[HN Gopher] Bacterial sensors send electricity when triggered
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       Bacterial sensors send electricity when triggered
        
       Author : wglb
       Score  : 45 points
       Date   : 2022-11-04 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (phys.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
        
       | bayesian_horse wrote:
       | I don't think that "encapsulation" thing will hold much water,
       | pun intended. The bacteria have to be exposed to the external
       | water, so that barrier is necessarily quite thin. Also quite
       | permeable, so there may very well be detritus from dead bacteria
       | leaking, including DNA molecules.
       | 
       | That's a risk which has to be evaluated. Some people don't want
       | to take any risk of artificial genes getting spread into the
       | environment, some will even use this to make up the conspiracy
       | theories for the next pandemic. More plausibly, many of these
       | genetically modified bacteria contain certain antibiotical
       | resistance genes that can get passed on to other bacteria.
        
         | belkarx wrote:
         | > self-replicating bacteria
         | 
         | it also has the same ethical concerns as any other freely-
         | replicating tech (unless I'm misunderstanding how this works)
        
           | bayesian_horse wrote:
           | No, not really. You'd use a strain that can't synthesize a
           | certain molecule and then have that molecule inside that
           | capsule. If it gets out, it can't reproduce any more. Those
           | bacteria also can't compete in a natural environment because
           | they evolved in a lab and were engineered to do something
           | detrimental to the usual "microbial fitness".
           | 
           | The only risk worth discussing is that they could pass on
           | antibacterial resistance genes to other bacteria. Even that
           | is not really that much of a risk, because the resistance
           | genes used in such studies are usually already quite
           | widespread.
        
             | imchillyb wrote:
             | That's the exact plot of Jurrasic Park.
             | 
             | I'm not saying that's what's going to happen. I'm just
             | pointing out that's how the scientists were supposedly
             | containing the dinos. 'Can't produce the amino acid
             | lysene.'
             | 
             | Again, I'm not saying it's not feasible to prevent 'that'
             | molecule from synthesizing a certain molecule, but
             | observation tells us that life really does find a way...
        
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