Re:OpenWetWare.org (Score 1)

Arstechnica had an article over this same topic just the other day: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/02/scientists-learning-to-program-synthetic-life-with-dna.ars As someone who does research in synthetic biology (I'm a first year PhD student), I take issue with the proclivity of tech people to try to use the computer metaphor when talking about synthetic biology. It really isn't that good of a metaphor, and it tends to be stretched to the point where it no longer makes sense. Just look at the arstechnica article; even I had trouble figuring out what the writer is talking about. Synthetic biology is essentially genetic engineering of microbes to create synthetic systems to achieve a particular goal. The computer metaphor just mucks up the dialog and sounds silly, IMO. I loath seeing the term 'hacking' in reference to biology.