And man became God

Published on 21 May 2010 at 10:39

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“And man made life,” leads The Economist, following the announcement on 20 May, in the pages of Science, that genetic entrepreneur Craig Venter and his team have created the first ever synthetic life form. The new organism is based on a bacterium that causes mastitis in goats, but at its core is a synthetic genome entirely constructed from “off-the-shelf laboratory chemicals”. “In the end”, the London weekly quips, “there was no castle, no thunderstorm and definitely no hunchbacked cackling lab assistant.” Frankenstein jokes aside, a new era for humanity has begun, it now being possible “to conceive of a world in which new bacteria (and eventually, new animals and plants) are designed on a computer and then grown to order.” Practical applications could include bacteria that produce biofuels, soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and even manufacture vaccines. Whatever our reservations that we are tampering with the creation, “for good or ill it is here”, the Economist leader notes. “Creating life is no longer the prerogative of gods.”

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