Life forms

Newspaper headline writers are much vilified. They not only use racy language to attract our attention but sometimes also misunderstand and thus misrepresent the stories they are flagging. Yet headlines, invariably composed against pressing deadlines, can also show considerable skill in summarising news in few words to fit the available space. “Synthetic life? Synthetic hysteria more like” (The Times, 22 May) is one recent example. It headed an article by Raymond Tallis, former professor of geriatric medicine at Manchester University, about the latest batch of media proclamations over the past 40 years that scientists have created life in the laboratory. The subject this time was the announcement in ScienceExpress (www.sciencemag. org/cgi/content/abstract/science. 1190719) from the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, and San Diego, California of the transfer of a chemically synthesised Mycoplasma mycoides genome into M. capricolum. The sensationalism Tallis had in mind was typified by a piece headed “Doc Creates Life — ‘Frankenstein’ grows DNA to bring cell back from the dead” in The Sun (21 May). “A scientist has created life in a pioneering laboratory experiment in which a bug was ‘brought back from the dead’... Opponents of genetic engineering condemned the experiment as dangerous Frankenstein-style tampering with nature,” wrote Health and Science Editor Emma Morton. After saying that artificial microbes might make vaccines and combat pollution, Ms Morton left readers with considerable confusion over alleged dangers of the work. “Other experts fear the technology could create biological weapons,” she wrote. “Professor Paul Freemont, of Imperial College, London, called it ‘a landmark study’. He said: ‘This is a key step in the industrialisation of synthetic biology, leading to a new era’. Dr Eckard Wimmer of Stony Brook University, New York, warned: ‘The possibility of misuse exists’. And Dr David King, of Human Genetics Alert, said scientists were ‘playing God’. Dr Venter insisted the bacterium used is found in cows, not people. But a relative of it causes pneumonia in humans.” The Daily Mail’s front page on the same day announced “Artificial Life Created In Lab... Ethical storm as maverick scientist makes a synthetic cell.” Science reporter Fiona MacRae reported that researchers were being accused of “tampering with the essence of life” and “creaking open the most profound door in humanity’s history – with unparalleled risks”. In a second, less alarming article, science editor Michael Hanlon countered the page one allegation that Venter had “made a synthetic cell from scratch”. According to Hanlon, “it is not yet clear if Venter can negotiate the final step — creating a whole cell from scratch, using no bits of existing living organisms at all.” As regards dire warnings from other commentators, “his bacterium is likely to be weak and feeble; we are a long way from synthetic super-plagues, and even further from an artificial animal or plant.” Meanwhile, The Independent’s entire front page revealed, in menacing type, that: “After 15 years of trying, a controversial scientist has made an artificial, living cell. The implications for the future of humanity are so huge as to be scarcely imaginable.” By comparison, an inside article by science editor Steve Connor was both balanced and accurate. Alongside a graphic illustrating precisely what Venter had and had not done, Connor wrote: “The research opens the way for scientists to create new life forms Mediawatch: Bernard Dixon looks at reaction to the latest announcement from the J. Craig Venter Institute. Life forms