Synthetic life

Synthetic life and artificial life (not to be confused with the field of Artificial Life) are terms used for attempts to recreate life from non-alive (abiotic) substances. Currently such life does "not" exist, and the potential for its existence is dubious. Much of the controversy stems from the fact that most current definitions for life are limited to cellular life, eliminating potential substrates from ever hosting life by definition.

Classes

Synthetic biochemical life

The goal of wet artificial life and synthetic biology, would make the first artificial biochemical life would look and act like oversimplified bacteria. Researchers involved feel that the creation of true synthetic biochemical life is very close, relatively cheap, and will be easier than getting a man on the Moon was. [cite web |url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3214/01.html |title=NOVA: Artificial life|accessdate=2007-01-19]

On Oct 6, 2007, Craig Venter announced that he is "on the verge" of creating the first ever artificial life form. In an interview with UK's The Guardian newspaper, Venter reported that he has built a synthetic chromosome using chemicals made in a laboratory. The Canadian bioethics group, ETC, has already, only one day later, come out with a statement concerning the development. Their representative, Pat Mooney, in a communication with The Guardian, averred that Venter's "creation" was "a chassis on which you could build almost anything."

The chromosome, a single DNA molecule reported to have 381 genes, the minimum necessary to sustain life, was injected into an already living bacterium cell. The tranformed bacteria is dubbed "Synthia" by ETC. A Venter spokesperson has declined to confirm any breakthrough at the time of this writing, likely because similar genetic introduction techniques such as transfection, transformation, tranformation, transduction and protofection have been a standard research practice for many years.

On January 24, 2008, a United States team reported in Science magazine how it built the entire DNA code of a common bacterium in the laboratory using blocks of genetic material. Hamilton O. Smith, who was part of the Science study, said the team regarded its lab-made genome - a laboratory copy of the DNA used by the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium - as a step towards synthetic, rather than artificial, life. Mycoplasma genitalium is a small parasitic bacterium which lives on the ciliated epithelial cells of the primate genital and respiratory tracts. M. genitalium is the smallest known free-living bacterium. Smith told BBC News: "We like to distinguish synthetic life from artificial life. With synthetic life, we're re-designing the cell chromosomes; we're not creating a whole new artificial life system." [cite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7203186.stm |title=Synthetic life 'advance' reported|accessdate=2008-01-25]

Bodiless artificial intelligence

One of the goals of artificial intelligence (AI) research is to create a software that could pass for a person in the Turing test (the conversation is limited to a text-only channel such as a computer keyboard and screen).

Watermarks

Watermarks are coded messages in the form of DNA base pairs which distinguish the synthetic genome from its natural counterpart. The watermarks contained in the first man-made Mycoplasma genome produced by J. Craig Venter Institute contain the following coded messages. The letter V was used since there is no aminoacid designated by letter U: [ [http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/venter-institut.html Wired Science Reveals Secret Codes in Craig Venter's Artificial Genome | Wired Science from Wired.com ] ]

VENTERINSTITVTE
CRAIGVENTER
HAMSMITH
CINDIANDCLYDE
GLASSANDCLYDE

See also

* Artificial life
* Non-cellular life
* Synthetic biology
* Simulated reality
* Chiral life concept
* Nucleic acid analogues
* Artificial brain

References

External links

* [http://www.che.caltech.edu/groups/fha/SyntheticLife.html Synthetic Life]
* [http://www.comcast.net/news/index.jsp?cat=GENERAL&fn=/2007/08/19/743259.html&cvqh=itn_artificial Predictions regarding synthetic life]
* [http://patentvector.com/?p=21.html Prelude to Synthetic Life Forms]