Playing "God" or Discovering More of "God's Ways?"

First artificial life 'within months'

by Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 6:42am BST 29/06/2007


From reading DNA to writing it

Scientists could create the first new form of artificial life within months after a landmark breakthrough in which they turned one bacterium into another.

In a development that has triggered unease and excitement in equal measure, scientists in the US took the whole genetic makeup - or genome - of a bacterial cell and transplanted it into a closely related species.

This then began to grow and multiply in the lab, turning into the first species in the process.

The team that carried out the first “species transplant” says it plans within months to do the same thing with a synthetic genome made from scratch in the laboratory.

If that experiment worked, it would mark the creation of a synthetic lifeform.

The scientists want to create new kinds of bacterium to make new types of bugs which can be used as green fuels to replace oil and coal, digest toxic waste or absorb carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

But this pioneering research also triggers unease about the limits of science and the inevitable fears about “playing god,” as well as raising the spectre that this technology could one day be abused to create a new generation of bioweapons.

Producing living cells from synthetic genomes of lab-made DNA would require the ability to move and manipulate whole genomes.

To that end, a milestone was passed today by a team led by Craig Venter, the first person to have his entire genetic makeup read, and which included the Nobel prizewinner Ham Smith.

Dr Venter said that, in the light of this success, the culmination of a decade’s work, he will be attempting the first transplant of a lab-made genome to create the first artificial life “within months.”

Dr Venter said: “We would hope to have the first fuel from synthetic organisms certainly within the decade, possibly within half that time.”

The breakthrough occurred at the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, the team reports today in the journal Science.

One of its editors called it “a landmark in biological engineering.”

Since the 1970s, scientists have moved genes - instructions to make proteins - between different organisms.

But this marks the first time that the entire instruction set, consisting of more than a million “letters” of DNA, has been transplanted, transforming one species of bacterium into another.

They are attempting to build a microbe with the minimal set of genes needed for life, with the goal of then adding other useful genes, such as ones for making biofuels.

It recently submitted broad patents for methods to create a synthetic genome from such lab-made DNA.

In anticipation, the team wanted to develop a way to move a complete genome into a living cell, chosing the simplest and smallest kind, a bacterium.

In all, of the millions of bacteria that they tried the transplant on, it only worked one time in every 150,000.

Dr Venter likened it to “changing a Macintosh computer into a PC by inserting a new piece of software” and stressed it would be more difficult in other kinds of cells, which have enzymes to snip the DNA of invaders.

But he said to achieve the feat, without adding anything more than naked DNA, “is a huge enabling step.”

“This is a significant and unexpected advance,” commented Robert Holt of the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, Vancouver, Canada.

“It’s a necessary step toward creating artificial life,” added microbiologist Fred Blattner of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Antoine Danchin of the Pasteur Institute, Paris, calls the experiment “an exceptional technical feat.”

But he told Science “many controls are missing.” And that has prevented Glass’s team, as acknowledged by Ham Smith, from truly understanding how the introduced DNA reprograms the host cell.

“We are one step closer to synthetic organisms,” said Markus Schmidt of the Organisation for International Dialogue, Vienna.

He said the experiment will drive discussions about the safety issues related to synthetic biology and the implications for society.

Dr Venter stressed that the work had been halted for some time for a review to ensure it is ethical, though acknowledged concerns that synthetic biology could pave the way to new kinds of biowarfare.

Being Untrue to Two Faiths

This is inane. That a Bishop would allow her to continue to serve is nonsensical.

Welcome to an Alice in Wonderland version of Christianity...

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"I am both Muslim and Christian"
By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times religion reporter

Shortly after noon on Fridays, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding ties on a black headscarf, preparing to pray with her Muslim group on First Hill.

On Sunday mornings, Redding puts on the white collar of an Episcopal priest.

She does both, she says, because she's Christian and Muslim.

Redding, who until recently was director of faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, has been a priest for more than 20 years. Now she's ready to tell people that, for the last 15 months, she's also been a Muslim — drawn to the faith after an introduction to Islamic prayers left her profoundly moved.

Her announcement has provoked surprise and bewilderment in many, raising an obvious question: How can someone be both a Christian and a Muslim?

But it has drawn other reactions too. Friends generally say they support her, while religious scholars are mixed: Some say that, depending on how one interprets the tenets of the two faiths, it is, indeed, possible to be both. Others consider the two faiths mutually exclusive.

"There are tenets of the faiths that are very, very different," said Kurt Fredrickson, director of the doctor of ministry program at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. "The most basic would be: What do you do with Jesus?"

Christianity has historically regarded Jesus as the son of God and God incarnate, both fully human and fully divine. Muslims, though they regard Jesus as a great prophet, do not see him as divine and do not consider him the son of God.

"I don't think it's possible" to be both, Fredrickson said, just like "you can't be a Republican and a Democrat."

Redding, who will begin teaching the New Testament as a visiting assistant professor at Seattle University this fall, has a different analogy: "I am both Muslim and Christian, just like I'm both an American of African descent and a woman. I'm 100 percent both."

Redding doesn't feel she has to resolve all the contradictions. People within one religion can't even agree on all the details, she said. "So why would I spend time to try to reconcile all of Christian belief with all of Islam?

"At the most basic level, I understand the two religions to be compatible. That's all I need."
.......


In Redding's car, she has hung up a cross she made of clear crystal beads. Next to it, she has dangled a heart-shaped leather object etched with the Arabic symbol for Allah.

"For me, that symbolizes who I am," Redding said. "I look through Jesus and I see Allah."

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Full article is at the link. Simply click on the Title at the top or at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003751274_redding17m.html

Female Episcopal bishop a first for Cuba

NEWS RELEASE FROM AP NEWS:

Female Episcopal bishop a first for Cuba

By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

HAVANA — New Episcopal Bishop Nerva Cot Aguilera, the church's first female bishop in Cuba and the developing world, said Monday she welcomed the opportunity to show what women can do if given the chance.

"I feel very honored by my designation," Cot told The Associated Press in a phone interview, a day after being consecrated at the Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Havana. "It's a historic act that demonstrates women's possibilities."

Cot's designation as suffragan bishop was first announced in February.

"Her appointment is a wonderful reminder that in some nations, leadership is primarily about gifts for service and not about gender," U.S. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who took office in November as the first woman to lead the church, said at the time.

Also consecrated on Sunday was Cuban's other new suffragan bishop, Ulises Mario Aguiera Prendes.

Cuba's Episcopal Church has about 10,000 members in a nation of more than 11 million. A majority of Cubans are nominally Roman Catholic, but Protestant denominations and the African-influenced faith Santeria have gained in popularity in recent years.

Cot was a secondary school teacher before church reforms permitted her ordination as one of the first three Episcopal women priests in Cuba in 1987.

Cuba was a diocese of the U.S. church until 1967, when it was forced to break away because hostility between the U.S. and Cuban governments made contacts difficult. Cuba's communist leaders were embracing official atheism at the time, a stance abandoned in the early 1990s.

The Episcopal News Service of the U.S. Episcopal Church reported earlier this year that the Cuban church has since operated under a Metropolitan Council, an extra-provincial region of the church. Now chaired by the Archbishop Andrew Hutchison of Canada, the council also includes Jefferts Schori and the archbishop of the West Indies.

As suffragan bishops, Cot and Aguiera will serve under Cuba's interim bishop, Miguel Tamayo. Cot said she will be responsible for western Cuba and Aguiera eastern Cuba.

The Episcopal Church of Cuba is part of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion, a global fellowship of churches that trace their roots to the Church of England.