Created In The Lab

Scientists are saying they have created a lot of things in the lab which we would find amazing. Many of the things I am about to tell you about have to do with space and planets. Before I start I would like to tell you about a story. The story wasn’t true, but nobody at the time ever thought it could turn out to be true so they just enjoyed it. I don’t remember the name of the program, but I think it was on Studio One or Science Fiction Theater. These were very old television programs. It had to do with scientists creating a copy of the planet earth in a drop of water and to their amazement life developed on it and evolved until human life was created. I am not saying this has happened, I am only telling you this, because it could eventually be the result of our progression in these experiments.

The first thing I want to talk about is the strange hexagon shape swirling about the top of the planet Saturn. The hexagon encircles its north pole. It is very mysterious and has puzzled scientists to the point where some of them decided they had to get to the bottom of it. During experimentation scientists were surprised how easily they recreated this feature. It only took a spinning table and water. A ring was installed that spun faster than a cylinder which was on the spinning table and this acted like a jet stream and that was all it took. Originally it was thought the hexagon was caused by a super storm, the same theory which is used when describing the great red spot on Jupiter. The hexagon became very easy to see when dye was added to the water.

Another thing scientists wanted to recreate was the atmosphere on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. They found the dirty orange color in the atmosphere comes from hydrocarbons and nitrogen-carrying chemicals. Thanks to the Cassini spacecraft which examined Titan’s atmosphere, scientists were able to figure out its composition. Previously an unclassified material was found in the atmosphere, but Cassini clarified that when it was found it was made from a certain mixture of molecules. Scientists began to mix different gas combinations in the lab which they felt were what was in Titan’s atmosphere. When an aromatic that contained nitrogen was added to the mix they got a copy of the atmosphere in the lab.

Some scientists are busy at work trying to recreate what caused life in the first instance. One group think they may have been able to recreate the very first thing which led to life. They call it life’s first spark. First they created a chemical and clay soup. The next thing they did was shoot it with a laser which would create the energy of a speeding asteroid hitting the planet. What happened next according to them was the crucial building blocks of life were created. While some scientists suggest this doesn’t prove this is how life really came about, it does prove it could have. “These findings suggest that the emergence of terrestrial life is not the result of an accident, but a direct consequence of the conditions on the primordial Earth and its surroundings." Thus scientists might have created the very first steps in creating life right in the laboratory.

Dust and dirt is something you want to clean up, but not in some instances if you are a NASA scientist. NASA scientists wanted to see if they could create the same dust which is in space. Yes space is dusty. A team of scientists from Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California took on the challenge. They were able to create the dust which is found in the atmosphere of a red giant star and this leads to the formation of planet-forming interstellar dust. So why did they want to do this? They felt if they could reproduce this dust in the lab, it would give them clues to better understand the composition and the evolution of the universe.

Something has been created in a lab which resembles life so closely it is hard for us lay people to tell the difference. Scientists believe life came from chemical reactions which occurred about 4 million years ago and that there may have been a primordial tidal soup involved or maybe volcanoes or even something at the bottom of the sea between mica sheets which created biology. Scientists working in the Scripps Research Institute have created molecules in the lab and these molecules have certain features which seem very lifelike. For example they can self-replicate and they can even evolve and compete to win or lose. DNA molecules are the software of life. They have the genetic info for a cell. RNA is DNA’s primitive ancestor. It can’t run a life form by itself. What the scientists were able to create were RNA molecules which can replicate. Sometimes an error would occur, just like in real life and the molecule would bind with the wrong thing. These mutant molecules would then also replicate. Some species would win and some lose. One scientist said, "What we have is non-living, but we've been able to show that it has some life-like properties, and that was extremely interesting." It has been said the scientists are knocking on life’s door.

Genetic engineering has worried a lot of people. There is genetic engineered food which most of us dislike the idea of and don’t feel safe eating and then there are the genetic engineered organisms which are created in the lab, the ones many of us fear will escape and destroy us all at least according to Hollywood. To try and get around this fear of escaping genetic engineered organisms finding their way into our atmosphere, two US teams of scientists have announce they have created genetically modified bacteria that depend on a protein that is not found in nature so they would not be able to survive if they escaped. I have to wonder if there is a chance they might mutate and be able to use something else, but who am I to doubt a scientific finding? I can say this, I think it is still a worry.

There are thousands of laboratories around the world which are carrying out experiments with some very dangerous stuff and some of this stuff escapes even from the best of these labs. A controversial US scientist has created a deadly new flu strain to be used for pandemic research. He manipulated the 2009 strain of pandemic flu, so the human immune system would have no power over it. Last year he said his work was complete. One scientist said, “He’s basically got a known pandemic strain that is now resistant to vaccination. Everything he did before was dangerous, but this is even madder. This is the virus.”