notes

synthetic life = chemistry -> biology (in order to realize synthetic life, you have to go from chemistry to biology)

The current experiments include trying to synthesize a protocell, which has 2 main components

1. boundary (cell membrane)

2. genetic material

if the protocell can be made to grow and divide, synthetic life will be reality

half a dozen teams around the world including Harvard are working on this, it will be one of the greatest human achievements of all time. The media just started running stories about synthetic life in the past few months, so I'm so excited that they've already made reality tv about it!

But, since crystals and stars satisfy the definition of life (replication, metabolism, and evolution) do we still need to redefine exactly what life is? The same ingredients that made up life make up everything.