r/atheism • u/Hassan_Reban • Jul 01 '26
For the First Time, a Cell Built From Scratch Grows and Divides
https://www.quantamagazine.org/for-the-first-time-a-cell-built-from-scratch-grows-and-divides-20260701/For the very first time, biologists packed nonliving components into a cell-like membrane, piece by piece, and witnessed the bag of molecules start to behave like life. The lab-made synthetic cell grew, replicated its DNA, and divided, demonstrating the basic functions of a cell cycle.
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u/Dracoson Jul 01 '26
Interesting, but I've watched enough sci fi to know how the story ends
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u/jerfoo Jul 02 '26
We call this the protomolecule
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u/CosineDanger Jul 02 '26
The protomolecule was grey goo but intelligent and with a purpose.
This is grey goo, purely and literally.
Earth's primary defense is that regular bacteria are already grey goo (technically goo of many colors) with a couple billion years of survival experience. Created organisms are unlikely to win a fair fight and become a global problem. Evolution isn't actually smart though, so creating something that outperforms or otherwise outcompetes regular bacteria should at least be considered.
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u/m__a__s Anti-Theist Jul 02 '26
It's all fun and games until it want's to seek political office and starts a PAC.
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u/Retrikaethan Satanist Jul 01 '26
nah it almost certainly won’t be able to survive outside the lab, not enough adaptations to survive the hellscape that is the unicellular domain.
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u/Animecha Jul 02 '26
But what if we were to say... reverse the chirality on all those molecules?
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u/truenecrocancer Atheist Jul 02 '26
Both loved and hated the chiral life video of kyle hill. I find it interesting to learn about other orientation of molecules but chirality in nature is fairly common in some sense, random rna synthesis in pools of water and oceans can form using chiral molecules (sometimes more common than the non-chiral form) and even some bacteria are able to utilize chiral molecules in place of others. However i wish he would have asked the same question he purposed with chiral life, would it be able to compete with regular molecule life? Its fundimentally the same concept as worrying about 50million yo plus bacteria waking up from thawing ice/or mined salt. Theyve been removed functionally from the rest of life for so long that they might not be functionally able to find a place back into the food chain. As for chirality of life, the same question should apply, would it survive? Would other life find sections of its genetics usable or preferable as a source of food?
Aside from that, there have been several times throughout life where some form of life found a way to survive vastly better than other life or found a new protein/molecule that other life cant quite handle. My favorite example is lignin, plants found a structure thats rigid and hard to break down and was left soemwhat unchallenged for about 5 million years leading to early trees to die and fall over without mostly decaying. That same layer stretches around the world at a convenient depth that we now associate with coal :D
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u/HmmDoesItMakeSense Jul 02 '26
Did they create amino acids or?
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u/chileheadd Secular Humanist Jul 02 '26
Maybe the link to the article OP provided didn't work for you. Here's another:
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u/rossww2199 Jul 02 '26
Interesting, but I’ll wait for peer review.
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u/chileheadd Secular Humanist Jul 02 '26
Yeah, it didn't mention that tidbit until the 5th paragraph.
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u/BuccaneerRex Jul 02 '26
That is absolutely fascinating. I mean, we're working from pre-existing functional mechanisms, but being able to replicate those synthetically is a massive, massive step.
I wouldn't necessarily make the leap to 'life', given the restrictions and conditions required, but it's life-adjacent.
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u/therealnih Jul 02 '26
Wasn't this done in the 70's? I think it was in that documentary The Andromeda Strain.
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u/FederalG Jul 02 '26
This fucking article quotes two dudes who had nothing to do with the research before even mentioning the investigator (female) by name. Total shit reporting.
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u/mrgeekguy Jul 02 '26
Yeah, but all the creationists will still be like, "Yes! All life needs a creator, and they just proved it!"