Biologist Dr. Craig Venter has created 'artificial life' in the form of man-made bacteria, which could not have existed before, by writing a genetic sequence from scratch. Critics of this would-be Sir Spencer, have declared that he was playing God, raising the possibility of his research & consequent technology giving rise to the 'most powerful bioweapons imaginable'.
Oxford University's professor Savulescu comments "At the moment it is basic bacteria, just capable of replicating. This is a step towards something more controversial....the creation of living beings with capabilities & natures that could never have naturally evolved".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10132762.stm
You think that's bad? Wait until I get into graduate school...
Haven't these people seen the movies!? Jesus, Cyberdyne is a real company that makes bionic parts. Well if the world ends, I hope it's zombies and not machines!! lol
It's an interesting scientific development. Could be good, could be bad...
"You're gunna need a bigger boat"
Neo Umbrella - that's a great name! ~~ BatMan
Depends on who gets their hands on it and what they want to do with it. It's probably safe (or not I guess) to assume that someone else could have figured this out already. Another company could be doing it in secret, and not letting it leak out, or that they could still have experiments going on; but there are probably others have taken it much farther than these guys. If not that, then others will probably start following their example. Once you open up the opportunity to others, you've pretty much lost the ability to keep it under control.
Actually, there's a big debate with Venter on one side declaring any synthetic organisms created to be the property of the owner whereas his opponents state that this should be non-patentable. I hope you're not implying that some clandestine experiments in synthetic biology could eventually birth a Resident Evil-esque scenario. Far from making chimeric monsters, the researchers with vested interests in synthetic biology seek to turn this into a profit by redefining what pharmaceuticals are through these new paradigms. If anything, you'll only see information like this used for ill gains in the case of rogues, and where Biology is concerned in modernity, it's only been at the individual level; the days of massive, government-sponsored biological warfare programs have long since passed their apogee and now nuclear programs are the thing, as with the current drive to deter Iran.
I'm just saying it was possible, and wasn't really referring into anything statistical. Just that it can happen not that it will. When you reveal something like this to the general public, someone out there is bound to try it with something else, which can lead to some problems. I know there are researchers who want to use this to aid problems in biology, and am fully aware of how it could help human beings in the long run, and could even be used to fight certain diseases.
However, accidents do happen, and human beings have a long track records for biological mishaps, due to the mystery of how some parts of biology function. So I was simply saying that when it came to nature that humans ,collectively as a species, generally screw things up.
The right to be god.... (evil laugh)