The big idea: will we ever make life in the lab?

The article discusses the long-standing quest to create life, starting from an experiment by Jacques Loeb in 1899 where he induced cell division without fertilization. This early work laid the groundwork for modern synthetic biology. More recently, scientists have achieved self-replicating bacterial cells through genetic engineering, though this remains a step removed from creating life afresh. Despite significant progress, assembling molecules into living forms is incredibly complex and not yet achievable. The debate continues about what "life" truly means, with proposals like artificial life simulations complicating its definition.