Synthetic Life Accomplished

[Aaron]

Researchers Create the World's First Fully Synthetic, Self-Replicating Living Cell | Popular Science

Researchers Create the World's First Fully Synthetic, Self-Replicating Living Cell

Scientists call it 'the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer'
By Clay Dillow Posted 05.20.2010 at 2:15 pm



"Upon the announcement, some researchers questioned the validity of the term "synthetic cell" because though the genome was fabricated by computer, the process merely modified existing life rather than created it from scratch. There are also plenty ethical – and legal – ramifications to such a technological advance that will no doubt be argued in coming months."

Researchers Create the World's First Fully Synthetic, Self-Replicating Living Cell | Popular Science

[Gary]

This will even be crazier when they can do it without borrowing and changing something to get it done. Even though it is not fully synthetic, it is still a fairly amazing accomplishment.

In the near future, You could quite possibly order yourself a synthetic lung or kidney that is a perfect genetic match.

I would imagine far more people are going to have a problem with this than embrace it, especially with the immediate fear of synthetic animals and humans running around the planet.

[Aaron]

NASA's new life form: Underwhelming?

Nasa finds life form on Earth that uses arsenic instead of phosophorous as a
basic building block - defying everything biology thought it knew.

NASA's new life form: Underwhelming? - The Week

NASA's new life form: Underwhelming?

Scientists have found an organism unlike anything else on earth — triggering great excitement in certain quarters. But was the discovery oversold?

[future pather]

It's kind of a tangent, but it reminds me of this article I've been keeping my eye on. You know how yahoo news article titles sometimes change from day to day? Like the same article, like if you kept the window open on your computer.

Right now it's titled, "Scientists Say On Way To Solving Anti-Matter Mystery." The first time I saw it, the title was something like 'Scientists Set Out To Prove The Existence Of Parallel Realities.' Later it was like 'Scientists Trap And Create Anti-Matter.'

Here's the link :

Scientists say on way to solving anti-matter mystery - Yahoo! News

[future pather]

Oh geeze these scientists are so cute. They think a bigger trap will help them trap anti-matter:

Scientists Building Largest Antimatter Trap Ever - Yahoo! News

When are they going to realize it's about the relationship and it's fractal/infinite?

The scale is irrelevant but they keep trying to find things like "the fundamental building block of life" and now "anti-matter."

Here's a funny quote from the article, "The problem is that whenever antimatter comes into contact with regular matter, the two annihilate."

Yeah um start looking at the relationship there sillies.

Nassim's got a published physics paper now filling in all the blanks for them:

The Resonance Project :: Research

[noises]

Nassim's got a published physics paper now filling in all the blanks for them:

The Resonance Project :: Research

Where was it published? I know he submitted it at the 9th international Conference on Computing Anticipatory Systems in 2009, but it still hasn't been published for review in any journals, as far as I know, or as far as I can verify. (Nassim's alway's been on the brink of publishing his unified theory, but to date his only published works leading up to it have been published twice and cited 38 times, and every time he's been cited by peers it's to have flaws in his math pointed out.)

: CASYS '09: Ninth International Conference on Computing Anticipatory Systems There's the list of papers and their authors who won awards at CASYS 09. Show me where Nassim's name is? It's only stated he won anything on his website and in formums where people are quoting his website. I still can't find any verification from any other primary source. (Most notably, not in the official list of winning papers.)

Peer review and consensus doesn't mean someone is right, of course. Nor does absence of peer review and consensus mean a person is wrong; all it means is a work has been presented for the scrutiny of others in the field, and they've reviewed the work, and they either accept or agree with the postulation or theory presented in the paper, or they don't. Being published in a peer review journal is not a deal breaker or a deal maker to an open mind, but it is an important part of having a paper recognised as valid work. For him to claim he's had a work published in language that makes it sound like he's been published in a peer review journal when you haven't, well, that's not going to win many friends in academic circles.

My main problem* with Haramien's work is he plays the hard science part so close to his chest. He'll talk for hours and hours about very interesting ideas, but won't put those ideas up for the scrutiny of his peers in the scientific mainstream. He'll sell a million tickets to his speaking engagements, but the big question you have to ask of every theoretical physicist (indeed of any scientist,) is, "have you been published, and did you find consensus?" In his case, the answers to those questions are yes and no, which puts him halfway there. he's had an idea, but nobody with the education to de-construct it agrees with him.


*Ok, my real problem(s) is (are,) my gut says he's off and I can never find evidence to back his claims other than his claims. He has brilliant ideas, and a n obviously deep insight into the physical nature of reality, but in his papers he makes assumptions and switches from one kind of math to another without factoring in any kind of conversion. And he also has made several errors in calculating simple ratios on film, even in the DVDs he sells. You can do literally watch, and check his math in your head, and be compelled to get out a calculator to do a double take as you ask yourself, 'did he really just get that wrong?' For a theoretical physicist to stand on that kind of basic computational error is an unforgivable sin, hence the double take.

I have no doubt his work will inspire others, but as to the complete veracity of his unified theory as it stands, I can't say I'm sold on it. As far as his view of the nature of reality, without explaining why, I'd have to say he's not so much got it wrong as he has it sideways. That's why he'll be an inspiration. Someone else will take his ideas and re-order the geometry into a paradigm you see repeated in the universe around us, and that'll be a groundbreaking paper.

I'm thankful at least that he's opening minds to this level of observation of physical reality. Understanding what we're working with is of huge import to doing good work in this reality.

(end rant )

Haramien fans, I'm not up for an argument, thanks. I would however be glad to be shown verifable 3rd party evidence of him being published after 2008, or of him having won an award, which may have escaped my attention. The only thing I enjoy more than being right is having someone show me I was wrong.

[future pather]

I don't mean to sound stupid bc I'm not like up on academia standards and all but here's some text from the link in case you posted before you opened it:

Nassim Haramein's award winning scientific paper, "The Schwarzschild Proton," has passed the peer review process and has been published at the American Institute of Physics (AIP) Conference Proceedings. The table of contents of the proceedings book can be found on their site and should soon be updated with full text.

This paper received a Best Paper Award in the field of "Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Field Theory, and Gravitation" during the 9th International Conference CASYS'09 (Computing Anticipatory Systems) at the University of Liège, Belgium.

[future pather]

I would also say that I completely understand physics and many other part of our world and universe, etc. better from listening to youtubes of Nassim's lectures which he explains everything in very very simple terms and it all makes much more sense than anything I learned in school on physics . . . its just it takes him time to explain it and his English is broken.

[future pather]

I feel like it was kind of wrong of me to slam the scientists working on trapping anti-matter.

For one thing I'm glad they are working on that as opposed to not.

For another thing I believe that Nassim values their work in that he feels that what they find will further credit his work. And all the more so if done separate from his work.