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For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides

quantamagazine.org

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Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides

#111

Post by dbingham »

Zambyte wrote: post #76
dbingham wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is that those stories are rooted very much in the failures of human systems that we see every day. They are us imagining what could go wrong based on what has gone wrong and is going wrong. It would be a lot easier to set those warnings aside if we didn't have so many examples of the very things they warn about happening in real life. We currently have a system where private individuals can fund pri…

It's important to emphasize that cars are the leading source of carbon emissions. Anyone fighting against AI on the basis of climate change should be fighting for safe and reliable alternatives to driving everywhere.

This is "whatabboutism" which is a logical fallacy.

Someone doesn't have to talk about the climate impacts of cars every time they talk about the climate impacts of AI. Both have climate impacts, independently of each other, and we should be dealing with the climate impacts of both simultaneously.

Regardless, don't assume the person you are talking to isn't consistent. Peruse my personal blog and you will see that I, in fact, ran a whole city council campaign on a platform of "to fight climate change we should not be driving".

Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides

#112

Post by ferfumarma »

oliverx0 wrote: post #86
Aachen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exoplanets also aren't planets. Some things just seem to have definitions with a history that get applied to new discoveries that don't fall within the definition. Distinguishing random rocks in space from planets was done by requiring planets to orbit around the sun, and so planets elsewhere cannot be called planets no matter that it's 1:1 the same thing. Biology probably has a similar history of trying to draw a li…

Exoplanets are planets. Also, for clarification, biology is not defined as “the study of things produced exclusively by natural evolution.” Synthetic biology works with biological components and living systems (DNA, proteins, regulatory networks, cells and organisms). It differs from much traditional biology mainly in its constructive, engineering-oriented approach. Synthetic systems are often built precisely to test…

Right? It's biology when you study enzymes in vitro, but as soon as you put a membrane around them then it's ... something else?

Bizarre argument.

Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides

#113

Post by ranger_danger »

oliverx0 wrote: post #77
merksittich wrote: post #54

Science News has a more balanced take, with additional quotes from peers. > Some have also grumbled about Adamala’s efforts to draw attention to the work, which she says was rejected by Cell after one reviewer said SpudCells were not real biology. She then sent the 190-page manuscript to journalists, under embargo, even before she had uploaded it to the preprint server bioRxiv, where her colleagues could read and ass…

Crazy that a Cell reviewer would claim synthetic biology is not biology

Not defending anyone but it's quite common for people to hold different definitions of words with some unknown presumed context in mind that others don't see in the moment. I'd argue it's the single biggest reason for all arguments in recent human history.

Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides

#114

Post by CamperBob2 »

dbingham wrote: post #111
Zambyte wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to emphasize that cars are the leading source of carbon emissions. Anyone fighting against AI on the basis of climate change should be fighting for safe and reliable alternatives to driving everywhere.

This is "whatabboutism" which is a logical fallacy. Someone doesn't have to talk about the climate impacts of cars every time they talk about the climate impacts of AI. Both have climate impacts, independently of each other, and we should be dealing with the climate impacts of both simultaneously. Regardless, don't assume the person you are talking to isn't consistent. Peruse my personal blog and you will see that I,…

Someone doesn't have to talk about the climate impacts of cars every time they talk about the climate impacts of AI.

Actually they do, because the best way to get cars off the road is to replace many if not most of their occupants with AI.

Private ownership of cars is not the problem. The assumption that people have to drive all over the place to get stuff done is the problem. Let's work on that.

Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides

#115

Post by oliverx0 »

ranger_danger wrote: post #113
oliverx0 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy that a Cell reviewer would claim synthetic biology is not biology

Not defending anyone but it's quite common for people to hold different definitions of words with some unknown presumed context in mind that others don't see in the moment. I'd argue it's the single biggest reason for all arguments in recent human history.

That's fair, but rejecting a paper for that reason seems excessive to me. Even if the reviewer may think that synthetic biology is not biology, they would know that plenty of synthetic biology papers have been published in Cell.

Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides

#118

Post by Aerolfos »

hparadiz wrote: post #92
Aachen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exoplanets also aren't planets. Some things just seem to have definitions with a history that get applied to new discoveries that don't fall within the definition. Distinguishing random rocks in space from planets was done by requiring planets to orbit around the sun, and so planets elsewhere cannot be called planets no matter that it's 1:1 the same thing. Biology probably has a similar history of trying to draw a li…

> Exoplanets also aren't planets. Imagine writing this.

Actually, that is the IAU stance. And their definition for exoplanet includes small, non-rounded objects orbiting stars which would be asteroids (or comets or whatever) if they happened to be around the Sun.

All that debacle around dwarf planets to prepare for future observations, and yet the distinction ceases to apply the moment you go outside the Oort cloud...

But really, that's just the naming systems being bad, obviously common people don't think asteroids around other stars are "exoplanets" or should be called that way

Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides

#119

Post by cperciva »

oliverx0 wrote: post #77
merksittich wrote: post #54

Science News has a more balanced take, with additional quotes from peers. > Some have also grumbled about Adamala’s efforts to draw attention to the work, which she says was rejected by Cell after one reviewer said SpudCells were not real biology. She then sent the 190-page manuscript to journalists, under embargo, even before she had uploaded it to the preprint server bioRxiv, where her colleagues could read and ass…

Crazy that a Cell reviewer would claim synthetic biology is not biology

My paper demonstrating a side channel attack on RSA via hyperthreading was rejected from the crypto preprint archive on the basis that it was "not cryptography".

(Reviewers at J.Crypto subsequently sat on it for a year and then suggested I submit it to a journal on CPU microarchitecture instead.)

Novel research is uniquely susceptible to "cool but it's not part of our field", because that critique is entirely correct until the research gets published!

Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides

#120

Post by hparadiz »

Aerolfos wrote: post #118
hparadiz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exoplanets also aren't planets. Imagine writing this.

Actually, that is the IAU stance. And their definition for exoplanet includes small, non-rounded objects orbiting stars which would be asteroids (or comets or whatever) if they happened to be around the Sun. All that debacle around dwarf planets to prepare for future observations, and yet the distinction ceases to apply the moment you go outside the Oort cloud... But really, that's just the naming systems being bad,…

I'm not talking about edge cases like asteroids or planetoids or dwarf planets. I'm talking about actual planets. Like a gas giant orbiting a star. It's obviously a planet even if it's not orbiting Sol.
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