The Washington Post: Scientists Planning
The Washington Post: Scientists Planning to Make New Form of Life.
If the experiment works, the microscopic man-made cell will begin feeding and dividing to create a population of cells unlike any previously known to exist. To ensure safety, the cell will be deliberately hobbled to render it incapable of infecting people; it also will be strictly confined, and designed to die if it does manage to escape into the environment.
Comments
ahem, their description of it makes it sounds, to this layman, like it meets the criteria of...a...VIRUS...
am i the only one who is f!@$?in' scared out of my pants by this??
i am remembering the memoirs of those who worked on the manhattan project, who said that they really had no way of knowing for sure if the chain reaction they were setting off would CONTINUE INDEFINITELY AND DESTROY THE WORLD...but they took an attitude of "gee whiz! let's see what happens!"
the hubris of scientists appalls me sometimes...
Posted by: fertile_jim | November 21, 2002 2:08 PM
Isn't this how the movie the Blob starts?
Posted by: zagg | November 22, 2002 8:13 AM