Posted on 08/09/2006 11:50:03 AM PDT by gobucks
In the beginning an all-powerful diety created the universe in six days and then rested. Or perhaps everything started with a Big Bang followed by billions of years of evolution. Whatever explains the existence of life on Earth get prepared for what UC Berkeley calls Life 2.0. That's how the university recently described synthetic biology -- a field that seeks to recombine the basic building blocks of life -- genes, proteins and cells -- in Lego-like fashion to create novel and useful entities.
A press release from Berkeley's College of Letters and Sciences quotes Professor Jay Keasling, a leader in synthetic biology, as saying:
"We're turning biology into an engineering field." Berkeley notes that Keasling's work is funded in part by a five-year, $16 million grant from the National Science Foundation, and that its goals include the creation of microorganisms that might "eat" heavy metals, and thus clean up toxic sites, or break down plant cellulose into sugars which could then be refined into ethanol as a replacement for gasoline.
A journal called The New Atlantis recently published a pro-and-con article on the topic titled "The Promise and Perils of Synthetic Biology." A visit to Berkeley's synthetic biology web page is the gateway to more information.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
To what extent would the risks associated with a synthetic microorganism differ from those of a genetically engineered one? At least for the near future, the vast majority of synthetic biological systems will be engineered by transferring small genetic circuits into a well-understood bacterial host, limiting the level of risk.
A decade from now, however, synthetic genomes may be assembled from BioBricks that have been redesigned or are entirely artificial, having been created de novo.
If a synthetic microorganism is built by combining these genetic elements in a new way, it will lack a clear genetic pedigree and could have “emergent properties” arising from the complex interactions of its constituent genes. Accordingly, the risks attending the accidental release of such an organism from the laboratory would be extremely difficult to assess in advance, including its possible spread into new ecological niches and the evolution of novel and potentially harmful characteristics.
Sounds interesting.
As for risk...the European discovery of America brought syphilis to Europes and Smallpox to the Americas. There's always risk and I'm glad they're thinking ahead to to possibilities.
Cool. Maybe we can design a woman that looks like Pamela Anderson, but is a life form based on carbon instead of silicon.
Syphilis in Europe predates Columbus.
It may even be inoffensive to creationists to take the axiom of a very narrowly focused "survival of the fittest". That is, put two boxers in a ring and one will be better.
That being said, there are now computer simulations taking virtual primitive organisms and having them fight it out. Then trying a tiny adjustment, based on a known organism, and see if it makes them better or worse at survival. And changing their environment, etc.
Basically doing a gazillion simulated boxing matches, to see who the winner is.
But this works hand-in-hand with creating very elementary forms of life and seeing if what they actually do is like what happens on the computer.
All it really tells you is if your computer software matches real life very well or not. And the closer you can tune it to repeat what life does naturally, the more you can answer why lifeforms do what they do. "Oh, the one boxer is open on that side, that's why his opponent keeps using that left hook."
Only some very limited instances that may indicate either round-trip Vikings or other un-recorded European trips.
MCCOY: There's a nasty little bug evolved in the last few years. Our aseptic, sterilized civilizations produced it. Synthococcus novae. It's deadly. We can immunize against it, but haven't learned to lick all the problems yet.The "space hippies" episode. Once again, original series Star Trek was way ahead of reality...-- Star Trek, Episode 75 "The Way to Eden"
NBC-TV, airdate 21 February 1969
"But other researchers say that there is simply too much evidence of pre-Columbian syphilis in the Old World to ignore. Archaeologists have found ancient skeletons with tell-tale signs of syphilis, such as thickening in the lower leg bones and pitting in the skull, at half a dozen sites in England, and also in Italy, Israel, and other locations in Europe. The clear implication is that the venereal form of syphilis was already present in Europe before Columbus's voyage."There is a suggestion that it might have originally come from Southeast Asia and then maybe spread both east and west," says biological anthropologist Charlotte Roberts of the University of Durham in England.
1. I did say "...other unrecorded European trips"
2. I should have included middle eastern.
Take Occam's razor to your article.
