{"id":18256,"date":"2024-12-12T18:00:04","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T19:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=18256"},"modified":"2024-12-12T19:29:09","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T19:29:09","slug":"a-second-tree-of-life-could-wreak-havoc-scientists-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=18256","title":{"rendered":"A \u2018Second Tree of Life\u2019 Could Wreak Havoc, Scientists Warn"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Research on so-called mirror cells, which defy fundamental properties of living organisms, should be prohibited as too dangerous, biologists said.<\/p>\n

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On Thursday, 38 prominent biologists issued a dire warning: Within a few decades, scientists will be able create a microbe that could cause an unstoppable pandemic, devastating crop losses or the collapse of entire ecosystems.<\/p>\n

The scientists called for a ban on research that could lead to synthesis of such an organism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe consequences could be globally disastrous,\u201d said Jack W. Szostak, a Nobel-prize-winning chemist at the University of Chicago who helped write a 299-page technical report<\/a> on the risks of the research.<\/p>\n

In an accompanying commentary<\/a> in the journal Science, Dr. Szostak and his colleagues warned that an organism created with the new technology could cause \u201cextraordinarily damaging consequences for the environment, agriculture, and human well-being.\u201d<\/p>\n

To make such a microbe, scientists would have to build a cell that defied one of the fundamental properties of life on Earth. The molecules that serve as the building blocks of DNA and proteins typically exist in one of two mirror-image forms. But living cells rely on just one form.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Our DNA, for example, has a backbone made partly of sugar. While sugar molecules can exist in left- and right-handed forms, DNA only uses the right-handed molecules.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the reason DNA\u2019s double helix has a right-handed twist<\/a>. Our proteins, by contrast, are made of left-handed amino acids<\/a>. This combination is found not just in humans, but in every species on Earth.<\/p>\n

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Research on so-called mirror cells, which defy fundamental properties of living organisms, should be prohibited as too dangerous, biologists said.On Thursday, 38 prominent biologists issued a dire warning: Within a few decades, scientists will be able create a microbe that could cause an unstoppable pandemic, devastating crop losses or the collapse of entire ecosystems.The scientists called for a ban on research that could lead to synthesis of such an organism.\u201cThe consequences could be globally disastrous,\u201d said Jack W. Szostak, a Nobel-prize-winning chemist at the University of Chicago who helped write a 299-page technical report on the risks of the research.In an accompanying commentary in the journal Science, Dr. Szostak and his colleagues warned that an organism created with the new technology could cause \u201cextraordinarily damaging consequences for the environment, agriculture, and human well-being.\u201dTo make such a microbe, scientists would have to build a cell that defied one of the fundamental properties of life on Earth. The molecules that serve as the building blocks of DNA and proteins typically exist in one of two mirror-image forms. But living cells rely on just one form.Our DNA, for example, has a backbone made partly of sugar. While sugar molecules can exist in left- and right-handed forms, DNA only uses the right-handed molecules.That\u2019s the reason DNA\u2019s double helix has a right-handed twist. Our proteins, by contrast, are made of left-handed amino acids. This combination is found not just in humans, but in every species on Earth.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18258,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18256"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18259,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18256\/revisions\/18259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}