Scientists create a virus that reproduces

It is the stuff of science fiction and bioethical debates: The creation of artificial life. Up until now, it's largely been just that.

But an important technical bridge towards the creation of such life was crossed Thursday when genomics pioneer Craig Venter announced that his research group created an artificial virus based on a real one in just two weeks' time.

"...design a genome and then build it. We're still inventing the tools to make that happen,..."

Who knew that the tools we invented to decipher the human genome would lead to the ability to design a genome?

Nanotechnology has been a distant dream because of the difficulty of manipulating the impossibly small, but inventing these tools means that the next step will lead us to the same kind of debate as is currently roiling the agricultural scene -- Frankenfood!

Except that it won't be food. We'll see bacteria that can harvest toxic or exotic metals from groundwater or seawater. Imagine what the price of gold will be when it can be brewed up like making cheese!

Then the next step will be transgenic -- we'll see new species, with new abilities. Goats are already producing spidersilk. What will tomorrow's cattle produce? Anyone looking for a goose that lays a golden egg? That should be childs play in two hundred years.

There will be dangers, too. My only concern at the moment though is that we should be very careful about expanding the definition of what it means to be human -- or losing control of it altogether.

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