Maybe this isn't such a good idea...

[Hayabusa Rider]

Let's create an organism that is no longer subject the need for food and have it pass it's genes to other organisms!

Well it could outcompete plants, so there's that.

Idiot humans yet again.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

I, for one, welcome our new microbial overlords.

 

[dank69]

I know Hollywood has conditioned us to be fearful of scientific breakthroughs but a bacteria that consumes CO2 might be just what the doctor ordered at this point.

 

[IronWing]

It eats formate (it CHOOs its food), not raw CO2 so it still needs artificial energy inputs to form the formate ion.

@zinfamous get in here and s'pain this stuff to us.

 

[Bitek]

I wouldn't get too nervous here.

It still relies on a rare sugar in order to survive and consume CO2. I would suspect the energy efficiency is not very good.

They did have to knock out several native enzymes to force the pathway and force evolution enough for ensure survivability. It could easily re-acquire those genes in the wild and abandon this pathway.

I would suspect it's only really survivable in a controlled laboratory environment.

Still tho, care needs to be taken to ensure they are contained.

 

[IronWing]

A HCOO-

E. coli, my ass
For food, CO2 it CHOOs
Now get off my grass

 

[zinfamous]

It eats formate (it CHOOs its food), not raw CO2 so it still needs artificial energy inputs to form the formate ion.

@zinfamous get in here and s'pain this stuff to us.

I don't know man, single-celled life forms confuse and terrify me.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I don't know man, single-celled life forms confuse and terrify me.

As they should. Microbes have the nasty ability to surprise people by transferring genetic material in unexpected ways.

 

[pmv]

I wouldn't get too nervous here.

It still relies on a rare sugar in order to survive and consume CO2. I would suspect the energy efficiency is not very good.

They did have to knock out several native enzymes to force the pathway and force evolution enough for ensure survivability. It could easily re-acquire those genes in the wild and abandon this pathway.

I would suspect it's only really survivable in a controlled laboratory environment.

Still tho, care needs to be taken to ensure they are contained.

For me it's not so much a worry about this particular organism, but the mere fact this sort of thing can be done. What happens if the technology advances and one day a Bond Villain or a Dr Evil (or, more prosaically, a Bin Laden or a Kim Ill Sung) decides to work on something similar, but without the same care regarding potential consequences, eh?

One day our technological prowess is going to get too far ahead of our social systems and moral sense. Feels like we are approaching that point.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

For me it's not so much a worry about this particular organism, but the mere fact this sort of thing can be done. What happens if the technology advances and one day a Bond Villain or a Dr Evil (or, more prosaically, a Bin Laden or a Kim Ill Sung) decides to work on something similar, but without the same care regarding potential consequences, eh?

One day our technological prowess is going to get too far ahead of our social systems and moral sense. Feels like we are approaching that point.

I expect that if we end ourselves in the next couple hundred years it will be by a college or grad student incel.

 

[thilanliyan]

One day our technological prowess is going to get too far ahead of our social systems and moral sense. Feels like we are approaching that point.

Yep, with the pace of innovation, I think it's only a matter of time until people have modified babies...not just cosmetic stuff which they already do but things like physical stature and mental capacity. And it's going to be only the extremely wealthy who can afford it.

There's an interesting series on Netflix called "Un-natural Selection"...was a good watch.

 

[PlanetJosh]

There must be some way to issue food stamps to it. I know it would seem impossible because it doesn't really need regular food. But some organizations will find a way or an excuse to give it food stamps.

 

[Bitek]

For me it's not so much a worry about this particular organism, but the mere fact this sort of thing can be done. What happens if the technology advances and one day a Bond Villain or a Dr Evil (or, more prosaically, a Bin Laden or a Kim Ill Sung) decides to work on something similar, but without the same care regarding potential consequences, eh?

One day our technological prowess is going to get too far ahead of our social systems and moral sense. Feels like we are approaching that point.

Tools are there and have been for a while. I was genetically engineering e coli more than 20 years ago as a student. It's not all the hard actually.

Not doing that work anymore, but the toolbox has only become larger in the meantime. It's a pretty standard technique.

Not to take away what these guys did, very complex and innovative in application, but not a new dimension we're moving into.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Tools are there and have been for a while. I was genetically engineering e coli more than 20 years ago as a student. It's not all the hard actually.

Not doing that work anymore, but the toolbox has only become larger in the meantime. It's a pretty standard technique.

Not to take away what these guys did, very complex and innovative in application, but not a new dimension we're moving into.

My wife of a Professor of Biology with advanced degrees including a doctorate in molecular genetics. We agree it's merely a matter of time before designer organisms create ecological havoc by accident or design. A high school kid with the right kit can do more than the entire scientific community could a few decades ago. Fast forward 50 years, but on the bright side we're checking more "tipping point" boxes on climate.

As I look around it isn't a question of if we will destroy ourselves but if it can be prevented.

Pleasant dreams

Perhaps this is the solution to the Fermi Paradox, that any technology will outstrip the wisdom of its creators.

