Mice Created With Human Brain Cells 339
pin_gween writes "Scientists have added 100,000 human brain cells to mice in an effort to create realistic models of disorders like Parkinson's Disease. Although mice are 97.5 percent genetically identical to humans and it sounds like a large number, 100,000 only represents 0.1% of the number of cells in mice brains. FTA: 'It's true that there is a huge amount of similarity, but the differences are huge,' Snyder said. 'You will never ever have a little human trapped inside a mouse or monkey's body. [...] Researchers are nevertheless beginning to bump up against what bioethicists call the "yuck factor." 'The worry is if you humanize them too much you cross certain boundaries,' said David Magnus, director of the Stanford Medical Center for Biomedical Ethics. 'But I don't think this research comes even close to that.'"
well i think (Score:3, Insightful)
it's the thin end of the wedge. maybe this wasn't human enough...and nor will the next infinitessimally small step...but one day it will be too far and we won't have even realised
Re:97.5% genetically identical (Score:5, Insightful)
You're about 50% banana.
i dont see the similarities between humans and mice
You obviously haven't even looked at a banana very closely, let alone a mouse. About the only difference a lifeform from the proverbial Mars would see between a human and a mouse would be scale. We are virtually identical to mice in every detail but stature.
If you want learn human anatomy, disect a chicken, and a chicken isn't even a mammal.
KFG
Keeping a tally... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:97.5% genetically identical (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:97.5% genetically identical - ah yes, but (Score:2, Insightful)
A brick house is virtually identical to a pile of sand in every detail but stature.
Re:well i think (Score:2, Insightful)
If the mice are happy and not in constant pain or anything, i don't really see what's wrong with it. Evolution creates new species all the time.
"Boundaries" (Score:5, Insightful)
How about if we cross a different barrier and drop the anthropocentric bullshit.
why dumb them down (Score:1, Insightful)
The myth of the poor mouse (Score:4, Insightful)
FACT: Mice in the wild live about a year, in the most stressful, difficult and inhumane conditions you wouldn't like to imagine. Should they be unfortunate to gain access to one of the animal rights protestors habitat, middle class suburbia, the self same protestor, full of indignation at experimental killing, will of course call in someone to rid them of their little problem, or condemn them to freeze to death in wooded areas with humane capture traps. In the lab, mus musculus live on average about 2 years in controlled, warm conditions with regular feeding and exercise.
FACT: Rats in the wild live about 2 years max, again in stressful, disease ridden cramped conditions. In the lab, Rats can survive double that, again in nicely ordered, well controlled and comfortable conditions.
So don't bring up that ignorant rubbish about how animal experiments somehow harm rats and mice: unlike Joe Public taking potshots at rats and mice in his backyard, everything WE do is sanctioned, pored over and refined each and every step of the way to minimise suffering. Hell, our animals are no use for experimentation if they're unhappy or agitated: they get difficult to handle. We go to see them and handle them a couple of weeks before expts even start to get them used to our presence, smell, voices etc.
Rats and mice are far better treated in our labs than in the wild or in your homes, and they are also better treated than the conveyor belt of cattle fattened and slaughtered for your own diet. I get angered by the hypocrisy of people opposed to experimentation while conveniently overlooking the animal suffering inherent in large scale production of meat in all the developed world, with cattle stunned with bolt guns wandering into saws. It's so much easier to criticise someone else than look at your won behaviour, isn't it?
Re:97.5% genetically identical (Score:2, Insightful)
We are virtually identical to mice in every detail but stature.
We also have some extra bits in our brain that seem to make a lot of difference.
In fact, those differences in our brains are probably the reason why they need to put human brain cells in mice in order to study Parkinson.
Re:Religious Consequences (Score:2, Insightful)
Only creatures that possess souls possess the capacity to be worried about them.
Re:well i think (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the point was that standard mammilian behavior includes atrocities and brutality (all mammals).
