The World's First Synthetic & Self-Replicating Species

[RawSwedishMeatball]

"You want to cut down on C02 which some people believe cause global warming"

Yeah... global warming is a myth alright, just like your brain you jackass...

[peipappy1]

Reminds me of a joke. Scientists became so confidant that they told God "OK

God we don't need you anymore we can do it on our own" So, God challenged them, "Ok but you have to prove to me you can create life from nothing first" The scientists agreed and took some soil from the earth to begin their creation. But God said "Sorry boys, you have to get your own soil". :)

[AsknotwhatUcan]

Mutation and creation are not the same. Man cannot so much as create a single living cell from scratch.

[coldarc]

if he see DNA as programming, how can he think the universe is not a matrix. every virtual realities need a programmer to do the math to make the code work. what happens when people begin to use the body RNA assembler to create nanobots? what happens when the code of molecular machines become compatible with machine code? think about it, hackers hacking into your brain and infect you with a computer virus trough a translation?

[mknomad5]

Just wondering if it is possible to tell that these cells are man-made from just studying the end product.

[alhocarmine]

10:50 "cells that won´t survive outside a facility or laboratory"

even if these cells are what they claim they are, this changes nothing about the existence of a higher power, a God or what you wanna call it.

this doesn´t kill inteligent design because this is a man made cell. it´s not a random event, it´s designed! anyone that thinks that this is some kind of undeniable proof of evolution or of the death of a creator is wrong.

[RawSwedishMeatball]

@alhocarmine He didnt make a cell, he merely put existing pieces of already finished cells togethers to create a new life form, unless god actually just pieced us together, your claim doesnt hold up to scrutiny.

[MrSlimjones]

Men like this help contribute to the end of the world..afraid to live and scared to die..subject yourself to reality and wont live in so much fear...looking for a way out...just sayin..

[Kenyonsofjordan]

Presenter is a fool. Venter is making huge accomplishments.

[oiblaxoi]

year 2456... are synthetic life beings equal to nonsynthetic? do SynthUmans have the right to vote?

stay tuned for an exclusive video featuring the high priest from the church of Synthesis "humans are not gods, we as you do, you have the same creator, you are just been told by the creator of the universe to create us"

[chilledkirby]

lol @ the ending =D

[Hemouth]

pwned

[123wowboy123]

@candiceevans1

Or thata's just how he moves his head, if such a person is controlled, someone has to be able to do that to make him do that.

[123wowboy123]

I can smell the likes of I am Legend or Resident Evil coming, I hope they are smart enough to be careful enough to not let that happen, please thumb this up as an early warning.

[DrQuijano]

@candiceevans1 "When people say "as a christian" they are asuming that they hold some moral highground. I could say "as an atheist I think stem cell research is fine" and that would be looked down on because "I'm an atheist" and second because I have no medical credentials. When people say "as a christian I think stem cell should be illegal" they are doing nothing short of parading their egos by asserting that "as a christian" they know better than M.Ds, which is, I think, the sin of pride.

[DrQuijano]

@candiceevans1 Saying "as a xxx" is a phrase that experts use to express their opinions. "As a doctor of medicine, I think we should operate your colon" or "as a teacher, I think that we should change the way we evaluate students" are perfectlly acceptable. Both of them have credentials to back up their opinion. It would be presumptuous, however, to say "as a teacher, I think you should undergo neurosurgery". (cont)

[poconut10]

This man may not have visual memory, but he has vision.

[KillaFundie44]

This is interesting. Man improving life through science everyday.

[IloveJesusYesId0]

This world eventually will end in slavery horror and death and anyone with a brain sees it..

Several assholes will be safe in their spaceships though.. So why not just stay asleep..

AnswersdotCom had a question.. Would you kill 2 unknown children to save your child, the whole page is filled with idiots saving their kid.. None of these people realizing that their kid is one of two others and they all just killed each other's kid...

This is the level of stupidity in "good" people..

[thetimman00]

Maybe the bug will eat God wannabes.

[invista360]

"Self replicating synthetic bacteria"

Nice.

