Machines Like Us – Science News

A team of Penn State researchers has developed a simple artificial cell with which to investigate the organization and function of two of the most basic cell components: the cell membrane and the cytoplasm--the gelatinous fluid that surrounds the structures in living cells.

An "artificial cell" capable of synthesising genes and making them into proteins has been developed by researchers in the US. The postage stamp-sized machine able to make and express its own genes offers a fast and cheap new way of making "designer" proteins not found in nature. It could ultimately help scientists test how individual patients will react to specific drugs.

Four-year-old Eddie might behave like a typical young boy. Outside of the Second Life virtual world, however, he is anything but.

Abstract: This philosophical paper tries to tackle the question of what could be the ultimate future of ALife from a cosmic viewpoint. We first argue that the natural direction of ALife is a simulation of an entire universe.

A group of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are working to change engineer video game characters with the capacity to have beliefs and to reason about the beliefs of others. The characters will be able to predict and manipulate the behavior of even human players, with whom they will directly interact in the real, physical world, according to the team.

If you've watched "The Lord of the Rings" or many other visual effects-driven Hollywood films, you have seen Massive Software's 3-D animation software at work.

By Terren Suydam

Artificial Intelligence (AI), the idea that we might someday create something as smart or smarter than we are, is a breathtaking possibility. The emergence of such an AI might well be as important to the story of mankind as making contact with intelligent aliens. Some of our most popular books and movies have vividly depicted our hopes and fears surrounding the possibility that machines could achieve conscious independence from us.

Electronic Arts Inc. and Maxis today announced that Spore™, the highly anticipated game from the creators of The Sims™, will be available at retailers worldwide the weekend of September 7. Spore will be available for the PC, Macintosh, Nintendo DS™, and mobile phones.

A new approach to cleaning up digital photos and other images has been developed by researchers in the UK and Jordan. The research, published recently in Inderscience's International Journal of Innovative Computing and Applications uses a computer algorithm known as a PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization) to intelligently boost contrast and detail in an image without distorting the underlying features.

Recent advances suggest that the creation of synthetic life is just around the corner. Although enormous benefits may come of such research, dangers abound. We should reflect on what this tells us about the nature of life. But we also need to think.

A team of 17 researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has created the largest man-made DNA structure by synthesizing and assembling the 582,970 base pair genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0. This work, published online today in the journal Science by Dan Gibson, Ph.D., et al, is the second of three key steps toward the team’s goal of creating a fully synthetic organism. In the next step, which is ongoing at the JCVI, the team will attempt to create a living bacterial cell based entirely on the synthetically made genome.

Check out this article:

http://tinyurl.com/yqeevn

This article reports on the anticipated creation of artificial
life from the ground up. All information needed
to create this new life would be artificially (i.e., human)
created.

I emphasize the word information.

Policy experts from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have announced the release of a report, “Synthetic Genomics: Options for Governance,” which outlines areas for interventions and policy options to help mitigate potential risks with this promising area of research. The report, funded by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, resulted from 20 months of in-depth study, review and analysis by the teams above and a core group of 14 experts.

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.

I'm not a religious person. The only time I ever go to a church is when I'm obliged by social convention to attend a baptism, funeral, or wedding. I feel a bit like a wolf in sheep's skin when I go, and fight the urge, often unsuccessfully, to answer with silly or snide comments when asked as part of the audience if I accept Jesus into my heart, or if I reject Satan and sin. (As an aside, I consider it the mark of an enlightened being to accept all parts of oneself, even the parts that are considered immoral. Of which I have none, of course, but you know, hypothetically.)