Re:well i think (Score:2, Insightful)
bacteria with human dna now produce insulin inexpensively enough for poor diabetics to live full lives. it was not long ago that the pivelige of living a normal life as a diabetic was reserved for the wealthy.
having seen my grandson meet my grandfather (which he would not have otherwise been able to do), i can only feel that the true monsters are the ones who, through fear and intimidation, would try to put an end to human progress
there is no too far. lets go all the way.
Re:well i think (Score:3, Insightful)
Or conversely, one could argue that the cats are honing their paw-eye coordination by smacking around a dying rat, or maybe they're passing those skills along to their offspring, so there's something useful happening besides mere malice. Chasing around injured rodents is Hunting 101 for kittens.
Basically you can look at this in a variety of ways depending on what your starting opinion is.
Re:It has already gone too far... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it is fine to kill or hurt animals to provide clothing, food, to test medications, and to advance science in general. I also think we should keep the suffering of the animals in question to a minimum, and that our use of animals should stop when there are good alternatives. (No, vegan diets and human test subjects are not viable alternatives)
In this case, there is no good alternative to tinkering with mice, and the knowledge gained is valuable enough. Let them continue, I say.
Re:well i think (Score:2, Insightful)
And dolphins also commit gang-rape.
We humans aren't so special after all.
So it's okay for us to do it because monkeys and dolphins do it? Is that where we look for behavioral guidelines? Maybe if we seek to behave like animals.
There is a difference (Score:3, Insightful)
You have never owned a cat, have you? You could have the fattest and most well fed cat on the earth, and that vicious creature will still merrily kill anything smaller then it just for shits and giggles. In fact, not only do they kill the poor critter, but if they can, they will terrorize it before they kill it. You have never seen sadism until you have seen a cat corner a creature smaller then it.
If anything, the poor critters of the earth should be thankful that they got smart monkeys with some level of empathy towards each other and other critters rather then a race of smart cats.
Claims that humans are any different in their destructive impulses from other animals are down right silly. If any base emotion separates humanity from other animals, it is empathy. No other animal I know of keeps pets simply because we enjoy the company of other non-human species. No animal I know of tries to feed and help those outside of its social group. No animal I know of shows any sort of restraint or preservationist feeling when dealing with the environment.
If there is a difference between humanity and the rest of the animal kingdom, it isn't in aggression or joy in killing. Many other animals merrily murder anything outside of its immediate social circle. Hell, many other animals merrily murder anything INSIDE its social circle. If there is some base desire that humanity holds that other animals appear to lack, it is the empathy to RESTRAIN from giving into base desires for aggression and destruction of those that are outside of our social circle.
Re:The conscious neuron? (Score:1, Insightful)
I think the concern along the lines which you are speaking (however bizarre and insanely remote) is more about if they might somehow gain a self awareness which may in some strange way elevate them from the status of animals to semi-human. While I am no biologist/psychologist I think that there would have to be some crazy turn of events to allow this "evolution" in mice.
Free will causes evil? (Score:1, Insightful)
It is a common opinion among theologians that all suffering is caused by evil, which in turn is caused by free will. Humans have free will, animals don't, so therefore all the evil in the world is only the fault of humans.
Evidence such as this (animal rape) suggests that everything we deem "evil" is rooted in our own animal instincts. Not only are animals driven to do it, but so are we.
Free will, then, is the ability to think, "well gee, as much fun as gang-raping that dolphin would be, I don't think the dolphin will like it much, so I just won't do it."
So, I maintain, free will isn't the cause of evil, but rather, our only defense against it.
I know, offtopic. Free will and all that. Sue me.
Re:97.5% genetically identical (Score:2, Insightful)
A battleship and a toaster contain pretty much 95% of the same materials list - metals, plastics and such. But the instructions how much and how to assemble those materials make the difference.
Re:well i think (Score:1, Insightful)
In modern time, it is the mother's "right" to kill her children.
* In America it was a 'right' to own slaves"
That's pretty much reserved for African and Muslim countries now.
"* I [sic] was a right to employ children's to work in mines"
Now we hand them to strangers to raise and call it "daycare."
"* it was a right to use opium and cocaine"
Welcome to the Netherlands.