Do have an antedote for any of your irresponsible creations if they start "self replicating" in the bodies of everyone and it cannot be stopped? Of course you dont. Your a fucking ego driven irresponsible eugencist and we dont want any of your mistakes nor do we want the final product, which is ultimate control of our DNA through implanted chips.

[invista360]

"I cannot guarantee that the technology I develope can't be used irresposibly by others"-Craig Venter 60 minutes.

Thats right you idiot egg headed moron. Thats like Einstein saying "dont blame me for nuke weapons".

Your bridging the gap between human DNA and microelectric control so you can sell the technology to the evil controllers which will then use the technology to implant us with microchips and control every aspect of our lives.

[DrQuijano]

@invista360 I would guess that "evil controllers" = religious institutions who don't want you to do things they are against?

[Stead3111]

I would like to be the first to welcome our genetically altered bacteria overlords.

[El3ctricPenguin]

This man is my hero

[volbla]

Fascinating.

[Feredir28]

Over ambitious, big ego, self-promoting.... in this day and age, with all our problems, what is so bad about rushing to make a change by inventing something that may eventually lower or get rid of our problems? If this new discovery can make better medicine, agriculture, and energy, I say go for it and fast.

[DrQuijano]

I hate how these journalists are all like "do you believe in god?" as if being an atheist will somehow discredit all his scientific findings. Close-minded morons.

[IloveJesusYesId0]

@DrQuijano I'm atheist and agree with the statements themselves, but I don't like the look in his eye, and I know their is a thread in the scientific zeitgeist of eugenics on a massive scale. Even if as just a backup.. I first heard the "humans are a virus" line when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade in a Catholic school,. That shit worked it's way deep.. It exists..

[DrQuijano]

@IloveJesusYesId0 Sure, he has a hint of insanity in his eyes, but most extremely brillian people do. I'm sure his motives are nothing more than self agrandizement - feeling like he made the most important discovery in the world. It's what drives most researchers in any field. As for eugenics, I see no problem with us controlling our own evolutionary pattern, as long as it's done on an objective, truly useful, non-discriminatory way. I wouldn't mind manipulating my DNA to make my eyes better,

[DrQuijano]

@IloveJesusYesId0 my skin stronger, my brain more agile, or my digestive system more able to process raw meats in case of a zombie apocalypse. I'd like to keep my skin color and features intact tho - those would not be enhancements, but aesthetic changes completely irrelevant to human functioning. I'm not sure that the scientific community still has the "humans are a virus" mindset as much as religious folk and pop culture enthusiasts think they do. I'm also sure eugenics is nearly dead and now

[DrQuijano]

@IloveJesusYesId0 the accepted scientific practice is molecular evolution (the same as eugenics but with more of an in-depth look into DNA, RNA, and all that good stuff that makes us us). The only possible argument against human augmentation would be religious (as morality and ethics are subjective), and to that religious argument I say: science killed God in the 19th century, but if he still was true he would want us to evolve ourselves, that's why he made us able to figure out how to do it.

[IloveJesusYesId0]

@DrQuijano Ahahahah.. It will be based off of MONEY.. Which as we all know isn't in the hands of any criminals, murderers, scum in general right? Right.. =/

It will also be turned into a weapon by someone..

We spend our energies on so many stupid things while stealing people's food, lives, property and I mean almost everyone all over the world indirectly.. If this goes on at the same time as some elite are augmenting (like Dick Cheney) and building a wall up, then fuck it, destroy it.

[IloveJesusYesId0]

@IloveJesusYesId0 You don't need a religion to object to people like Dick Cheney, in theory, living forever while he causes the horrible suffering of innocent human beings, in the way scumbags treat animals right now...

How much slavery, how much horror, how much separation of those people from Justice would you allow before giving up your own augmentation/vanity/cowardess? And these are things in me as in you as in everyone.

[DrQuijano]

@IloveJesusYesId0 I do agree with you. Sadly, it will be based off money, some nice person will use it to enhance soldiers or something, what will happen is that someone will end up endowing the elite with enhanced capacities and leaving us peasants in the dust. Then again, that is, pretty much, the history of man. Furthermore, it still doesn't take away the fact of the many potential benefits such breakthroughs might have. I just wish everyone were as caring and concerned as you seem to be.

