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will i dream |
| | | | | | posted 5/21/2010 15:32 |   | | | | | | | | | Craig Venter has sucessfully booted up the first living cell to be controled completely by an artificially created genome.
It took him 15 years to get to this point
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/audio/2010/may/21/craig-venter-synthetic-life-form
This guy is pioneering this entire field on a daily basis.
I truly believe that Venters work will one day be used to create the first bio/electrical computer - and i rekon we wont have true ai until then.
Have a listen to his work on the link above
| | | Last edited by will i dream @ 5/21/2010 3:35:00 PM | | |
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tkorrovi |
| | | | | | posted 5/21/2010 20:29 | | | | | | | | | | "24 researchers led by Daniel Gibson outline the steps they took to synthesise the 1.08 million base pair genome of the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides."
Well, this is not "synthetic life form" as it was called in the article, this is a mere copy of the DNA of an existing bacterium, also it works only in another living bacterium. As i have said, the other parts of the cell, like cytoskeleton, may prove to be even more important than DNA in reproducing what we call life. So all what they did, was that they copied DNA, indeed building it up from the chemicals, adding some of their own information, which thoudh doesn't much help to control the cell. They don't know how this DNA works, they only copied a biological one. This has yet nothing to do with "bioelectrical computer".
So these who were already ready to write their "wow, that's great" here, better think twice.
| | | Last edited by tkorrovi @ 5/21/2010 8:44:00 PM | | |
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will i dream |
| | | | | | posted 5/21/2010 21:32 | | | | | | | | | | he inserted a 100% man made chemically-produced complete genome into a host cell - and the cell began to grow and replicate as per its instructions
1.08 million base-pairs of a,t,g and g
True - the actual sequence was coppied - but he has identified millions of genes that do specific tasks already
He has a long long way to go before he can write his own custom 'code' -
As he put it himself "This is transforming life totally from one species into another by changing the software"
Its a long way off - but imagine you could design your own neuron - and have them grown -
artificial life - artificial inteligence
KEEP IT UP VENTER - YOU LEDGENED
| | | Last edited by will i dream @ 5/21/2010 9:39:00 PM | | |
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tkorrovi |
| | | | | | posted 5/22/2010 12:57 | | | | | | | | | | > True - the actual sequence was coppied - but he has identified millions of genes that do specific tasks already
The methots for reading the DNA sequences exist already many years, like this is how they do DNA analysis for identifying persons. When we make an exact copy of the DNA then of course this DNA would do all tasks in the cell which the original DNA did, but this doesn't mean that we know anything about what this DNA does.
> As he put it himself "This is transforming life totally from one species into another by changing the software"
I pay all due respect to Craig Venter's work and fully understand how great achievement it was. Copying so long DNA sequences and implanting them into a living cell can no way be easy, as so big molecules are fragile things after all, and so many external disturbances can break them in the process.
What i don't like though, is claiming more than what is done, as this is so misleading.
| | | Last edited by tkorrovi @ 5/22/2010 2:15:00 PM | | |
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will i dream |
| | | | | | posted 5/22/2010 14:44 | | | | | | | | | | What got me was not the reading of DNA - as u said its been there for many years - what got me was the fact that he created a new geneome himself from the 4 chemicals A,G,T,C - and assembles his own molecule using machines
where do you see it at the moment tkorrovi
I mean a DNA sequence - for a simple bacteria - million plus base pairs etc?
would it equate to the lets say - an entire hex memory dump of a program - and then trying to understand it without knowing anuthing about the computers arcetecture?
like - a million A1,C3,FF,45,23,F2,A7,BB - and no info of the computer,cpu , 8bit,64bit etc.
But they can identify and transfer parts of a geneome (individual genes) and cross breed specices (GM modified etc)
I wonder tkorrovi will they ever be able to understand an entire genome - start to finish -
what would it be like ?
Would there be declerations, variables, classes etc
Could it even be read
But just imagine if it could - a new software language for organics
Venter has shown that a manmade genome can be used to combine with and control a host cell
its just to understand the DNA/software
might take another 1000 years - who knows
but just imagine if they figure it out
good luck
| | | Last edited by will i dream @ 5/22/2010 2:48:00 PM | | |
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tkorrovi |
| | | | | | posted 5/22/2010 15:07 | | | | | | | | | | I think they should first understand how the cell self-develops, to understand how DNA works. As i have said, DNA may not be the most important at all, DNA may just be there to better maintain the features of a certain kind of organism. Such conservatism may not be so important for the organism itself, but it may be important for the whole environment, as it is much better balanced when it consists only of certain kind of organisms.