It couldn't have been Columbus' men bringing it back from the Americas, as syphilis was raging in Europe and the Middle East by 1500 AD (unless of course Columbus' men cut a swath through every maiden in the known world in a matter of a few years).
It wasn't the Vikings bringing it back from the Americas, because syphilis isn't known to have been in that part of Europe at that time. It wasn't Zheng He's trading fleet either, unless that well known, and well documented expedition was composed of the worst traders in the history of the world (they left nothing behind, and brought nothing back with them).
From Wikipedia (just because I'm feeling lazy right now): "Occam's razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating (or "shaving off", like a razor shaves off unneccessary hair) those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory." So, take your own advice. Which hypothesis has the fewer assumptions? What can we get rid of?
That some unknown, unrecorded expedition from some unknown, unrecorded source went to some unidentifiable location in the Americas without anybody knowing about it, leaving nothing behind (not even small pox), or bringing anything back with them (except for syphilis), and then spread syphilis throughout the known world?
Or, that syphilis had existed in Europe and Asia for a long time, and the Indians brought it with them when they migrated across the land bridge to North America?
Here's a fairly dispassionate article:
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE HUMAN TREPONEMATOSES
http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0717-73562000000200009&script=sci_arttext
They come to no conclusions, but the evidence they present (as I interpret it) is lots of syphilis in the pre-columbian new world, sporadic or isolated cases in pre-Columbian eurasia.
In any other setting that would indicate the reservoir was probably where the most cases were. And the only problem with accepting this is that there were supposed to be no pre-Columbian contacts, at all. Except for the knowm cod fishing, the known narwhal "horn" trade, the known Vikings.
Without the mindset, the most likely line of evidence is what would be followed. To me this whole thing resembles the ulcer arguments.
I have one more question.
Clearly, you are of the opinion that there were one or more instances of pre-Columbian contact with the Americas that was significant enough to infect the individuals making the contact with syphilis.
How could contact of that level have occurred without infecting the Americas with Small Pox?
Well, I have two more answers :-)
1. No, I am not of the opinon that there were pre-columbian contacts, I am of the opinoion that that is a more reasonable explanation for the pattern of syphilis than any other alternative I have read.
2. As for the possibility of a asmallpox transmission, we don't know that it didn't happen, but if it didn't it would most likely be because the odds were against infected travellers getting here in the first place. Only when large numbers of passengers are involved would there be enough people in a condition to transmit the disease likely to both get here and mix with the natives.
No, I am not of the opinion that there were pre-columbian contacts, I am of the opinion that that is a more reasonable explanation for the pattern of syphilis than any other alternative I have read.
Something tells me that we are just going to have to disagree on this one. Don't know what it is, but... ;-)
Only when large numbers of passengers are involved would there be enough people in a condition to transmit the disease likely to both get here and mix with the natives.
And yet, even though Columbus had small ships, and small crews, smallpox was transmitted. When people from the Old World landed, smallpox was transmitted. It didn't require intimate contact, just contact, and it didn't need to be person to person. When contact was made, the disease was transmitted. More than 90% of the indigenous populations of two continents were killed by it.
The disease was much more virulent than syphilis ever dreamed of being. Syphilis could not have gone one way without smallpox going the other. Smallpox did not occur in the New World before Columbus. Syphilis did occur in the Old World before Columbus. Therefore, syphilis was already present in the Old World before Columbus.
If I've got my history right (and I might very well not), the epidemics didn't start until after the colonizing voyage of 1499, not the exploratory voyage of 1492. Again, a passive group which could have members ill without compromising the ability of the ship to cross the ocean.
No. Actually, syphilis reached epidemic proportions in 1495. One of the links that I posted earlier had that listed, and I think that one of yours did as well. People say "1500" just to round it off.
ID is the only way that any biological "thing" of truly significant import comes into being.
Materialist Neodarwinsim is a wholesale bust, along with other philosophical idiocies of its era including Marxism, logical postivism, and Freudian psychology.
You are correct; it was 1495.
I don't really know enough epidemiology to get the numbers right on spread, but I don't think 1495 invalidates the thought that it got to Europe in 1493 and busy prostitutes provided the imnpetus for the epidemic.
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