Playing God

Companions the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and believers. Fellow creators the creator seeks - those who write new values on new tablets. Companions the creator seeks, and fellow harvesters; for everything about him is ripe for the harvest. 




Friedrich Nietzsche 
Thus Spoke Zarathustra



And tinker these scientists did: the Caltech and Harvard bio-engineers, whose work was inspired by the lowly jellyfish. What they did was map out the muscle fibers of the creature. From their study came the polymer membrane, cut into shape, which includes the eight arms that - in theory - would propel it underwater.

The synthetic substance aims to replicate the flexibility of a real jellyfish tissue. 

The bio-engineers then harvested cardiac cells from laboratory rats. They carefully attached the heart cells to the membrane following the nutrient routes previously sourced from the jellyfish blue print. When immersed in electrically charged fluid, a hit of electric current and the polymer creature began swimming. One can almost say that it's alive: it could almost sense its need to propagate.

It's creators say that the development of the artificial jellyfish would lead to the creation of organic body parts such as pacemakers. One that contracts and expands, but doesn't need not to be replaced or maintained like the ones already available in the medical field.

The technology is still in its infancy. Even the creature can't swim without electric current passing through its entire body. But from where I stand, I can't help but wonder how far will these scientists go to create new life. One that reproduce on its own and whose basic function is to survive and multiply.

Some people will be freaked out by humanity's attempt to play god. But as creatures of creation, it is in our instinct to make new things from our vision. I just hope that along the way, we won't commit any missteps,

which would lead to our own demise.