We talk with Christina L. Graves, a biology student (and prebiotic chemistry researcher) at the Georgia Institute of Technology.  Christina walks us through the recent announcement by the J. Craig Venter Institute that they have created a self-replicating, synthetic cell.  We also discuss the reaction to Venter’s news from religious groups like the Catholic Church, Creation Ministries International, and even the Raelians.

Briefly mentioned: The new Adrien Brody/Sarah Polley film Splice, a sci-fi-horror shocker about genetic engineering gone very very wrong.

Glossary of terms:

Abiogenesis – the theory of how life on Earth could have arisen from inanimate matter.

Prebiotic Chemistry – the field of study involving the spontaneous chemical reactions which may have led to the formation of biomolecules and/or life on early Earth.

Stanley Miller (1930-2007) – an American chemist and biologist who is known for his studies into the origin of life, particularly the Miller-Urey experiment which demonstrated that organic compounds can be created by fairly simple physical processes from inorganic substances.

Atheopath – A neologism, coined by Creation Ministries International’s Jonathan Sarfati and used (as far as we can tell) by no one else, which combines the word “atheist” and the suffix “-path” (”one afflicted by a specified disorder”) to create a word meaning something like “one afflicted by atheism.”  Apparently it’s intended to echo scary words like sociopath and psychopath.  Perhaps we should coin the counter-term “theopath.”

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