Feb. 27, 2009 -- When NASA began thinking about missions to look for life beyond Earth, it realized it had a problem: how to recognize life if it were found.
Scientists came up with a definition for life -- a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution -- but remained understandably fuzzy on the details.
It is still not known how life on Earth took hold, what happened to a bunch of chemicals that made them capable of supporting a metabolism, replicating and evolution. But a new field of science, called synthetic biology, is aiming to find out.
One of the most promising developments lies in a beaker of water inside a Florida laboratory. It's an experiment called AEGIS -- an acronym for Artificially Expanded Genetic Information System. Its creator, Steve Benner, says it is the first synthetic genetic system capable of Darwinian evolution
From Discovery News
anyone else think they should stop this now?
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