[DrQuijano]

I love how unaccomplished people say that those who show off their accomplishments "have a big ego". No scientist's ego is as big as anyone who starts sentences with "As a Christian..."

[jouc12]

@DrQuijano As a Christian, it makes me laugh how atheist say there's no God and then talk about how astonishing life is. Its only astonishing when you're dumb enough to think it could happen by chance.

[DrQuijano]

@jouc12 Given that you're a Christian I'm not surprised that you find reason funny, logic laughable, and facts irrational. It's what you people do to stay in your self-delusion. As for "it could happen by chance" bit, that's actually some bollocks that your people tacked on scientists. Science has explained HOW the big bang happened and HOW natural selection has come to occur. No credible scientist will say "I dunno it was random lol", They used to when they didn't know, but now they do.

[jouc12]

@DrQuijano You think that things coming out of nothing is reason? The reason its funny to me is because it ain't reason.

Self-delusion hmmm I would say its the people that believe in impossible odds and that reject any facts that contradict their fantasy that are self-deluded.

[CRUClEFICTION]

@jouc12 Christianity is the belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie, which is his own father, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master. This is so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in all humanity because a rib-woman was convinced to eat from a magical tree by an infinitely sadistic being disguised as a talking snake with legs.

They're your "facts", & a magic sky-man poofed everything into existence

[jouc12]

@CRUClEFICTION Here's another fact for you. Those things you mentioned are allegories. That means you're not supposed to take them literally. Before you attempt to criticize something try to learn about it first.

[CRUClEFICTION]

@jouc12 They're not allegories, you nitwit. It's a factual summation of the basic teaching of the Christian cult. That it can be presented so comedic and yet so accurate, only attests to the fact that the ridiculous & incomprehensible nonsense of the bible comes from ignorant & superstitious dessert dwellers of some 2,000 years ago - people who had not a tiny fraction of the knowledge we do today about our world/universe. You're a credulous fool who's been duped to believe an ancient fraud & lie

[jouc12]

@CRUClEFICTION You believe that millions of moving parts came together in water (where amino acids can't bond making it impossible) and somehow by miraculous coincidences they formed a cell. And you called me a credulous fool? lol what a clown!

[CRUClEFICTION]

@jouc12 We do not yet know how life came to be on earth, but scientists have estimated we will know within the next decade. Cosmologists have tons of evidence, including cosmic radiation, red shift, etc., all leading them to understand the origins of the universe. But you prefer to cling to a book of gobbledygook from the Bronze Age that reveals its authors thought the world flat, the sun revolves around the earth, & many other things completely wrong. You're not only credulous, you're pathetic!

[jouc12]

@CRUClEFICTION We haven't figured it out yet lol. If it happened by chance it would have been done years ago cause it would have been super easy. It never enters your monkey brain the possibility that the reason they can't do it is because they're wrong about their claim. Get educated. The Bible doesnt say anywhere the world is flat, it says the opposite. It doesn't say that the sun revolves around the earth either. You are the stereotypical atheist talking junk about what you don't understand.

[CRUClEFICTION]

@jouc12 I've no patience with willful idiots. The bible makes it clear the authors thought the earth to be as a flat pancake (circle) shape with a dome firmament above. They thought the earth to be the center of "God's" universe (geocentric) which therefore means the sun revolves around the earth. But there's a whole industry of creative frauds who come up with lame excuses for the nonsense in the bible and try to make it fit with today's knowledge. And you delusional nitwits will swallow it.

[DrQuijano]

@jouc12 Something coming out of nothing is, again, some random idea that ill-informed Christians believe that scientists think, but they really don't. Big Bang explains that originally there huge amounts of nuclear forces bound by gravity in a single sub atomic particle. When time as we measure it began, gravity grew weak, the nuclear forces expanded rapidly, which created gases that reacted with each other and when exposed to extreme hot/cold cycles became solids. (cont.)

