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InvisibleDiploidM
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Loc: Rabbit Hole
Living Cell Differentiation: Magic?
    #7906622 - 01/20/08 05:45 PM (16 years, 12 days ago)

It's been known for a long time that a human starts off as a single cell. It divides into two IDENTICAL cells. Each of those divides into four IDENTICAL cells and so on.

At some point, those IDENTICAL cells begin to differentiate into heart cells, brain cells, skin cells, and so on. Up until now, nobody knew how that happened. It was befuddling because each cell has an exact copy of the same DNA, so how could they "know" to take up the different functions of each cell type in a human?

Mystic heads have historically jumped on this as evidence of a "magical" process going on. They insisted that it was God's intervention and not only reason to become a believer, but also reason to make abortion illegal and reject evolution.

Well, recent discoveries by science heads (molecular biologists) have identified the mechanism by which differentiation occurs. Turns out some complicated chemistry (that's right, chemistry, not magic) called DNA methylation, selective transcriptase enzyme activation, and chromatin remodeling explain how differentiation happens.

In simple terms, it's essentially a complicated chemical dance where reactions take place differently depending on where physically in the embryo they are taking place. Each cell exudes chemicals that entrain nearby cells to differentiate similarly and farther away cells to differentiate dissimilarly. In other words, the cells 'talk' to each other with chemical messages to coordinate their differentiation. This chemical dance selectively activates certain parts of the DNA in one cell and a different part of the same DNA in another cell. In this way what were two identical cells become one brain cell and one liver cell.

The process isn't entirely understood, but we're on our way. It even has a name: Epigenetics. It means above, or beyond genetics which is apropos because if DNA is the foundation of genetics, then Epigenetics is the foundation of differentiation by way of manipulating DNA's influence on cell metabolism.

This new knowledge has enabled the creation of the first human embryo from an ordinary adult human skin cell:

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/7906506/an/0/page/0

In a couple more decades, this process will be fully understood and the magic will be replaced with chemistry. It will also lead to cures for things like diabetes and blindness. We'll be able to take one skin cell and turn it into a new pancreas or retina that will not be rejected after transplantation because it is 100% you.

I wonder if the mystics will then step back, pick a NEW benchmark that science hasn't yet figured out and point to IT as the new evidence that there must exist magic because science doesn't know how it works (yet).

This theme has repeated throughout history, but the mystics never seem to get it. Maybe they will this time around? Nah... :wink:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Diploid]
    #7906642 - 01/20/08 05:50 PM (16 years, 12 days ago)


I wonder if the mystics will then step back, pick a NEW benchmark that science hasn't yet figured out and point to IT as the new evidence that there must exist magic because science doesn't know how it works (yet).


The new benchmark will always be necessary IMO, because the "mystics" are looking for a way to defeat the natural end of their personality. In other words they are self-absorbed and fearful of dying.

Oh, and thanks for the interesting info although I just assumed it would be something such as this. It's still miraculous to me and it still doesn't answer the question I have. "What's it all about Alfie?"


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


Edited by Icelander (01/20/08 05:53 PM)


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Icelander]
    #7906678 - 01/20/08 06:02 PM (16 years, 12 days ago)

It's still miraculous to me

THAT is spirituality. No need to pull silly God explanations out of thin air. Just look at nature and enjoy the beauty and the mystery and the wonder of it all. :thumbup:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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InvisibleIcelander
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Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Diploid]
    #7906687 - 01/20/08 06:05 PM (16 years, 12 days ago)

I couldn't agree more. The more I really understand the process the more tremendous it becomes. Fantasies about fairy's and gods just seem tame and boring now.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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OfflineApJunkie
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Icelander]
    #7906710 - 01/20/08 06:13 PM (16 years, 12 days ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
I couldn't agree more. The more I really understand the process the more tremendous it becomes. Fantasies about fairy's and gods just seem tame and boring now.