 

[pmv]

I'm sure scientifically there are are reasons why it wouldn't play out that way in reality, but I think this story (with emphasis on the bit at the end about further enhancing these traits to make more pest-resistant food-crops), would be a good plot device for kicking off a horror/post-apocalypse movie

Plants turn caterpillars into cannibals - Nature

Chemical produced by tomato plants in response to pest attack can change insect behaviour.

www.nature.com

 

[zinfamous]

My wife of a Professor of Biology with advanced degrees including a doctorate in molecular genetics. We agree it's merely a matter of time before designer organisms create ecological havoc by accident or design. A high school kid with the right kit can do more than the entire scientific community could a few decades ago. Fast forward 50 years, but on the bright side we're checking more "tipping point" boxes on climate.

As I look around it isn't a question of if we will destroy ourselves but if it can be prevented.

Pleasant dreams

Perhaps this is the solution to the Fermi Paradox, that any technology will outstrip the wisdom of its creators.

We might need to weaponize these littler critters to our benefit--to defend us from the evil terrors that are being/will be released from those thousand-year frozen ice-caps and permafrost in the northern hemisphere (oh, except that climate change isn't real):

As Earth Warms, the Diseases That May Lie within Permafrost Become a Bigger Worry

Scientists are witnessing the theoretical turning into reality: infectious microbes emerging from a deep freeze

www.scientificamerican.com

Seems we've already identified an invulnerable strain of Anthrax. Good times!

 

[cytg111]

My wife of a Professor of Biology with advanced degrees including a doctorate in molecular genetics. We agree it's merely a matter of time before designer organisms create ecological havoc by accident or design. A high school kid with the right kit can do more than the entire scientific community could a few decades ago. Fast forward 50 years, but on the bright side we're checking more "tipping point" boxes on climate.

As I look around it isn't a question of if we will destroy ourselves but if it can be prevented.

Pleasant dreams

Perhaps this is the solution to the Fermi Paradox, that any technology will outstrip the wisdom of its creators.

I used to think along those lines... then I found the escape hatch

 

[cytg111]

We might need to weaponize these littler critters to our benefit--to defend us from the evil terrors that are being/will be released from those thousand-year frozen ice-caps and permafrost in the northern hemisphere (oh, except that climate change isn't real):

As Earth Warms, the Diseases That May Lie within Permafrost Become a Bigger Worry

Scientists are witnessing the theoretical turning into reality: infectious microbes emerging from a deep freeze

www.scientificamerican.com

Seems we've already identified an invulnerable strain of Anthrax. Good times!

Incidentally that is one of the better arguments against timetravel I have heard.

 

[1prophet]

For me it's not so much a worry about this particular organism, but the mere fact this sort of thing can be done. What happens if the technology advances and one day a Bond Villain or a Dr Evil (or, more prosaically, a Bin Laden or a Kim Ill Sung) decides to work on something similar, but without the same care regarding potential consequences, eh?

One day our technological prowess is going to get too far ahead of our social systems and moral sense. Feels like we are approaching that point.

The most effective terrorist is the one that is able to sucker punch you using ridiculously simple methods 9/11 style not some Dr. Evil type the Hollywood types like to promote.

 

[pmv]

The most effective terrorist is the one that is able to sucker punch you using ridiculously simple methods 9/11 style not some Dr. Evil type the Hollywood types like to promote.

But it's not so much the intended effects of deliberate terrorism I'm wondering about (9/11 was, as horrific as it was, a localised event) as the possibility of unintended self-perpetuating side-effects of either terrorism or just careless state actors, who simply don't care about the possible wider impacts of their agenda.

Climate change is, in a way, an example. The globally-diseminated effects of the ineptitude at Chernobyl is maybe a lesser one. As technology advances it makes bigger screw-ups possible by more-and-more people.

Even 911 would not have been possible in an era before routine large jet travel and skyscraper buildings. That itself is an example of how a technological world makes bigger human-caused disasters possible, albeit not on a global scale.

 

[interchange]

I have a fantasy that some photosynthetic organism could be deployed into the atmosphere in some controlled fashion to curtail climate change.

 

[cytg111]

This is all reason why we have to get our collective asses to Mars.
A backup.

 

[IronWing]

This is all reason why we have to get our collective asses to Mars.
A backup.

Except that Mars starts out worse than the worst places on Earth, worse than the worst expected places on Earth. On the other hand, given a chance to go see Mars, heck yeah!

 

[cytg111]

Except that Mars starts out worse than the worst places on Earth, worse than the worst expected places on Earth. On the other hand, given a chance to go see Mars, heck yeah!

Hey, If we can terraform mars we can terraform earth + it will be the best and brightest on Mars ... they'll do their thing up there while we purge the diseased down here... its a win win win.

 

[tweaker2]

I don't know man, single-celled life forms confuse and terrify me.

Then you will be horrified by the microbe known as Trumpei Idioticus No Quid Pro Quocus, colloquially known as "The Body Snatcher". It not only has the ability to compel its host to vote exclusively for Repubs who are known tax cheats, deadbeats, sexual predators and adulterers, it kills off large parts of the brain turning the host into a bot controlled exclusively by a certain fake news outlet.

Yes, I know it's weird, but considering how outlandish and illogical that whole scenario is to begin with and then realize it's happening at this very moment, any sane person would gag, retch and stare up to the heavens in abject fear of inevitably being similarly infected.