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Scientists create life? How about bio-gasoline?
The front page article in the Chicago Tribune today says, "Scientists poised to create life." The text goes into more detail about J. Craig Venter and his team trying to create a simple species of bacteria from scratch. I'm not interested in the ethical or scary epidemic discussions of "creating life" in this case (if the concept applies) but in the practical issues. The article points out in the second paragraph that the group has ambitions, "such as understanding the most basic requirements for life and designing new bacterial life-forms capable of producing biofuels."
Now that's practical. Dr. Venter's company, Synthetic Genomics, was mentioned in the article from the Economist that I cited in my posting from January 16 (scroll down) where a number of companies are trying to create designer enzymes or bugs that are capable of turning garbage or who-knows-what into usable fuels.
Yes, there is probably potential for developing a super bug like in 12 Monkeys, but the potential benefits are probably well worth the risk. Of course, if that does happen, how we fuel cars may be the least of our worries.
Scientists create life? How about bio-gasoline?
January 25, 2008
The front page article in the Chicago Tribune today says, "Scientists poised to create life." The text goes into more detail about J. Craig Venter and his team trying to create a simple species of bacteria from scratch. I'm not interested in the ethical or scary epidemic discussions of "creating life" in this case (if the concept applies) but in the practical issues. The article points out in the second paragraph that the group has ambitions, "such as understanding the most basic requirements for life and designing new bacterial life-forms capable of producing biofuels."Now that's practical. Dr. Venter's company, Synthetic Genomics, was mentioned in the article from the Economist that I cited in my posting from January 16 (scroll down) where a number of companies are trying to create designer enzymes or bugs that are capable of turning garbage or who-knows-what into usable fuels.
Yes, there is probably potential for developing a super bug like in 12 Monkeys, but the potential benefits are probably well worth the risk. Of course, if that does happen, how we fuel cars may be the least of our worries.
Posted by Peter Welander on January 25, 2008 | Comments (0)
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