What should we worry about next – Alien Life?

This is the third story in a series I an writing about possible catastrophes that are very real and sneaking up on us

We think of alien invasion of the earth as malevolent being from other planets coming to earth to conquer and take over.  I remember the first science fiction story I read where life on earth was threatened with conquest and extinction, H.G. Wells' novel “The War of the Worlds,” for a long time afterward I remember watching the skies for signs of Martian spaceships.  Then I learned about the radio broadcast that had the U.S. panicked and thought it was funny.  Then I saw the movie and had a hard time falling asleep for many months afterward.  Many more movies of alien invasion where made in the 1950s and 1960s, with the Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1856 and the remake in 1978 was one of the scariest because it was not a takeover by a force that could be fought. 

But the plot changed a bit in later movies with the novel I am Legend made into a movie three times.  The second “The Omega Man” with Charlton Heston and the Third “I am Legend” with Will Smith.  In these plots, the “aliens” are man-made through viral infections.  The most recent movie of this type is “World War Z.” I believe the real Alien invasion we need to fear is more akin to the "aliens" in World War Z and I am Legend type of invader; alien life produced by man that could be infinitively more damaging to the world.  

The first step in the production of alien life was taken in 1989.  At that time, Dr. Steven Benner, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and his team managed to place modified forms of cytosine and guanine into DNA molecules. He then made test-tube reactions, and the recombined RNA strands had more than the standard four different bases: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G) that encoded the encoded RNA and proteins.

In an article in the Science Journal NATURE, “First Life with "Alien" DNA Created in Lab” May 7, 2014, they described how they have created the first stages of Alien life though an engineered bacterium that is able to copy DNA that contains unnatural genetic code.  The scientists conducting this research succeeded in getting their unnatural base pair to copy itself and be transcribed into RNA, which required the bases to be recognized by enzymes that had evolved to use A, T, C and G. 

According to this article, the scientists “created a short loop of DNA, called a plasmid, containing a single pair of the foreign bases, and inserted the whole thing into E. coli cells. With the diatom protein supplying a diet of foreign nucleotides, the plasmid was copied and passed on to dividing E. coli cells for nearly a week.”  The limiting factor for this new alien life was the “food” in the E. coli.  But now they are trying to engineer cells that can make foreign bases from scratch, obviating the need for a feedstock in the E. coli.  Some of the scientist are confident of the “the ability to control the uptake of foreign DNA bases as a safety measure that would prevent the survival of alien cells outside the lab, should they escape.”

OK, as a scientist, I am all for experimentation and developing new things, even “alien life” if necessary under strict controls.  But the dialogue in this journal article could have come right out of a science fiction movie where the scientist is sure he can control the “creature” outside the lab should they escape.

There is a very high probability that “alien DNA” introduced into humans and other life on earth could be very beneficial and even allow us to survive some man-made and natural catastrophes.  On the other hand an unintended consequence could be the production of DNA modifications with alien DNA that changes our character and life for the worse.  To some extent, the science Fiction author Frank Herbert explored these consequences of uncontrolled genetic mutations in two of his books The Jesus Incident and The Lazarus Effect, (I recommend reading).

The alien E. coli that was created is made up of only a single pair of “alien” bases, but scientist see no reason why a fully alien cell isn’t possible.  If we think of the “primordial soup” and how life began on earth, it probably began with a single pair of bases.  However, I don’t think this “new life form” will take 4 billion years to evolve.  It could use our ready-made DNA to evolve much faster.