Also in today’s FT, Craig Venter & Co create the world’s first synthetic life form, “Scientists create synthetic life form with a computer and four bottles of chemicals”.
When I was in high school, a student told a credulous English teacher that scientists had already done this, but of course they hadn’t. The kid was confused and thinking of Stanley Miller’s famous synthesis of amino acids.
But now, Craig Venter has done it. It is literally life from lifelessness. He will be remembered in one breath with Newton, Einstein, Surak… Not exactly, apparently. See the comment thread below.
Update: I just realized the clip above doesn’t display the full Genesis demonstration video. The one below does, but it’s dubbed in German. Worth watching anyway: the group that programmed this early CGI sequence went on to become the core of Pixar.
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