Synthetic Biology: Creating Life on Earth Beyond Our Imagination

[Ivan Seeking]

..."Synthetic biology is genetic engineering rethought,'' said Harvard Medical Center researcher George Church, a leader in the field. "It challenges the notion of what's natural and what's synthetic.''

Already, synthetic biologists have created a polio virus and another smaller virus by stitching together individual genes purchased from biotechnology companies.

Now, researchers are getting closer to creating more complex living things with actual utility.

In Israel, scientists have created the world's smallest computer by engineering DNA to carry out mathematical functions.

J. Craig Venter, the entrepreneurial scientist who mapped the human genome, announced last month that he intends to string together genes to create from scratch novel organisms that can produce alternative fuels such as hydrogen and ethanol. [continued]

http://www.livescience.com/othernews/ap_050819_make_life.html

One of the interesting twists on this is the effort to design life unlike any on earth; something that is not life as we know it - an alien on earth. If we can do this, it would then seem to suggest that life could exist where we thought it not possible.

 

[cronxeh]

I still can't shake off S chirality issue from my head.. why didnt nature chose R chirality?

Why would it go one particular way? Are there aliens with R chirality?

 

[pattylou]

I have seen some reports that seem to tie the preferred chirality to the way that light passed through stellar dust in our galaxy's (or universe's, or system's) infancy.