In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora
Ovid
imagine that any of my loyal readers (by now probably reduced to fewer than 25) has escaped this article team Craig Venter .
if too much, read here.
I would make some semantic clarification on this issue, inspired by the repeated insistence of Dario Bressanini the ideology inherent in the use of the adjective natural as opposed to artificial .
clicking here and there, I noticed that a lot of sources ( extinct , Bioethics, The Courier , Republic etc ... but not the New Scientist ) use the terms artificial life, artificial genetic code etc ... Referring to the issue.
Obviously, we are already discussing whether it is really artificial life and not rather an artificial genome etc. Some considerations
- the concept of genome or artificial DNA is nonsense. A DNA is a sequence (helical or circular or like you want to be) of 4 nitrogen bases. Use adjectives natural or artificial
immediately suggests an essential difference between the two, that does not exist.
- the correct term (for another used by the authors) is to use synthetic , as we refer to the origin due to human beings of the same DNA.
- we're at it, I'd like to point out that the synthetic genome is used in the sense that it was produced using a wizard man, but the template, the sequence used is provided by another type of bacteria. In other words: the mold is a bacterium, is the synthetic reproduction.
- as specified by Craig Venter in press conference, the major problem was the synthesis of DNA, as already done in 2008, but its inclusion in another bacterium.
- Main here where the article shows how to transplant the DNA from one bacterium to another.
- from this point of view, the more correct term to use is complete installation of synthetic DNA . Wanting to use a term more spectacular for a first page, would be more correct to speak of metamorphosis bacterial or something.
In summary, this technology is just the latest in a long series. Perhaps the most promising, and, of course, is not still not known what the consequences of this progress for humanity. I, personally, I can guess what might be groped for Venter: the Nobel Prize.