QFT


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OfflineNiamhNyx
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Icelander]
    #7906728 - 01/20/08 06:17 PM (16 years, 12 days ago)

I am more in awe of the wonders exposed by scientific inquiry than I am of any myth of a jealous creator father who magically makes everything happen. Science provides the grounds for an atheistic mysticism that I find more appealing than any scripture. That I am of the earth and and my body will be returned to it in a cyclical pattern of life and death in perpetuity is more thrilling than the linear notion of an eternal soul. That I intrinsically am a part of this universe and not some alien trapped in a body-prison is incredibly spiritually edifying.


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Diploid]
    #7907178 - 01/20/08 08:23 PM (16 years, 12 days ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
...The process isn't entirely understood, but we're on our way. It even has a name: Epigenetics. ....

In a couple more decades, this process will be fully understood and the magic will be replaced with chemistry. It will also lead to cures for things like diabetes and blindness. We'll be able to take one skin cell and turn it into a new pancreas or retina that will not be rejected after transplantation because it is 100% you.






when you predict with out understanding, you sound like a mystic
maybe you want to be a mystic, one that repeats magical names to ward off other magical names.

the magical process is easier to understand in stages,
chemistry with geometries, topologies, folds, follicles and siphon paths,
and inside of the cells
don't leave out the histones, when you're talking about complex eukaryotes,
histones are key to the expression of genes.
the scale of them is between the microscopic and macroscopic cellular interactions.
so it's not just chemistry, it's the whole choreography of parts and totalities.
to see this in action, all scientific disciplines are involved.

anyway, 10 years is a short time to expect proficiency and understanding.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #7907577 - 01/20/08 09:45 PM (16 years, 12 days ago)

There's nothing mystical about making predictions based on a long history repeating itself. It is a sound way to prepare for a future based on the past.

Ten years ago a computer that could beat the best human at chess was "impossible" because of the magical intelligence and intuition of the human mind.

Today that machine exists; it's called Deep Blue. Kasparov, the best human player in the world even said of it: "... I sometimes saw a deep intelligence and creativity in the machine's moves...". He was so disturbed by what he thought was impossible that he accused the designers of the machine of cheating by using a human to actually provide the moves instead of the machine.

Today a machine with emotion and self-awareness is "impossible" because that's the new benchmark after the old one fell. Well just wait a while and this new mystical benchmark will fall too. And history will repeat.

It is not mystical to predict a periodic recession in the economy either based on many such cycles in the history books. Ignore the past at your peril!

the scale of them is between the microscopic and macroscopic cellular interactions.

so it's not just chemistry


LOL. CHEMICAL histones (proteins, actually) are not chemistry? Yeah, right. And cooking egg whites isn't chemistry either. God makes then harden. WTF?

Do you have a REAL refutation like pointing to some behavior of the atoms in living things that is against the known rules of chemistry?

You see, THAT would get my attention. THAT would go a very long way toward changing my mind. REAL evidence not statements of magic pulled out of nowhere that can be falsified by a second-year chemistry student.

Simply pulling out of nowhere that histones (which behave exactly the way computational chemistry theory predicts) are not chemistry is fundamentalism, my friend. The evidence is there for anyone to see (or ignore) with a little study.

Or is just stating, Mullah-like, that chemistry isn't chemistry the best you can come up with? :crazy2:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Diploid]
    #7908172 - 01/21/08 01:26 AM (16 years, 11 days ago)

what is the chemical formula of a histone?
what is the chemical formula of a blastula?

no formula?

then these are not just chemistry, you have to use the other sciences.

or
you could say everything is vibrations, give it to me in math.

you are a mystic by every definition, you just think you are a better one than the next guy, certainly more arrogant with a long string of battles to your history. few were left standing.

I am not your opponent, I am trying to get you to refine, not to change: to get better not tougher.

Epigenetics is not just chemistry, although it uses chemistry and other sciences. That is why they gave it a different name.

it's purpose is not prediction, it is understanding. these are healing ideas not fighting ideas.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #7908226 - 01/21/08 01:54 AM (16 years, 11 days ago)

what is the chemical formula of a histone?

