[Eyes Unclouded]

grey goo?

[dr_lew]

This could be the real “Ice-9” of Vonnegut’s novel, Cat’s Cradle

[SteveMcKing]

"Craig Venter, an American who cracked the human genome in 2000,"

He was the president and founder of Celera Genomics, which was very successful. Let's not be so dramatic.

[Zeon Cowboy]

Sounds like a good novel.

[rbosque]

Now I;m no biologist but wouldn’t there be a risk in engineering a synthetic life form and introducing it to the environment? How can they control it? What if it mutates into something harmful?

[IslandJeff]

Yesterday, an ETC spokesman, Jim Thomas, called on the world's patent offices to reject the applications.

He said: "These monopoly claims signal the start of a high-stakes commercial race to synthesise and privatise synthetic life forms. Will Venter's company become the 'Microbesoft' of synthetic biology?" A colleague, Pat Mooney, said: "For the first time, God has competition. Venter and his colleagues have breached a societal boundary, and the public hasn't even had a chance to debate the far-reaching social, ethical and environmental implications of synthetic life."

So what if ETC had done it?

[HiTech RedNeck]

The concept of putting specialized DNA into bacteria or other cells (often, by means of viruses) in order to get certain properties or capabilities isn’t new. He could patent his method for getting his particular modified germ, and patent that germ much as a nursery patents its fruit or vegetable plants, but couldn’t prevent others from creating modified germs by other methods.

[mkjessup]

Two items:

a.) God has NO competition, but Pat Mooney has an overactive hyperbole gland.

b.) A custom-designed microbe that eats liberals while producing biofuel suitable for motor vehicles would be a true “win win” product.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

I’m always in favor of competition. If God can’t compete, He’s got only Himself to blame.

[chuckles]

PLEASE, make sure you can kill it before you make it!

If the headline makes you hopeful, why am I so frightened? I've seen "mankind" in action before. How about that Kudzu? Wonderful, eh?

[truth_seeker]

If they can make ethanol, perhaps they can make crude oil, instead.

Otherwise we wind up with a lot of idle refinery capacity and unemployed refinery and oil industry workers.

Plus we wouldn’t need to modify our vehicles. And finally we could flood the world with our synthetic crude oil, drive the price down, and harm our mortal mideast enemies.

[headstamp]

“It is part of an effort to create designer bugs to manufacture hydrogen and biofuels, as well as absorb carbon dioxide and other harmful greenhouse gases.”

Hmmm. A bug that destroys or “eats” water vapor.

[autosellers]

Any synthetic life form will not mutate to survive outside the controlled conditions in the lab. I am looking with great skepticism at this so called synthetic microbe, and I bet the concept will not be reality for at least 10 years. The Arabs are safe for now!

[Caipirabob]

Man-made microbe 'to create endless biofuel' ["God has competition."]

God : Competition? Huh. OK, let's have a "competition"...

Just funnin'... : )

[Lorianne]

Patents? You mean he plans to make money on a fuel source? Shameful.

[aruanan]

Turns out it rapidly multiplies in the gut and then turns the animal into a hydrogen as well as methane puffing machine. And how big would those flames be?

And why not also see if Airwick wanted to make designer E. coli by incorporating genes for making various types of essential oils so that one could have rose or peppermint farts?

[docbnj]

Hey, we’ve got to let humans do jobs that God Himself won’t do.

But seriously, folks, one can’t patent something that has not been “reduced to practice.” That means that you cannot just patent a cool idea. You have to make it work.

[bvw]

IMO, a patent should not be issued until they show a working model.