Informant38

made entirely from sugar:

"We are not afraid to take on things that are important just because they stimulate thinking," he said. "We are dealing in big ideas. We are trying to create a new value system for life. When dealing at this scale, you can't expect everybody to be happy."

Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.

The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes. It is certain to provoke heated debate about the ethics of creating new species and could unlock the door to new energy sources and techniques to combat global warming.

Mr Venter told the Guardian he thought this landmark would be "a very important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before".

Mr Venter said he had carried out an ethical review before completing the experiment.

Pilkington/Guardian 06.Oct.07
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Venter's press release:

The new life form will depend for its ability to replicate itself and metabolise on the molecular machinery of the cell into which it has been injected, and in that sense it will not be a wholly synthetic life form.

Wikipedia:

A virus is a sub-microscopic particle that can infect the cells of a biological organism. Viruses can replicate themselves only by infecting a host cell. They therefore cannot reproduce on their own.

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Choose between Venter's autistic semitopia and a world run like Utah in 1893 with Eric Prince's Dark Battalions burning away the last of the high humans.
But then it's not a choice is it? Both come together now. Blackwater's end-times polizei and Venter's conscienceless boy scouts, making the world safe for the thing that rises out of their waste systems. Intention won't be what shaped the world to come.