3 billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997.

I feel like we're venturing into Sid Meir's Alpha Centauri territory here.

umm... that's pretty farking awesome. Now for the peer review process...

Neat. If they can be controlled, the future of robotic prosthetics looks even cooler.

Are they grey? Could the consistency be described as goo?

Actually a really good TED talk he gave on this
Lee Cronin: Making matter come alive (new window)

Its not really 'life' but exhibits many of the behaviors of it...

Nothing wrong with this, it depends on us humans on how we use it.

Though the idea of a strange new metal-based form of life rapidly evolving in a lab somewhere on Earth may sound ominous

may?

logical conclusion

Edward Furlong's agent is behind this.

I think the part about photosynthesis and separating hydrogen from water is interesting, could this be the first step in an efficient hydrogen fuel production technology?

The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it, for the first time, with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.

Oddly enough, I was just wondering this morning whether it is possible for an organic creature to produce an acid strong enough to burn through metal, like Alien, without killing itself in the process of course. Is that even possible?

Death to All but Metal!!!

I can't believe you stupid Creationist actually believe that some "Magic Sky Scientist" used some silly concept like "intelligent design" to "create" these things.

i am forever amused by the arrogance of science for assuming life MUST be carbon-based, run on oxygen, sugars, and require water.

now earth-like life, that's something else.

but life, in general, probably doesn't have any requirements.

probably. for all we know the carbon-base could be the only viable scenario.

Yes, but how far is science from being able to grow my own stainless steel penis. Or Tenis, as it were.

84Charlie: Death to All but Metal!!!



Approves

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.

/Dammit Jim! I'm a fark minion, not a scientist!

84Charlie: Death to All but Metal!!!

Hahaha!

wedun: I feel like we're venturing into Sid Meir's Alpha Centauri territory here.

You ivory tower intellectuals must not lose touch with the world of industrial growth and hard currency. It is all very well and good to pursue these high-minded scientific theories, but research grants are expensive. You must justify your existence by providing not only knowledge but concrete and profitable applications as well.

CEO Nwabudike Morgan "The Ethics of Greed"

"The high-functioning "cells" that Cronin has built are constructed from large polyoxometalates derived from a range of metal atoms, like tungsten. He gets them to assemble in bubbly spheres by mixing them in a specialized saline solution, and calls the resultant cell-like structures "inorganic chemical cells," or iCHELLs"

Chells?


Hey Cronin, can you make an extra Chell for me. Maybe two?

The high-functioning "cells" that Cronin has built are constructed from large polyoxometalates derived from a range of metal atoms, like tungsten. He gets them to assemble in bubbly spheres by mixing them in a specialized saline solution, and calls the resultant cell-like structures "inorganic chemical cells," or iCHELLs.

No he hasn't, he's made oxometallic equivalents of liposomes, and he's given them a stupid hipster name.

hopefully they are only using IPv4...

Did they make them in the Earth Cradle while they were at it?

skullkrusher: umm... that's pretty farking awesome. Now for the peer review process...

Not to be a douche, but it sounds like what he created were metal membranes with holes.

Unless I'm reading the article wrong. Maybe I'll check out that TED talk.

But will it evolve into something as hot as Kistina Lokken?

Sounds like cargo-cult biology...

I always imagined the T-1000 terminator to be a collection of nanoparticles as a living network of self-assembling little critters.

This thing looks like the embryonic version of it.

if you were able to make a suitably metallic life form, able to store information in a compressed form, with the ability to rebuild itself from that information, and decompress the remaining knowledge, understand and use it, perhaps the V-Ger enabling living machines, and Transformers, would not seem so unfathomable.

he's calling them what?

godxam: he's calling them what?

[img696.imageshack.us image 468x474]

I thought the same thing... darn convenient, huh?

Can we have sex with it?

What could possibly go wrong?

/may be bogus, its a lot easier to say you invented a entirely new type of lifeform than to actually do it.

\m/

So are we doomed yet? Can I quit my job?

The discovery opens the door to the possibility that there may be life forms in the universe not based on carbon

Really? They weren't thinking of this before? Even I thought of it

Barnstormer: Oddly enough, I was just wondering this morning whether it is possible for an organic creature to produce an acid strong enough to burn through metal, like Alien, without killing itself in the process of course. Is that even possible?

Your stomach does it, so... yes.

The solution is a rapidly respawning layer of mucus-producing cells lining the acid pit.

This text is now purple: Your stomach does it, so... yes.

I've never melted steel with my yak juice.

So this guy has built a new life form out of the one of the hardest, densest metals with a 6000 degree melting point? Can't see anything possibly going wrong here. Couldn't he have started making this out of tin?

I can't believe you stupid Creationist actually believe that some "Magic Sky Scientist" used some silly concept likehad to use "intelligent design" to "create" these thingslife, when it is obvious that life can develop by itself..

/yes, the metal body was built by a scientist, but if it is reproducing and evolving it is alive. So either life can just develop on its own or this guy is God in disguise.

buttery_shame_cave: i am forever amused by the arrogance of science for assuming life MUST be carbon-based, run on oxygen, sugars, and require water.

now earth-like life, that's something else.

but life, in general, probably doesn't have any requirements.

probably. for all we know the carbon-base could be the only viable scenario.

You must be watching TV, since no true scientist believes that.

For "earth like life" sure, but they're only postulating that if life is abundant, it must be similar to us, since we're probably not unique.

But they never said it can't happen from other means, and there's whole fields working on a broad definition of life, and how to explore for it. Like the guy in the article above.

Lifelike cells = living cells? Not bloody likely.

You still don't get it, do you? He'll find her! That's what he does! That's ALL he does! You can't stop him! He'll wade through you, reach down her throat and pull her farkin' heart out!

I can't decide whether to make a Magneto reference or a Stargate reference here.

All right, listen. The Terminator's an infiltration unit: part man, part machine. Underneath, it's a hyper-alloy combat chassis, microprocessor-controlled. Fully armored; very tough. But outside, it's living human tissue: flesh, skin, hair, blood - grown for the cyborgs.