Researchers One Step Closer To Creating Life 292
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute are potentially one step closer to creating life. In an experiment they recently created enzymes that can replicate and evolve. 'It kind of blew me away,' said team member Tracey Lincoln of the Scripps Research Institute, who is working on her Ph.D. 'What we have is non-living, but we've been able to show that it has some life-like properties, and that was extremely interesting.'"
wtf? (Score:5, Funny)
What we have is non-living, but we've been able to show that it has some life-like properties, and that was extremely interesting
I bet robots would fascinate these people.
Oblig (Score:5, Funny)
Male Character: "God creates dinosaurs. God kills dinosaurs. Man kills God. Man creates dinosaurs."
Female Character: "Dinosaurs eat man... woman inherits the earth."
Hah!
Finally... (Score:5, Funny)
Funny Headline (Score:2, Funny)
Apparently there are no fertile researchers at the Scripps Research Institute?
We were so close... (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
Over half the world population has been able to create life for some time. Aren't you all a little late to the party? -_-
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Over half the world population has been able to create life for some time. Aren't you all a little late to the party? -_-
Aren't you be glad that you'd finally be able to create life without the services of a woman?
Eh.... (Score:1, Funny)
A scientist enters a research laboratory.
Dr. Praline: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint.
(The Intern does not respond.)
Dr. Praline: 'Ello, Miss?
Intern: What do you mean "miss"?
Dr. Praline: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!
Intern: We're closin' for lunch.
Dr. Praline: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this enzyme what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very facility.
Intern: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue... What's,uh... What's wrong with it?
Dr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!
Intern: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.
Dr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead enzyme when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
Intern: No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable compounds, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful refraction!
Dr. Praline: The compounds don't enter into it. It's stone dead.
Intern: Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!
Dr. Praline: All right then, if he's restin', I'll wake him up! (shouting at the cage) 'Ello, Mister Polly enzyme! I've got a lovely fresh cuttle fish for you if you show...
(Intern hits the cage)
Intern: There, he moved!
Dr. Praline: No, he didn't, that was you hitting the cage!
Intern: I never!!
Dr. Praline: Yes, you did!
Intern: I never, never did anything...
Dr. Praline: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) 'ELLO POLLY!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock alarm call!
(Takes enzyme out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)
Dr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead enzyme.
Intern: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned!
Dr. Praline: STUNNED?!?
Intern: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major.
Dr. Praline: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That enzyme is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged study.
Intern: Well, he's...he's, ah...probably pining for the fjords.
Dr. Praline: PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?
Intern: The Norwegian Blue prefers keepin' on it's back! Remarkable creature, id'nit, squire? Lovely compounds!
Dr. Praline: Look, I took the liberty of examining that enzyme when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on its slide in the first place was that it had been NAILED there.
(pause)
Intern: Well, o'course it was nailed there!
Re:Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
Over half the world population has been able to create life for some time. Aren't you all a little late to the party? -_-
Aren't you be glad that you'd finally be able to create life without the services of a woman?
GP appears to be a woman.
Researchers One Step Closer To Creating Life!! (Score:3, Funny)
You mean some scientist out there almost got laid!? This IS one for the headlines! I just hope we'll be able to replicate the results with ease. God knows how many infeasible experiments big organizations have dangled in front of my low budget lab.
Re:More conception jokes please! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Obligatory (Score:1, Funny)
Over half the world population has been able to create life for some time. Aren't you all a little late to the party? -_-
We must share the means of production with the workers!
Re:wtf? (Score:5, Funny)
I see them everywhere. On the street, at the mall, at work. They don't even know they're self-replicating-self-assembling robots.
Re:Oblig (Score:1, Funny)
Re:More conception jokes please! (Score:5, Funny)
Great they cloned Keanu Reeves...
Obligatory Dave Barry quote (Score:3, Funny)
"Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it."
Re:wtf? (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory XKCD comic:
http://xkcd.com/387/ [xkcd.com]
Easy? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
This is slashdot, and you don't WANT to let 2 women be able to reproduce?
Re:Hopefully... (Score:4, Funny)
If there's a chance it can evolve into Natalie Portman we're on the right track at least...
Re:Proof of ID (Score:3, Funny)
Re:wtf? (Score:5, Funny)
WTF? Is that the best you can do? Your Slashdot license please...
Steps to creating life often missed by nerds (Score:3, Funny)
1. Get woman
2. Sleep with woman
3. ????
4. Create life
Re:And where...and where...and where... (Score:3, Funny)
Fair play to anybody who stands up and says "Fuck off, God doesn't exist, what are you fighting about !". So much energy and life wasted on something whose whole purpose was to promote peace (allegedly).
As a side note, it's vaguely interesting that the spellchecker in firefox complains about not using capital first letters for christians and muslims, but misunderstands jews completely.
Re:Researchers One Step Closer To Creating Life!! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
2 girls 1 dish
Re:Well they would but that's not the point. (Score:3, Funny)
> The primary reason this sort of research is interesting is because it might give
> insight as to how abiogenesis occured
Yeah right. This is just more grant money going to political cronies and left-wing, atheist Washington fat-cats. There has already been enough research on this topic [wikipedia.org] to consider the matter closed.
Re:We were so close... (Score:3, Funny)
....In case you missed it, I think God is a concept, not a being...
Well, either your opinion is valid or Moses who talked to God. He asked God what his name was that he should tell the people. God replied: I am, tell them that "I AM" sent you. That expression is related to the word to be and that therefore makes God a being, not merely a concept.
Jesus claimed to be God come to earth. Jesus was very much a living person, just as you are. He proved his claim to deity by rising from the dead after being executed in a most cruel way. You can say that you don't believe that, but you cannot say that it did not happen exactly as it is chronicled by eyewitnesses. Human courts generally give very high weight to the testimony of eyewitnesses. Those opposed to this testimony have tried, yet failed, for almost 2000 years now, to discredit the written legal deposition of what these witnesses saw, heard and experienced.
One of the founders of Harvard Law School has carefully examined this written evidence by the standards all courts of law operate and found no way to discredit the testimony. If you want to read what he wrote, go here:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/greenleaf.html [umkc.edu]
Many today put forth the idea that there is no truth. Maybe you are one of the relatively few who disagrees with that and is still interested in truth.