Skynet becomes self-aware....

Calling it artificial intelligence might be a bit of a stretch, but it seems that a group of U.S. scientists have developed the world's first "artificial life form" - a synthetic bacterium.

You can read the full story here, but for the non-readers in the audience here's the skinny:

This group of scientists, headed by Dr. Craig Venter (of the J Craig Venter Institute - obviously Craig is a model of humility and has no God complex whatsoever; after all, he's just trying to become the Creator of artificial life forms), started by artificially constructing a mirror image of a bacterium's DNA from scratch. Once this artificial DNA was completed, they transplanted the genetic material into a "host cell", which was not synthetic, but an actual biological cell made the good old fashioned way, just like grand-dad used to make 'em. Once the successful transplant was complete, the host cell began to look and behave like a bacterial cell from the strain from which the DNA was copied. Except "copied" is the wrong word, because the DNA placed in the host cell was not necessarily "copied", but, as previously stated, was an exact replica, made by humans, from scratch.

What does all of this mean? Well, I don't claim to be a scientist, nor do I claim to have a full understanding of the process by which this "synthetic life form" came into being. But, as far as I can tell, what all of this means is that human beings have succeeded in creating the blueprints for life, from nothing.

I'll repeat that.

Human beings (the same species you see chowing down on McBreakfastBurritos while yapping on cell phones and driving right in the middle of what's supposed to be a two-lane highway on your ride to work every morning) have succeeded in creating the blueprints for life (as in, the divine spark that gives all living things animation), from nothing (in other words, using no previously living biological material). That's my understanding of it, at least.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that this original host cell then "replicated over a billion times, producing copies that contained and were controlled by the constructed, synthetic DNA," according to a BBC article.

The ethical, religious, scientific and moral implications of such a discovery are almost too vast to even consider. Not to mention to comprehensive and all-encompassing for a Thursday afternoon blog post, so I'm going to save those for another day in the very near future.

Just know this Dr. Craig Venter, you and all your fellow geneticist/biologist cronies are now on my "Dangerous People Who Need to be Watched" list, along with your pals the astrophysicists. I'm all for advancing the sciences and learning more about the workings of our world, but caution is sometimes too easily thrown to the wind when the hunger for fruit from the tree of knowledge becomes too overpowering. Just ask Adam.

And know that I'll be watching you.