We accidentally built a synthetic cell factory | Hacker News Reader

We accidentally built a synthetic cell factory

bnext.bio

83 pointsrajivm10 comments

Didn't think the site was going to load. Managed to grab a copy just in case it gets hugged.

What could go wrong, seems like such a great idea, why not put a synthetic cell factory and an uncensored/abliterated open model into the hands of every Columbine high school teen in a trenchcoat.

What a contribution!

Jokes aside, if you support gun control you should think very seriously about if you believe a company like this should be legally allowed to do what it's doing. I personally do not.

Guns appeal to a very basic, dumb, violent side of ourselves. A college student being proficient and diligent enough to do experiment with synthetic biology doesn't sound like someone violent. Reckless, yes, but not very violent.

Sounds like a very privledged view to either so trust your government to manage our society or alternately choose death if your current position in society stops being feasible.

All of human history shows a need for an armed populous to fight against tyranny and my government has shown no signs of breaking that cycle.

So true. The number one risk to your life and liberty is the government. The number 2 is rich guys. Both play a vital role if managed properly and proper management requires copious amounts of instrumenta od violenceto be available to the general populace. Its the deterence and rectification pathway for when all else has failed to keep the government and rich guys from abusing you.

You could convince yourselves that being a gun nut is a civic duty, but in my experience, gun nuts just really want the sense of power and safety firearms give.

There might be some that actually believe the patriotic stance, but for the ones I've met it's not about using them to fight the corrupt government (otherwise USA's democracy wouldn't be in the state it is right now); it's about the fantasies that they could dominate any violent conflict through overwhelming skill and firepower. They seem to think that having firearms puts them in the safe side of survival of the fittest.

I have to agree that weapons are very interesting from an engineering point of view, as any complex machine, you can appreciate the engineering and ingenuity... although thinking about their main purpose is a huge turn down. By all means let's keep making weapons, let's use them if needed, but let's not fall in love with them.

Well, you got me all wrong. I own one very inexpensive hunting rifle and maybe 3 bullets for it and I haven't touched any of it in about 8 years. I'm not a gun nut, I'm just not a moron. Despite me not practicing what I preach, what I said is very obvious if you think about it even a little bit. Also, a point of order, the guns are not for fighting the corrupt government, they are an insurance policy and discipline method to be operated as the last resort. There should be enough guns and ammo in general population hands that the corrupt government needs to be wary of what sort of corruption they try to pull, that's the main point of guns in public hands. If things get to the point you actually are using your guns to fight the corrupt government it means the deterrent failed and you are about to spend an awful lot of life and likely your own trying to right things via guerrilla warfare, which can be effective against a superior force at the cost of a lot of lives on the weaker force side. It's not safe at all. It's just less bad than the alternative and has a nonzero chance of being good. Also, it's a bit foolish to think we are anywhere near the point of it being the right time to actually use guns against the government. It's not that corrupt or unjust from a historical perspective.

> I own one very inexpensive hunting rifle and maybe 3 bullets for it and I haven't touched any of it in about 8 years

> There should be enough guns and ammo in general population hands that the corrupt government needs to be wary of what sort of corruption they try to pull

I'm having a very hard time understanding how those statements could be part of the same world vision. A hunting rifle and a handful of years-old bullets are more a risk to yourself than the corrupt government. I had to re-read because I missed this part:

> Despite me not practicing what I preach

If I'm understanding correctly, your gun is mostly symbolic, but you're advocating other people to get armed seriously? That hardly makes a diference in my previous argument, because your objective is the same, even if your commitment is symbolic.

I've worked in this field for many years. It's unfortunate that fears of AI have tarnished the field of synthetic cells so dramatically and yet so ignorantly. It's somewhat akin to believing we should ban charcoal because it is used to make (black) gunpowder, which is equally ridiculous

"Synthetic cell factory" seems a hyperbole, because what they make are not living cells, so there is no danger of their proliferation.

What they make performs a small part of the functions of a living cell, i.e. they make assemblages of nucleic acids and enzymes that synthesize proteins.

This is the actual definition of the PURE systems that they fabricate:

"PURE (Protein synthesis Using Recombinant Elements) is a fully reconstituted, cell‑free protein synthesis system containing only purified, recombinant components for transcription and translation, with no cellular lysate contaminants."

So their factory is better described as a factory of "synthetic non-cells", not as a factory of "synthetic cells".

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