Scientists Create Self-Replicating Chemicals to Help Explain the Origins of Life

[Frank Robert]

"An enduring question about how we got here is how a vat of primordial chemicals might have turned into life. Now, scientists are attempting to pull it off themselves.

A few years ago, chemists at Harvard University made some intriguing progress. By mixing together some water and a few basic chemicals, and then hitting them with light and oxygen, they could see little cell-like compartments grow up and die, only to be reborn once again. In these objects, which the researchers called “phoenix” structures, there seemed to be a primitive, life-like process taking place, a remarkable occurrence for what was really no more than a polluted puddle.

In a new paper published in late February in the Nature journal Communications Chemistry, researchers Chenyu Lin, Sai Krishna Katla, and Juan Pérez-Mercader have managed to explain their earlier observed phenomenon of self-replication. This understanding should enable the design of even more life-like chemical systems. Ultimately, they aim to do something like nature did when she first originated life on planet Earth."
Source...

A question to ponder: What are the moral implications in creation of artificial life?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

A question to ponder: What are the moral implications in creation of artificial life?

At the proto-cellular level, none, besides ensuring they are no threat to existing life. At a more sophisticated level, Bentham's dictum applies, "..the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?..."

 

[Astrid]

At the proto-cellular level, none, besides ensuring they are no threat to existing life. At a more sophisticated level, Bentham's dictum applies, "..the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?..."

The chance of making something that can outcompete
existing life that's honed by about a billion years in
a very rough neighborhood has to be about
negative minus zero.

 

[Petros2015]

they could see little cell-like compartments grow up and die, only to be reborn once again.

Oh that's good.
If they created ones that grew up and DIDN'T die, that would be a problem.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

The chance of making something that can outcompete
existing life that's honed by about a billion years in
a very rough neighborhood has to be about
negative minus zero.

Outcompeting extant life is only one potential scenario.

Prior experience with novel technologies suggests the precautionary principle is advisable. There's also the likelihood of adoption by the military...

 

[Petros2015]

Yeah, if you are going to create new life, I am less concerned about how it feels than I am about how it feels about me If the answer is "tasty" we are going to have a problem.