July 16 2008 / by futuretalk
Category: Other Year: General Rating: 4 Hot
By Dick Pelletier
Bodies that never get sick, clothes that change their material
and color, and machines that fix their own glitches. These are some
of the dreams researchers see as they attempt to copy how nature
gathers non-living matter and transforms it into living things.
Life is generally not thought of as being mechanical, but a cell
basically is a miniature machine which rearranges non-living atoms
to create parts that “bring it to life.”
What makes life possible, scientists say, is the natural
tendency of atoms to assemble into molecules, and molecules to
assemble into larger structures. Scientists want to understand this
process and use it to create self-replicating nano-materials that
can be instructed to “grow” into a variety of products.
If we could make life, researchers say, we could apply its
principles towards building almost any product. Life is very
complicated, but it repairs itself, organizes itself, and adapts to
changes – all automatically. It’s the ideal blueprint for
assembling things atom by atom with no material waste and minimal
labor costs.
Commercial benefits could include nano-size cell-repair machines
that create new arteries, deliver drugs to specific sites, and heal
the body from the inside; clothing that changes its molecular
structure and color on command; bio-systems that clean up the
environment; and powerful nano-chips that improve electronic and
communication devices.
Leaders in artificial life research are the European Union’s
Programmable Artificial Cell Evolution project, and the
NASA-supported Protocell project at Los
Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico. (cont.)
Although most people see this new technology as providing
mankind with nearly unlimited commercial and medical benefits,
others worry about the ethical and moral issues of human-made life.
“The first artificial life form is likely to shock people’s
religious and cultural beliefs,” said Professor Mark Bedau of Reed
College in Portland, Oregon.
“It’s certainly true we are tinkering with something very
powerful here,” adds Steen Rasmussen, chief investigator of the
Protocell project. “But there is no difference between what we do
here and what humans have always done when we invented fire,
transistors and ways to split the atom,” he said.
In addition to providing huge material benefits for mankind,
scientists also hope this research will answer such basic questions
as “Where does life come from?” and “Can we recognize it when we
see it?” These are appropriate philosophical questions at a time
when NASA is spending billions exploring
Mars and other areas in space looking for signs of life.
Will this future happen? Most researchers say absolutely! The
number of U.S. labs working in the field jumped from about 10,
forty years ago, to more than 100 today. “It’s a synthetic biology
revolution,” said John McCaskill, overseer of the European Union’s
artificial life program.
Experts believe the first artificial life unit will be created
by 2015, and self-replicating nano-machines providing most of our
material needs at little or no cost, could be developed as early as
mid-2020s. Comments welcome.
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