Scientists say they have built a cell from scratch for the first time

Scientists say they have built a cell from scratch for the first time that can feed, grow and replicate like a natural cell. This breakthrough in synthetic biology could usher in an era of made-to-order organisms that function like living machines.

Kate Adamala, a synthetic biologist and professor at the University of Minnesota, and her team constructed the cell piece by piece from nonliving chemical components. The creation is a limited and fragile prototype, but it could help scientists better understand the origins of life and could potentially be programmed to help mitigate some of the world’s biggest biological problems. The cell is nonspecific — neither plant nor animal — but most closely resembles a simple bacterium.

“I know the full ingredient list of the cell, I know exactly what chemicals, what molecules at what concentrations,” she said. “It is fully defined, which means we can engineer it.”

Scientists have for decades bioengineered natural cells to solve human problems. A famous example is how human insulin genes can be inserted into E. coli bacterial cells to manufacture insulin and treat diabetes. Scientists argue synthetic cells are the next frontier; they could potentially lead to the development of new cancer treatments and novel ways to capture carbon or manufacture chemicals.

Cells are the fundamental building blocks of life, but they are far from simple. The human body has 37 trillion cells, more than the number of stars in the sky, and scientists still don’t know how every different cell type works or what exactly they contain.

The synthetic cell that Adamala and her colleagues built was not “life created in the lab” but a “genuine milestone on the road to toward that question,” said Yuval Elani, an associate professor in biochemical technologies at Imperial College London, who was not involved ...

The creation is a limited and fragile prototype, but it could help scientists better understand the origins of life and could potentially be programmed to help mitigate some of the world's biggest biological problems. The cell is nonspecific -- neither plant nor animal -- but most closely resembles a simple bacterium.

In Hebrew, the word for a cell is ta [תא], tav aleph. It is used as the English word for a living cell, spreadsheet cell, jail cell, and so forth. In Ezekiel 40, the cells are the little chambers.

The same letters, aleph and tav, spell et [אֵת]:

>>>

BE'RESHIT BARAH ELOHIM ET..

which means:

In the beginning God created ET

According to Kabbalah, in the inner layer of the Torah these two letters do not actually form the word את (ET), but rather they express a certain perspective and understanding of the process of the world creation.

The aleph (א) is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the tav (ת) is the last letter of the alphabet.

The placement of these two very significant letters at strategic locations within many sentences of the Hebrew Scriptures expresses a total completeness.

It is equivalent to saying "from a to z, from first to last, from beginning to end."

Thus, one can interpret the beginning of the first verse as:

"In the beginning G-d created the aleph-tav (first to last letters...)".

In other words, it means that the very first creation was the entire Hebrew alphabet.

https://www.ulpanor.com/2020/10/15/what-was-the-first-creation-really/

That's the traditional explanation for the "et", but there are overlooked options, such as in:

Isaiah 2
3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

אֵת ʼêth, ayth; of uncertain derivation; a hoe or other digging implement:--coulter, plowshare.

There are two "ets" in Genesis 1:1, farming tool object pointers hiding in plain sight from the beginning:

In the beginning God created [אֵת] the heaven and [אֵת] the earth.
***

My Daddy taught me young how to hunt and how to whittle,
He taught me how to work and play a tune on the fiddle.
He taught me how to love and how to give just a little,
Thank God I'm a Country Boy

There's actually a third את in the verse, in the first word:

בראשית

It has a gift inside.

No they didn’t they copied life forms (patterns, mechanisms of life) that already exist.

That’s not from scratch.

I am reminded of the old joke:

A bunch of scientist in the future think they have it all figured out, and declare there must be no God because they can now create life.

POOF. God appears before them. “What’s this? You think you can make life”.
SMUG SCIENTIST: “Yes, Yes, we can, we just take some dirt, here, break it down into it’s elemental components then arrange the atoms in such a way, and we cam make a cell that can reproduce itself!”
GOD: “Would you like to try?” God reaches down gets some clay and forms a small animal and breathes on it, and it gets up and walks way.
SCIENTISTS:”Well, that’s a bit much, be we can make a cell, first, we take some dirt—” Scientist bends over to grab a bit of dirt.
GOD: “Hey, use your own dirt! I made that dirt, it’s mine!”

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.