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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

#141

Post by dinkblam »

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.

> cars are the leading source of carbon emissions.

WTF? cars are less than 7% and even including trucks we are barely around 11%. when you look at greenhouse effect instead of "just carbon", the percentages are even tinier.

If you are looking for leading sources of climate change look at electricity/heat, industry and agriculture.

just because (bad) politicians are always talking about cars when talking about climate it doesn't mean the are actually a meaningful component. it is smoke and mirros…

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

#142

Post by boogieknite »

ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #78

You stumble upon a news article from 2226. You read it to see who, between Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, won the AI race. Instead, your learn about Biotic. It's now the leading polity in the solar system and its environs. It bought Alphabet, OpenAI and Anthropic in a single day back in 2084. Humans are no longer desired. Their reproduction is capped to an optimal minimum assuring the survival of the species as a reli…

I'm not too well read so Mars Express is the first fiction where I came across these themes. Highly recommend. When I watched it 18 months ago I didn't realize real development was ongoing in these scifi-seeming fields

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

#143

Post by hparadiz »

cookingmyserver wrote: post #133
oliverx0 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For anyone else that might be curios, the definition of a planet you will often see quoted online applies to bodies in our Solar System. It comes from the International Astronomical Union in 2006. This is the famous definition that dropped Pluto as a planet. While the criteria are widely quoted, that actual resolution isn't. The resolution: The IAU...resolves that planets and other bodies, except satellites, in the S…

> Captain's Log, Stardate 1513.1. Our position, orbiting planet M-113. On board the Enterprise, Mr. Spock, temporarily in command.

>

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

#144

Post by nullsanity »

NuclearPM wrote: post #130
bouchard wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rejections from journals are not uncommon and sometimes it's for somewhat questionable reasons. Uploading the manuscript to a preprint server and/or submitting to another journal, which Adamala is doing/planning to do, is the normal response. Sending it to journalists beforehand is what I consider an overreaction.

Why would it be an overreaction?

[dead]

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

#145

Post by lo_zamoyski »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #72
el_io wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You if believe creating life will end religion then you're wrong. We thought evolutionary theory would do the same, now we got people who believe god directed evolution. Some believe everything evolved from a common ancestor except Humans. So the believers will adapt to believe that Genesis was talking about exactly this.

Science can't disprove religion. Consider the "big bang", is that any less of a miracle than "God did it"? Science is like "just give us one miracle and we'll explain the rest".

> Science can't disprove religion.

That depends on which religion, doesn't it. The categorical claim doesn't make any sense, because the general notion of "religion" doesn't entail anything that is inherently at odds with science. And if there is a normative sense of what is or isn't religion, then this is even more true, because normativity means there is a correct religion or most correct religion, and you can't be correct without being true.

Some religious traditions, however, do make claims that are wide open to scientific discreditation (like the "Lamanite hypothesis" of Mormonism).

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

#146

Post by SubiculumCode »

Maxion wrote: post #123
twothreeone wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is this: as an academic you tend to know the reviewer landscape within your field. You have seen this happen to a colleague before, they submitted a paper, it had interesting results - it was forcefully rejected by 1 or 2 extremely negative reviewers. The publication gets delayed, you need to wait another 6 months to get the next set of reviews. Meanwhile, some "colleague" from another lab publishes nearl…

My wife has had numerous papers rejected because the reviewer belonged to a competing lab. Took a few tries and a request to exclude a certain reviewer and hey presto! published!

Were these open reviews? Many times they are blinded, so unless they revealed their identity, you would not know.

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

#147

Post by jschveibinz »

Maxion wrote: post #123
twothreeone wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is this: as an academic you tend to know the reviewer landscape within your field. You have seen this happen to a colleague before, they submitted a paper, it had interesting results - it was forcefully rejected by 1 or 2 extremely negative reviewers. The publication gets delayed, you need to wait another 6 months to get the next set of reviews. Meanwhile, some "colleague" from another lab publishes nearl…

My wife has had numerous papers rejected because the reviewer belonged to a competing lab. Took a few tries and a request to exclude a certain reviewer and hey presto! published!

That is despicable behavior from a professional. How common is this in academia?

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

#148

Post by whycome »

commieneko wrote: post #139

Interesting. I pasted the article URL into Claude Opus 4.8, along with some questions about uses for cells that couldn't reproduce and Claude thought about it for a while, and then got murdered by the guardrails. I was invited to edit the question and try again; in a different chat. Or use a dumber model. I suppose I can see why. But at the time I was just curious about the idea of "mule" cells.

What are the guardrails here?

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

#149

Post by 12_throw_away »

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.

> for people to hold different definitions of words [...] is the single biggest reason for all arguments in recent human history.

IMO this extremely, extraordinarily true. And in my experience, it's somehow even more true for disagreements among scientists. Even though every scientific field is, in some sense, about defining a shared set of extremely precise jargon. (I recall two very well-respected scientists screaming at each other about the definition of "acidity" for instance)

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

#150

Post by oalae5niMiel7qu »

cperciva wrote: post #119
oliverx0 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Submit it as a CVE.
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