It's a VERY long chain of amino acids. Too long to write. Just like DNA only with DNA we've done the work of actually writing out the millions of atoms for the human genome.

In fact, 20 years ago DNA was also magic because we had no way to write it down. Today the Human Genome Project has written it down. How did the mystics take the news? Not well. They decided that since DNA isn't magic any more, histone is the new magic.

Histone is just lots of atoms. And unless you can show me evidence of some of those atoms doing something that chemistry cannot possibly do, which I don't think you can, then it's an arbitrary leap of faith to say that (does this sound familiar?) "science can't explain it [yet] so it must be magic".

And history repeats itself.

I am trying to get you to refine, not to change

I'm willing to do that, but that requires evidence and a better rationale than: "because I say so", or "we don't know how it works so it must be magic".

these are healing ideas not fighting ideas.

We have different versions of the meanings of healing and fighting. Saying something is true and that I should accept it absent a shred of evidence just because you say it's true is fighting ideas in my book no different than a Muslim who wants me to prostrate before Allah just because HE says it's true.

How can you not see that?

you are a mystic by every definition

Because I follow evidence instead of wild, unsubstantiated ideas? :confused:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #7908236 - 01/21/08 02:00 AM (16 years, 11 days ago)

RGV, lemme ask you something hypothetically.

Say that a few years from now histone, cell differentiation, and all the rest is COMPLETELY understood. In fact, let's suppose that the process is so well understood that the first human embryo is manufactured from first principles using nothing but individual atoms.

I mean literally some lab put atom by atom together, one by one, by the billions to achieve the first 100% manufactured human.

I know it's hypothetical and maybe (probably?) impossible, but for argument's sake, let's say it happens.

What would your position be then regarding this topic? Still magic or would you concede that it's all just chemistry, just electron orbitals, and electric fields?


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


Edited by Diploid (01/24/08 04:52 PM)


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InvisibleMiddlemanM

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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Diploid]
    #7908257 - 01/21/08 02:12 AM (16 years, 11 days ago)

I guess we have very different definitions of the words Magic and Mystic.

Magic is the science and art of causing change (in consciousness) to occur in conformity with will, using means not currently understood by traditional Western science.

Mysticism is the intuitive understanding and subjective experience that results from this process...

Many mystics apprehend and experience things that science doesn't yet understand even though we know science may one day explain it.

What we now call strictly subjective may very well become scientifically objective in the future.

In fact, some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs were made because of the Mystical imaginations of people like Newton, Einstein, and Bohr.

An understanding of the mechanistic processes of nature doesn't mean a complete understanding of nature,
and it certainly doesn't make the universe any less "magical" and "mysterious" imo...


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Diploid]
    #7908615 - 01/21/08 07:30 AM (16 years, 11 days ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
RG, lemme ask you something hypothetically.

Say that a few years from now histone, cell differentiation, and all the rest is COMPLETELY understood. In fact, let's suppose that the process is so well understood that the first human embryo is manufactured from first principles using nothing but individual atoms.

I mean literally some lab put atom by atom together, one by one, by the billions to achieve the first 100% manufactured human.

I know it's hypothetical and maybe (probably?) impossible, but for argument's sake, let's say it happens.

What would your position be then regarding this topic? Still magic or would you concede that it's all just chemistry, just electron orbitals, and electric fields?




when I say magically, If I say magically, then I mean our little brains are astonished because we are taking in such a view we can hardly comprehend it's immensity.
Life is like that.
beyond comprehension!

nevertheless, if we copy what we find exactly - like the Japanese copied american goods (including the "Made in U.S.A.") on a molecular and structural level for our HAPLOID gametes, and if they can fertilize to make a DIPLOID, then you can say we are great copiers.

understanding of the function of some of the parts that developed over billions of years of trial and error (at fairly high speed and high complexity) will probably occur, but the totality will always seem magical to us.

trying to dispell that aspect of our experience is a big error.
an honest take on this issue is that we are learning very quickly what goes into the workings of a cell and its parts, and that we know it is much more than chemicals in a vat.
some parts of it are symbiotic life forms of their own accord (eg the mitochondria).