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will i dream |
| | | | | | posted 5/22/2010 15:20 | | | | | | | | | | True -
They dont yet fully understand the cell - how can they understand the dna
will probally take a few more decades
Kind of sums up where I am with AI at the moment
as in - inteligence came from life - but we dont yet fully understand life - how can we understand inteligence
just like the dna and the cell -
There is so much we dont know. For me - true ai is unobtainable at the moment with the present knowledge and technology
Hope im wrong
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tkorrovi |
| | | | | | posted 5/22/2010 15:38 | | | | | | | | | | Then it appears that i'm much more optimistic than you, something which looked the opposite. It seems to be possible to implement ADS mechanism with the cytoskeleton of a cell. Well, in spite that it is a mechanism made by a non-prominent person and all that, this still says two things, which well may prove to be right. First, intelligence came from one of the most basic systems of a living cell, and second, when we want to find out what really happens inside a neuron, we should look into the way how a living cell self-develops.
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tkorrovi |
| | | | | | posted 5/22/2010 22:36 | | | | | | | | | | > They dont yet fully understand the cell - how can they understand the dna
Right.
But i kind of feel that with that which i say, considering the way most are thinking i guess, i throw myself to the ground. Then the only thing which might help, is to talk about more general things...
So, why i am more optimistic than you, is because i think that understanding these things in general is not about a huge amount of work, but rather about a way of thinking, that is, finding the right way of thinking.
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will i dream |
| | | | | | posted 5/23/2010 14:14 | | | | | | | | | | "the right way of thinking"
ive been looking at ideas ranging from strange to insane over the years
from wondering if a living mind manipulate's time itself to looking at ghosts
your probally right tkorrovi that understanding a living cell wont be that much work - if we knew of its entire makeup - what exactly it is comprised of
The hadron collider - ive been waiting for this to start for years - who knows the higgs boson - that would be nice
and then dark matter - 23% of the universe - and we dont know what it is - but its there - are we partly comprised of dark matter?
and now dark energy - combined with dark matter accounts for 80% of everything - so they say
it puts questions like- do our living minds use or link to dark energy? etc. - if so then we havnt a hope
i know its all unlikely - but there is the possibility - and it just ends up with the same dam thing
there is so much we dont understand - and yet here we are trying to understand the most complex system known to us - the human brain
its not good to think about these things - i get a pain in my head
we got to keep going with what we have
be good
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hunt |
| | | | | | posted 5/25/2010 01:38 | | | | | | | | | | | |
tkorrovi wrote @ 5/21/2010 8:29:00 PM:
"24 researchers led by Daniel Gibson outline the steps they took to synthesise the 1.08 million base pair genome of the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides."
Well, this is not "synthetic life form" as it was called in the article, this is a mere copy of the DNA of an existing bacterium, also it works only in another living bacterium. As i have said, the other parts of the cell, like cytoskeleton, may prove to be even more important than DNA in reproducing what we call life. So all what they did, was that they copied DNA, indeed building it up from the chemicals, adding some of their own information, which thoudh doesn't much help to control the cell. They don't know how this DNA works, they only copied a biological one. This has yet nothing to do with "bioelectrical computer".
So these who were already ready to write their "wow, that's great" here, better think twice.
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+1
As I understand it, the mechanism he used to make copies of the "Mycoplasma mycoides" genome has been around for years (PCR). It's the same method that is used anytime you want to turn a small sample of genetic material into a larger one for analysis purposes. (As used in everything from genetics research to crime scene investigation.)
I think the real takeaway here is the importance of the DNA in specifying the nature of the bacteria's "body" (protein expression, cell membrane features, etc.) By replacing one organism's DNA with another's, he was able to coax the first organism to replace its body with the body of the second organism.
This in itself has already been done by taking DNA from one cell's nucleus and moving into the other's. Basically he combined two existing technologies and was the first to get them to work together.
I imagine the technical challenge was syncing up all the pieces of DNA that he copied. PCR produces copies of chunks of the DNA, but I don't think it'll do the whole genome in one piece. (Perhaps mycoides is a particularly simple one...? I doubt it, but I haven't looked at his paper.) Perhaps some sort of PCA technique was employed?
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