Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100302/1026588363/dailydirt-re-visting-vitalism.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100302/1026588363/dailydirt-re-visting-vitalism.shtml vitalism -- which suggested that living matter was fundamentally different from inanimate chemicals. Over a hundred years later, though, no one has really discovered how to create living materials from scratch. Here are just a few projects that could change that.

• Martin Hanczyc gives a TED talk about the difference between life and non-life. Making a chemical "protocell" model might help us understand how life develops from non-living materials. [url]
• Working on metal-based life could lead to the discovery of completely non-organic life. Inorganic chemical reactions could form self-replicating structures with sufficient complexity to begin evolutionary processes. Maybe. [url]
• Re-programming worms to create an unnatural amino acid could be the start of designing artificial lifeforms with unnatural traits. This achievement is just a proof of principle project that could lead to other biological techniques for modifying the genetic expression in all kinds of multicellular animals. [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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