The announcement of artificial life could be just weeks away, a synthetic chromosone inserted into a living cell.

Not only is this an extraordinary scientific breakthrough, it could be of enormous help weaning ourselves off oil — at least, that’s according to Dr Ari Patrinos.

He told Earth2Tech:

a designer organism could be developed to only perform certain tasks, like converting sugar to ethanol, which would result in a very efficient process. Natural microbes have other life priorities, like replication, he says, but a synthetic organism can be created to just perform one function.

This could happen within 10 years and produced “significant” amounts of friendly fuels.

I’m quite giddy at the prospect of artificial life, let alone the benefits it could bring in the fight against climate change. I’ve mused in the past about how science could help us to help ourselves, and this looks like more good news in that regard.

That said, any biological work comes with a risk of unforeseen consequences. Will mutations scupper this promising enterprise? Only time will tell.

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