetic Biology: Drew Endy

[MardukHail]

Great ideas! Thanks to wired for posting!

[MardukHail]

@qwizzer78 Fuck nature. Science is golden.

[TruthSmack]

one word: Monsanto! End this new world order!

[3Gyro]

@TruthSmack

One word: Dumb!

"Ok so yeah this one company is evil so the ENTIRE BRANCH OF SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY AND TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT they use is pure evil too, it's a logic!"

[TruthSmack]

@3Gyro Keep playing your video games and mom will bring you supper soon child. Did you remember to take out the trash son?

[3Gyro]

@TruthSmack

I brought up a legitimate point and you respond with idiotic ad hominem attacks. Congratulations, you're a master debater.

[walkwithears]

I'm all for this iff my job isn't replaced and if it is, I get to share the benefits of the science to a point where it would override my many fears and let me frolic in bounteous fields of plenty. I will make friends with Synthetic systems iff they serve me, not for being me, but because I am a Human Being. Bring it on!

[Wakkajakka]

Well binary is machine based computer language, while DNA is biology based programming. They're both quite simmilar in theory, one being for carbon based machines, and the other for metalic machines.

[spence111]

Could become more plausible with the emergence of nanotechnology.

[LikeAPossum]

Biology is the only nanotechnology that works (so far).

[v01d4d3pt]

@LikeAPossum actually biology is not the only nanotech depending on your defnition of nanotech. certain consumer cpu's are technically nanotech. Nanotechnology is mereley any system or device where the entire thing fits in 100 or less nanometers.

[trickyoutrickme]

@v01d4d3pt

Wrong. Nanotech is the purposeful placement of atoms and could easily "not fit" in your 100 nanometers definition. On the other hand, the current STATISTICAL placement of atoms, even is easily fitting in your 100 nanometers thin definition, is NOT nanotechnology.

[v01d4d3pt]

@trickyoutrickme ok well, my definition is really more of a realistic and quoted from either ocw.mit.edu or webcast.berkeley.edu lecture, I believe berkeley can't remember this was so long ago. So for my purposes nanotech being something real and not fairytale is fine.

[psychodelicdragon]

awesome stuff here, hopefully sooner than you think :)

[ironman236]

Interesting

[Tektra]

I would love to see more of this. While everything Drew Endy says here seems really intricate and complex, it's really quite simple. He's suggesting taking biology to higher levels such that we can build it from the ground up. Rather than clone...create. I have high hopes for such hypotheses about where biology is heading in the future, but a fear I have which Endy lays out is the extremely dangerous moral and ethical consequences this advanced biology could present us with.

[zakkmiester]

bah! morals!

who needs them!

[spence111]

weak people do...

[zakkmiester]

silly logic, Tricks are for kids!

[bhudi]

Excellent comment! The morality of the whole idea is certainly the biggest issue.How far do the rules go, is the question. Thought: Imagine being able to create your own partner (wife,husband) and having a child with them.What is that? (on so many levels) Is that too far?

[baptistic]

Bioethicists have the their toughest times ahead, i agree. About the life partner, don't know how long it will take to materialize such a thing, ut we're certainly just scratcihng the surface here, and how the future of this technology will unfold is uncertain for even Craig Venter and the guys playing a his level.

[mrpeanutbutter13]

cross that bridge when we come to it, for now i believe developing the technology is the most important thing

[rat5522]

could easily save or destroy the human race.

[zakkmiester]

hopefully the first one

[bigandyroo19]

haha that be funny