Summary
Leading scientists, including Nobel laureates, are urging a halt to research on creating “mirror life” microbes, citing “unprecedented risks” to life on Earth.
Mirror microbes, built from reversed molecular structures, could evade natural immune systems, leading to uncontrollable lethal infections.
While mirror molecules hold potential for medical and industrial uses, researchers warn that mirror organisms could escape containment and resist antibiotics.
A 299-page report in Science advocates banning such research until safety can be ensured and calls for global debate on its ethical and ecological implications.
Hey babe, wake up. A new human-created, extinction-level event just dropped.
Meh, we get a new one of those every year now. They’ll have to try harder to impress me.
Fuck, again?
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I don’t think viruses are the major concern here, viruses need to be compatible with our cells and DNA or RNA. It’s bacteria and other simplistic life forms that could infect our body and be largely invisible to our immune system.
Yeah, this should probably be approached from the angle of “someone might do this, so we should do research to be prepared”.
Research ways to improve containment to reduce the chance of an accidental containment breach.
And research ways to quickly determine the weaknesses of such synthetic lifeforms if a breach happens anyways. Also to be prepared in case someone deliberately weaponizes it.
By the way, this kind of thing is why IMO if we ever do find extra terrestrial life, attempting to make any kind of physical contact or even land on the planet might end up dooming both our own species (and maybe all current complex life on Earth) as well as any complex life on that other planet. They could have basic forms of life that are entirely different from our own and completely invisible to our immune systems.
Though it would probably also have cool results in a few hundred million years, after microbial life has evolved defenses and perhaps some hybridizations.
If the world wants it banned, you can be sure China and Russia are working on it in secret labs, maybe USA too anyway.
This sounds horrifying, but if they do make them I hope they all have little goaties.
What if we kissed with molecules of opposite chirality?
Yeah, knowing how fucky simple protein molecules can get when you flip the chirality (prions, which are essentially the root cause of Alzheimer’s and CJD and a few other neurodegenerative conditions), making whole-ass microbes on that principle without understanding what that could even mean sounds like a WILDLY insane idea.
I don’t know, seems like it could be merciful.
Start back over again with the microbes and try to do a better job this time.
Yeah, but then they’d all be dark reflections of ourselves that we have to battle after the final boss.
I think we’ve proven that we’re the dark reflection.
How would we all look with goatees the next time around?
I’m more of a friendly mutton chops kind of guy myself, but as long as I don’t have to shave my upper lip, I’ll do the Evil Spock thing.
Because when you discover something exceptionally dangerous the best approach is to halt research? To purposefully deprive yourself of understanding what it is and how it works and effects and interactions? Wouldn’t you want more research, just under more strict protocols?
Do you assume these scientists are fearful anti-intellectuals, like a gaggle of Covidiots or something? If you read the article, you’ll find that
The expert group includes Dr Craig Venter, the US scientist who led the private effort to sequence the human genome in the 1990s, and the Nobel laureates Prof Greg Winter at the University of Cambridge and Prof Jack Szostak at the University of Chicago.
These aren’t idiots, and their call came from a risk assessment performed by experts in their fields.
While enthusiastic about research on mirror molecules, the report sees substantial risks in mirror microbes and calls for a global debate on the work. link to the 299-page report
Beyond causing lethal infections, the researchers doubt the microbes could be safely contained or kept in check by natural competitors and predators.
…
Dr Kate Adamala, a synthetic biologist at the University of Minnesota and co-author on the report, was working towards a mirror cell but changed tack last year after studying the risks in detail.
“We should not be making mirror life,” she said. “We have time for the conversation. And that’s what we were trying to do with this paper, to start a global conversation.”
“Unless compelling evidence emerges that mirror life would not pose extraordinary dangers, we believe that mirror bacteria and other mirror organisms, even those with engineered biocontainment measures, should not be created,” the authors write in Science.
“We therefore recommend that research with the goal of creating mirror bacteria not be permitted, and that funders make clear that they will not support such work.”
World-leading scientists have called for a halt on research to create “mirror life” microbes amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an “unprecedented risk” to life on Earth.
I’m not saying the scientists involved are idiots, but the reporting on this seems to be ban now and ask questions later.
Just wait until we start making mirror vaccines, the antivax folks heads will explode.
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I also remember Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, but they’re unrelated to this as well.