[DrQuijano]

@jouc12 Those solids started reacting with giant balls of gas and fire, solar systems were created, and so on. Just google "big bang videos" and you'll see that, once again, NO SINGLE SCIENTIST will say "I dunno something came out of nothing". Now, you CAN ask the question of "where did the original nuclear forces and gravity come from?", to what ALL credible scientists will reply "I don't know, but we're trying to find out". The moment you insert a magical god into the equation (cont.)

[DrQuijano]

@jouc12 you stop looking for answer and stop learning and discovering what the universe REALLY is, and just fill in the holes of your knowledge with what you have correctly called "impossible odds and rejection of facts that contradict their fantasy", i.e. the existence of a "god".

[DrQuijano]

@jouc12 you stop looking for answer and stop learning and discovering what the universe REALLY is, and just fill in the holes of your knowledge with what you have correctly called "impossible odds and rejection of facts that contradict their fantasy", i.e. the existence of a "god".

[jouc12]

@DrQuijano really? ill-informed Christians believe that scientists think so. Is Lawrence Krauss an ill-informed Christian? last time I checked he was an atheist physicist.

[DrQuijano]

@jouc12 You mean the science and morality guy who explains that originally there were nucllear forces bound by gravity and that nuclear forces expanded and created gases, then solids and liquids and so on? And who says that he doesn't know where the nuclear and gravity forces came from, but hopes to explain it with further exploration?

[jouc12]

@DrQuijano What you fail to realize here is that you're trying to explain an absolute beginning with things that already exist. In other words you're not explaining anything you're just talking in circles. By your way of thinking, you think that if you change the flat tire of a BMW that makes you a German engineer. Well congratulations! but you're going nowhere with this reasoning.

[DrQuijano]

@jouc12 And what you fail to realize is that if there is an absolute being there is no evidence of it, which is akin to there being no absolute being. Explaining the universe makes you a scientist (choose your branch and what part of it to explain), making up stuff about fictional entities makes you a theologean. And since we're talking about circular logic, why don't you explain your knowledge of this fairy being you call god? it exists because the bible says so and it's true because (cont)

[DrQuijano]

@jouc12 it's the word of the god that it validates. If you want to talk about circular reasoning, start there.

But let's suppose I concede the existence of some transcendental entity, how do we decide which one is true? My vote is on the Sa Shin.

[RawSwedishMeatball]

@DrQuijano Well, Odin promised to rid the world of ice giants. Do you see any ice giants? because I certainly dont.

(joke)

[DrQuijano]

@RawSwedishMeatball Good point. And now that I think about it... J. Craig Venter kind of looks like Odin....

[Realjhad]

Big ego ? I think he has every fucking right to boast.

I hope it will out evolve us, eat us and make better society, ours sucks.

[950horsepower]

I like him. I'm not afraid of what he's doing. But I think this suggests there will be a new conflict on a biomedical battlefield. Electromedical technology has developed enough to have mapped out the energy fields necessary to stimulate and revitalize, actually normalize tissues. Electronic weaponry has the reverse of this map, and is able to devitalize, necrotize and reduce to a polymer, any pathogen or living cell, in virtually any medium including the human body.

[rollsthepaul]

The oil in the Gulf was sprayed with a similar synthetic organism and was responsibe for the Gulf flu or Blue flu, note that the colour, of the magnified organism, is blue. The problem with synthetic DNA, is the inability of humans to defend against any attack from these, never experienced before, organisms. The same company that produced the oil eating synthetic bacteria, for the Gulf oil disaster, have also opened a new company for vaccines against synthetic bacteria.

[inquiry10]

my partner an I discuss this quite a lot actually

We wonder if given 500 years which side of the forced evolution on humanity will win out.

Will it by biological evolution or a form of cybernetic evoltuion.

I think it is rather clear that we are heading in one of the two directions.

Something else to ponder is.. will religious people be willing to take these steps or will they view it as unnatural abominations?

[ChristianIce]

@inquiry10

I would say both, depending the case, but when we'll be able to replicate organs we won't need machines doing their job anymore, at that time technology could improve some other aspect, dunno, like a neural interface for quick learning?

