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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

#301

Post by gus_massa »

dnautics wrote: post #212
gus_massa wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Nitpicking: > (they got nothing to eat) They can eat fats, that are not chiral. Perhaps they can eat some carbohidrates, all carbohidrates are chiral, but some bacterias may eat some of the unusual carbohidrates too. But amino acids are beyond any possibility, and fixating nitrogen is hard, so I also think they will starve to death very fast.

It's generally possible to epimerize l-amino acids to d- (or functionalize glycine) but you're competing with nonmirror life at that point. plus bacteria will love love love the d-alanine you make

Thanks for the correction. What about the peptide bound? Can normal bacteria break mirror-proteins?

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

#302

Post by _zoltan_ »

coldtea wrote: post #292
hoppp wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too practical haha Maybe they just wanted hype?

Or perhaps they wanted something theoritical that advances the state of the art in database design and architecture (which is the whole purpose of academic reasearch/conference/etc) - not merely some report describing doing something that's already been done for a different DB.

that's a very condescending view from you, to be honest.

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

#303

Post by jibal »

ben_w wrote: post #297
jibal wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What they meant when they said "planets" Who is "they", and how do you know what they meant? The relevant fact is that the claim "Exoplanets also aren't planets" is simply wrong -- exoplanets are by definition planets outside the solar system. It's like claiming that a brown furple isn't a furple -- the claim is wrong, regardless of what one thinks a furple is. > The reviewer of this paper is saying that by biology…

> exoplanets are by definition planets outside the solar system. It's like claiming that a brown furple isn't a furple -- the claim is wrong, regardless of what one thinks a furple is. If only language was so logical. While I happen to agree that exoplanets are planets, as with my point in the other comment, I aver the stronger claim ("regardless") does not follow in this context. Stonehenge, after which the concept…

I don't need an off topic point-missing lecture on how language works that could have and might as well have been written by a clanker. The fact remains that exoplanets are by definition a type of planet, regardless of whether Jerusalem artichokes are a type of artichoke -- proper names as adjectives work differently, and the "mincemeat" example is simply bad faith ... actually, the whole pushback here is bad faith argumentation.

And "gas giants are failed stars and shouldn't count as planets" is completely irrelevant -- at best it's a fallacy of denial of the antecedent.

I won't respond further.

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

#304

Post by Zambyte »

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,…

> This is "whatabboutism" which is a logical fallacy.

No it isn't. You don't optimize a piece of software by profiling it and rendering a flame graph, and then ignoring the sections of code that the most time is being spent in. You work on optimizing the paths where the most time is being spent, because that is where your effort has the most room for impact. If we are trying to optimize carbon emissions instead of time, we look at the biggest sources of emissions first, because that's where our effort has the most room for impact.

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

I never said they did. I said they should be fighting both if they actually care about the issue.

> 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".

Excellent, you are fighting both because you care about the issue. Thank you for your service.

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

#305

Post by Zambyte »

dinkblam wrote: post #141
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.

> 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…

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

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

#306

Post by Zambyte »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #122
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.

That’s just wrong. Transportation is 24% of carbon emissions with 18% road transportation and about 10% of that from cars. Electricity and heat production is the largest source of carbon emissions.

It's not wrong in the US.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/transportation-sector-emiss...

I'm also not breaking out personal SUVs and light trucks from "cars" because that'd be stupid.

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

#307

Post by Zambyte »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #98
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.

And the most promising of those alternatives is, ironically enough, AI itself. Fighting data centers is literally like fighting nuclear power. If you just want more carbon emissions, then by all means, proceed. Of course most people who commute to work don't need to be doing that now, but that's the other big elephant in the room with AI. We don't use the intelligence we already have, so what makes us think the emerg…

The most promising alternative is making it legal to build housing near where people want to be (commercial districts) and make it legal to build places people want to be near where they live (build cafes, shops, etc in suburbia). Any help that AI could have on the situation would just as easily be applied to working from home without AI.

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

#308

Post by coldtea »

_zoltan_ wrote: post #302
coldtea wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps they wanted something theoritical that advances the state of the art in database design and architecture (which is the whole purpose of academic reasearch/conference/etc) - not merely some report describing doing something that's already been done for a different DB.

that's a very condescending view from you, to be honest.

Condescending? That's the mission of a scientific journal / conference / etc. Doesn't mean practical development work is "less worthy", but it's not a fit for them.

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

#310

Post by noosphr »

throwaway676712 wrote: post #289
noosphr wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only between 1920 and 1960 that you would have been literally blown away by scientific progress, first as we split the atom then fused it. That you're impressed by the stamp collecting that science has become since then says a lot more about you than the state of scientific progress.

The commenter was talking about biology and you are talking about physics. Just because your view of one field stagnates doesn't mean the rest of science doesn't, and your quip about stamp collecting (referring to that sneering quote) means you are thinking in memes and are not a serious interlocutor

Understanding how a bunch of baroque proteins interact is the definition of stamp collecting. As a meat bag made up of such machines

I appreciate it for what it is. As a intelligence capable of abstraction I don't measure our progress in science by the number of stamps in our collection.

There are no big ideas, biology included, because peer review is only there for small ideas.

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