I am happy that Nature is Magical, that it confounds and fascinates. both at a macro and micro level.

we learn tricks that heal and some that help understand,but we are still basically little monkeys with tiny brains.

I run tired of people declaiming (in a heavy handed fashion - bullyish and with utmost certainty) that everything is chemicals, or everything is vibrations, or we are stardust, as if this type of thing explains even 1 billionth of the story of what is happenning.

I see that sort of performance as an attempt to establish ownership of mental territory (which cannot be owned - thow not all monkeys understand that either).

so back to topic,
yes cell differentiation is Magic that some of us are learning to duplicate in small ways in a few well equipped Laboratories. It is a great wonder that remains occult to 99% of us; while it is not like roman magic with incense and dents on metal and invokations of pluto, it is still strong and strange magic. The scientists performing this magic, understand the controls of the machines that are nearly as complex as themselves, and progress is made by reduction of standard deviation.

sometimes we step back, and act like oracles with wild and hopeful predictions, then back to work.

so what exactly is the point - the antimystical point.
consider this, mystics make up explanations to quell curiosity (and uprisings) - instead we need more mental uprisings not less.
fewer bards (tellers) and more seers.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Diploid]
    #7924627 - 01/24/08 03:08 PM (16 years, 8 days ago)

In fact, let's suppose that the process is so well understood that the first human embryo is manufactured from first principles using nothing but individual atoms.

We're even closer than I thought. This was just published today:

Scientists Build First Man-Made Genome; Synthetic Life Comes Next

Scientists have built the first synthetic genome by stringing together 147 pages of letters representing the building blocks of DNA.

The researchers used yeast to stitch together four long strands of DNA into the genome of a bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium. They said it's more than an order of magnitude longer than any previous synthetic DNA creation. Leading synthetic biologists said with the new work, published Thursday in the journal Science, the first synthetic life could be just months away -- if it hasn't been created already.

"We consider this the second in our three-step process to create the first synthetic organism," said J. Craig Venter, president of the J. Craig Venter Institute where scientists performed the study, on Thursday during a teleconference. "What remains now that we have this complete synthetic chromosome … is to boot this up in a cell."

...Scientists said they expect the announcement of man-made life this year.


Chemistry indeed! The rest of the article is here:

wired.com


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Diploid]
    #7924658 - 01/24/08 03:15 PM (16 years, 8 days ago)

We're even closer than I thought.

The future is here!!!!:whoa:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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Offlinebackfromthedead
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Icelander]
    #7925007 - 01/24/08 04:32 PM (16 years, 8 days ago)

Damn...


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OfflinePhanTomCat
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Diploid]
    #7925110 - 01/24/08 04:53 PM (16 years, 8 days ago)

Quote:

The Article said:
Scientists said they expect the announcement of man-made life this year.




It isn't truly "man made life" until we can create the WHOLE thing from scratch - cell, DNA, and all....
Mixing and modifying something that is already there is different than making it from scratch - especially with the complexity of life....

Reporter semantics....    :ohwell:


>^;;^<


--------------------
I'll be your midnight French Fry....  :naughty:

"The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...."

>^;;^<


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Offlinefreddurgan
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #7925592 - 01/24/08 06:12 PM (16 years, 8 days ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
understanding of the function of some of the parts that developed over billions of years of trial and error (at fairly high speed and high complexity) will probably occur, but the totality will always seem magical to us.

trying to dispell that aspect of our experience is a big error.





That's perfect. The idea that we are capable of understanding all things is a huge mental complex that we've developed for ourselves. We ARE amazing. We can create wonderful amazing technologies that help people in endless ways. But we are still always creating those technologies with a limited viewpoint and to pretend like we aren't is both asinine and selfish.