Yep, sci-fi still, surely religious people will try to stop it, but surely they will take advantage out of it. The same contraddiction they live today by criticizing science and using medicines at the same time.

[inquiry10]

@ChristianIce

Interestingly enough that was patricks conclusion as well.

He said the brain would likely be enabled through technology while other less complex organs would be grown and enhanced (to ward off illness ect) in labritory farms.

It would be easier to replicate say a spleen rather then build one using machines.

A question I would love to ask dawkins would be if this forced evolution is a natural bi product of our larger brains or is it un natural and does it matter?

[ChristianIce]

@inquiry10

Too late :)

The moment we did build an engine that allowed us to move at a superior speed that our legs would allow, we did broke the "naturallity" thing ;P

When we are sick and our body is not able to self-cure, the "natural" thing that should happen is our death.

From this POV we should change the question into whether is moral or not to achieve a specific target, and to me anything that make our life better is ok.

[inquiry10]

@ChristianIce

Interesting..I never really gave this the proper thought it deserves..thank you for giving me something to think about.

[Viracocha711]

@inquiry10 Don't hold me to it but I think I have heard Dawkins say without some huge catastrophic event that wipes us out that we humans we will control our future evolutionary path. I would have to agree! We might think this is absurd right now but if you think about it it makes perfect sense! It will start by eliminating certain diseases by altering our DNA & eventually our bodies then our minds...Maybe most of this happens after we are dead & gone but it will happen.

[TheScalesHaveFallen]

@ChristianIce They can already replicate organs, I've seen heart valves and ear components growing in labs. I forget which news station broad casted it, but it was a few months ago. I don't know if it was 60 minutes, I don't remember. I was shocked, I didn't think we had progressed that far, but it is very fascinating to say the least. The doctor who did the interview said that they are currently projecting the present generation to live to 150 yrs with these new developments. Oh yeah.

[OccamsView]

12:21 watch Steve Kroft go silent after he asks Craig Venter, "do you believe in god?", and Venter answers, "No."

[derekxnl]

I think this is one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time with the potential to do so much good for the world. But at the same time I'm a little worried that someone could use this to cause great harm to the world. Being able to essentially create new life is something that requires a lot of responsibility to make sure we don't use this power in a harmful way.

[bb1televator]

I agree that we are a society that is dependent on science. I don't think Venter should need to hold back on pushing the envelope as long as he keeps our benefit in mind. However he's pushing the envelope in a time when the rest of the world is woefully uninformed about the science it's currently dependent on already. Advanced tech in the hands of the ignorant and fearful is a bad combination.

[fudgeman362]

This guy is so intelligent it blows my mind. Here's to hoping religion and superstition doesn't block science from achieving wonders.

[prolefeedprocessor]

This is awesome. I have a little more hope for the future now. Not much, but a little.

[geffel]

This can only be used for evil.

However, I'm looking forward to them getting to the point where they create life from scratch, possibly using ordinary household objects and perhaps some chemicals to be found in the kitchen or laundry area.

[MMAharaja]

@geffel How can this only be used for evil? That makes no sense.

[geffel]

@MMAharaja

True. It's almost as if I was...joking...or was I?

[freedom0speech]

ZOMBIES!!! Get your shotgun!

[RyuDarragh]

He did NOT create life. To do that, he needs to start from scratch. This was a case of following a known recipe for DNA (a modified copy of an existing genome with a marker or 3 insterted) and then using an already existing bacterial cell with its DNA removed! To qualify as "creating life", and not just making some DNA, one needs to choose genomic sequences, assemble them, then insert them into a man made bacterial cell. This was just 1 step past genetically modifying a bacteria. A beginning.

[Spider58x]

just watched it on tv. Awesome!!

[KasparHauser5]

YAAAAAAAAAAAAY for our side!!!!

[colourmegone]

FINALLY an American with some sense!

[atheistkyo]

"DNA is the software of life" - Craig Ventor

This is awesome

hopefully we can clone ourselves.

[geffel]

@atheistkyo

Evil...clones?