It's Sunday afternoon. You have something more newsworthy? Submit it your damn self.

Oh, thanks for the link, I'll check that out.

Oh, I didn't mean it would be simple, I meant: (simple roman coding), as in the easiest encryption there is.
I was wondering about it, because:
- printing genes is already possible. With advancements in this field, it's not unthinkable that (many years from now) an entire genome could be printed
- the translation to proteins is, as far as I understand, established by "translation molecules" that bind to three particular letters
- if you change the DNA, and change the corresponding "translation molecules", the system would behave identically.
- this new organism would still make the old, non-coded translation molecules, so you'd need to fix that too.

I don't expect this to be easy, maybe it's even impossible, how would I know? I'm no expert. It's just a thought experiment. But if you could do such a thing, would it be good or bad? Viruses that have co-evolved with us would never be able to adapt to that, I think.
Also, could such an embryo be implanted into a mother and survive? I think it would, the cells would be the same, the immune system does not deal directly with DNA.

Anyway, that's just me pondering on some far-out ideas, I hope you don't mind :-).

I've always wondered if a simple roman coding of the genetic code (just a mapping of the genetic letters) could make us immune to viruses. After all, they use genetic code to override our instructions, if they are scrambled it won't work any more, i.e. they wont't be able to reproduce..

Q: Should I be able to go to the supermarket and buy assault rifles and a shitload of ammo?
A: Second amendment! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Q: Should I be allowed to make a shitty plastic gun myself?
A: Al keida terrorist!

Democracy does not work well if the people who vote are complete idiots.

If I remember right, there already is a successor in the pipeline. Anyway, I would be surprised that the end of Kepler would be the end of the exoplanet revolution. It's a very hot field in astronomy. There's a scientific gold vein out there, people will keep digging. Kepler is a significant milestone, and one of my favorite missions, but not a unique instrument. It's the beginning, not the end.

The shuttle was nowhere near capable of flying to Kepler. It's at 40 million miles, while the space shuttle could only fly up a couple hundred miles. Besides, considering the cost of the mission, it would not warrant a complicated repair mission. For that money you could probably send up 10 new telescopes.

- Make better reaction wheels
- Make better valves

Those two things always come back when missions end, or when a rocket launch has to be delayed.

And only persons who WANT to believe in aliens will attribute the unexplained lights in the sky to flying saucers.

What I believe or don't believe has nothing to do with what I want. It would be rather stupid to believe something is true because you want it to be true.

Suppose someone was there to observe it, what problem would then have been solved? We would have a historical claim about the abiogenesis, but that would be it. That's not science, it explains nothing. We could even doubt the veracity of the claim, and there would be no way to settle it.

Adding large amounts of time does not answer any question, indeed. The only thing it does (together with the vast scale of the universe), is that very rare events can not be ruled out. Again, nobody knows how life started and it is quite possible we will never find out, but I have no problem with not knowing. I don't feel a need to invent invisible magical creatures that then magically created life. That would be silly.

quote: "The system is especially suitable for border surveillance missions, firefighting, and anti-drug trafficking operations amongst others."

Why would you disguise a UAV as a bird if you want to use it for firefighting? Also, it's just a press release infomercial, some guys want to put their hand in the military money jar so they put some feathers on a remote controlled airplane. Awesome... not!

That's true. But somehow you don't seem to draw the correct conclusions from that. When confronted with something complex, the theory of evolution tells you it can not have formed instantly, but instead it happened gradually. Therefore, the "starting point" of life is at the molecular level, not at the cell level. And I put the quotes there deliberately, because there won't be a single point, it will be a gradual process. Just like there isn't a point where there is a "first tree" or "first human".

So what? Why should we be able to create life? Why should it be simple? There are an unknown number of possibilities to consider. It might have been a freak accident or rather trivial, nobody knows. Whatever the odds, in a universe this big it is rather a non-issue.

I'm old enough to remember when cellphones first appeared. First when someone pulled a phone out of his pocket, everybody looked, made a joke, laughed, whatever. A few years later, almost everybody had one. Another few years, and the first reports of people whose phone had fused with their hand started to pour in. I doubt that 'not socially acceptable' will be a major issue.