http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64P6OZ20100526http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10134341.stmhttp://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/scientists-create-first-self-replicating-synthetic-life/So /tek/ are we completely fucked, or do we just have another thing to be paranoid about like all the Nukes in the world?
Not at all fucked. If anything, this is less dangerous than technology we already had. We've been making transgenic bacteria and fungi for decades; this is a harder way of making the same thing as you'd get by sticking a transgene into yeast.
It's just a self-replicating sequence. More of a computer code than an organism. The potential "god damn, everything's all fucked up and shit" will come when people start manipulating the sequence to do something other than self-replicate.Also, stuff like this should never leave a lab until it's very well established to be vanquishable.
Artificial life is more than likely not fit for survival in the real world.
>>1268Agreed, without the hell testing of evolution it'll die outside of specific conditions.EXCEPT that if there is a market for tougher artificial lifeforms, they will be made and then Oh-shit-it-escaped-from-the-lab goes from the scifi novels to the business reports.