--------------------
Ishmael
http://www.ishmael.org

Ron Paul 2008!
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/


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Offlinefreddurgan
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: PhanTomCat]
    #7925599 - 01/24/08 06:14 PM (16 years, 8 days ago)

Quote:

PhanTomCat said:
Quote:

The Article said:
Scientists said they expect the announcement of man-made life this year.




It isn't truly "man made life" until we can create the WHOLE thing from scratch - cell, DNA, and all....
Mixing and modifying something that is already there is different than making it from scratch - especially with the complexity of life....

Reporter semantics....    :ohwell:


>^;;^<



He's right about reporter semantics. That is not man made life. They are still putting that man made genome into an ALREADY living cell. When we create life out of absolutely nothing my jaw will drop.


--------------------
Ishmael
http://www.ishmael.org

Ron Paul 2008!
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/


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OfflineBard
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Diploid]
    #7929022 - 01/25/08 09:24 AM (16 years, 7 days ago)

When will mystics will finally get it? Maybe when there will be no more "benchmarks that science hasn't yet figured out" and at exactly the same time, science heads will understand what mystics told all the time, that everything is possible...


--------------------
So dreaming let's you know reality exists.



I don't belive. I fear.


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Offlinebackfromthedead
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Bard]
    #7929076 - 01/25/08 09:43 AM (16 years, 7 days ago)

'I don't belive. I fear.'


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: backfromthedead]
    #7929791 - 01/25/08 01:18 PM (16 years, 7 days ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
In fact, let's suppose that the process is so well understood that the first human embryo is manufactured from first principles using nothing but individual atoms.

We're even closer than I thought. This was just published today:

Scientists Build First Man-Made Genome; Synthetic Life Comes Next

Scientists have built the first synthetic genome by stringing together 147 pages of letters representing the building blocks of DNA.

The researchers used yeast to stitch together four long strands of DNA into the genome of a bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium. They said it's more than an order of magnitude longer than any previous synthetic DNA creation. Leading synthetic biologists said with the new work, published Thursday in the journal Science, the first synthetic life could be just months away -- if it hasn't been created already.

"We consider this the second in our three-step process to create the first synthetic organism," said J. Craig Venter, president of the J. Craig Venter Institute where scientists performed the study, on Thursday during a teleconference. "What remains now that we have this complete synthetic chromosome %u2026 is to boot this up in a cell."

...Scientists said they expect the announcement of man-made life this year.


Chemistry indeed! The rest of the article is here:

wired.com




bacterial life is not eukaryotic and differentiation is not involved at all
but he is clever to trick yeasts this way - little sugar deamons that they are.
but boy did they ever go off half cocked with this news. It's a big stretch of something not that significant.

it is as if when I buy a ticket to the lottery, wired should report that I practically won, and everyone at the shroomery would come asking me to loan money to them?

talk about mysticism, you need to demystify these claims en route to re-publishing or people will begin to think you are starting a new religion.

by the way
I am still waiting for that flying car the pundits in 1957 promissed I would have by 1980.
I could really use it.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #7929964 - 01/25/08 01:55 PM (16 years, 7 days ago)

It was reported in the journal Science. Wired (and others) just ran with it. And this is only one step (though a significant one) on the way to the end result. Denying the approaching end result (fully synthetic life) won't stop it any more than denial stopped progress in the past.

At least it IS amusing to see mystics heads freaking out and denying even as science heads make progress right over their dogma that life is special. Gallileo knew this. His foes thought the Earth was special too and at the center of the universe; everything revolving around us.

So arrogant and self-important, we silly humans. It makes me laugh. :monkeydance:

Fortunately, the inquisition is gone now. But history still somehow manages to repeat itself...


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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InvisibleDiploidM
Cuban


Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
Re: Living Cell Differentiation: Magic? [Re: Diploid]
    #7929991 - 01/25/08 02:02 PM (16 years, 7 days ago)
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I purchased the article. I thought it important enough to own. The .pdf is attached if anyone's interested in hearing from the horse's mouth. :grin:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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