Spidergoats 387
LandlessGentry writes: "Market Oriented Genetic Manipulation takes a turn for the surreal as two Nigerian dwarf goats named Mille and Muscade have had their genes altered (or more precisely the genes of their parents) so their mammary glands produce spider "silk". The story is here on Forbes.com."
read more about it at (Score:5)
The other way to get insulin (Score:2)
Re:I'm dubious (Score:2)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/InfoNed/w
(remove the embedded space in 'webthread' -- curse Slashdot's tiny little editor window.)
The company had better add equivalent protections to their product, or you might find that your spiffy new climbing rope will dry out and fray, or your bullet-proof vest will rot away after the first heavy rain.
Re:Thank you, Science (Score:2)
Prove: Differential calculus.
Science is about the little steps. How are we supposed to cure cancer when we barely even understand how it works? How are we supposed to colonize space whent he only country with any experience in that area is self-destructing as we speak?
The ability to arbitrarily insert and remove an animal's genes is an important step towards many important goals, such as the sickle-cell anemia you brought up.
Re:The Ganges: India's Sewer. (Score:2)
Trying to run a feedback-based system without natural selection is every bit as idiotic and futile as the US's "War on Drugs" (which attempts to fight economic forces, just as attempts to avoid natural selection fight natural ones).
The forces which cause natural selection will work, like it or not. Attempts to fight it merely do us harm.
Re:Wonderful News (Score:2)
Simply put, this product wouldn't exist at all without the profit whores. Learn to take the bad with the good -- or go make your own modified foods.
If you want to use only products made by people whose intentions are good and pure, you do that. Maybe you'll starve in the process, but damned if I care.
Re:The Ganges: India's Sewer. (Score:2)
In short, I recognize that it's my own job to care for my safety -- not the task of some faceless beurocrat. When my safety is infringed due to circumstances over which I had control, I then take the responsibility for that.
Asking the government to act as Nanny to the world may seem like A Good Thing for those who are too weak and/or stupid to fend for themselves, but in the long run personal responsibility makes for a stronger society.
Re:environment (Score:2)
I just don't see it.
Re:The Ganges: India's Sewer. (Score:2)
Well, yes, the amount of money you make does measure your worth to society. Sort of.
After all, what you get paid basically depends on two things:
1. The market value of what you produce
2. How much you produce
The market value of what you produce, remember, is based on supply and demand. If you produce something which is both so important to people that they're willing to pay a great deal of money of it, and you produce a great deal of this thing, then you're going to make more money than someone who produces less important goods, or in lesser property.
This holds even for investment bankers and other such critters who do no work themselves; while they as individuals may not be productive (and thus valuable to society), they facilitate sufficient production to justify their wealth -- or else they wouldn't have it.
Now, of course, this is far from perfect. For instance, it fails to measure a whole lot of things -- the volunteer work I do on a regular basis, for instance, is unreflected in what I earn; for that matter, since I frequently volunteer hours I'd otherwise be working, my volunteerism (which I think makes me more valuable to society!) reduces my personal wealth. Furthermore, trying to apply this across different economies (eg. trying to say that a doctor in China is of less value to society than a food-service worker in the US) is prone to fail rather miserably.
That said, yes -- I do indeed believe that money is after a fashon a measure of worth.
Btw, if you think I'm some rich prick trying to justify his income, let's just say I'm not. Indeed, my income last year was right about $4000 over the poverty line.
Let Nature... (Score:2)
And if some little kid gets cancer...let them die from it cause that's the way nature made it.
The US Army has wanted mass produced spider silk for body armor for decades...and there has not been a way to do that with "chemistry or physics"
Think of it this way...at least it's not going to pollute the environment with vat fulls of nasty chemical waste from the manufacture.
Re:Wonderful News (Score:2)
Our ethics, our morality, our laws, are based on these arbitrary "labels".
It's okay to eat a cow, but it's not okay to eat a dog. (in American culture). It's okay to kill bacteria by immersing them in a caustic toxic solution, but poisoning someone's cat is wrong, and illegal. You shoot a deer in the head with a rifle, but you can't legally shoot a human in the head.
So we've got these rules based on these labels, but then we've got to explore what label we slap onto a goat with spider silk genes. Worse still, what is a cow with a human heart? Cut it up and transplant that heart - it's okay, it's not cruel to the cow - or whatever that was.
Again, I don't want this thought to be misinterpreted as ludditeism, but maybe we need to collectively think these things through. What happens when we've got cows with a complete set of human parts inside their chest cavities - including a brain. (for partial brain tissue transplants, say - you could restore a person with severe brain damage, not their memories or personality maybe, but at least you could get them to a state where therapy could restore them to become a useful member of society again instead of a vegetable) would that brain be considered a human life? Would it be wrong to "kill" it by cutting it out of it's cow-body? This stuff sounds ridiculous, but as new things become possible, you need to "go there" - and we're laying the potential foundation for that now. .
Re:Wonderful News (Score:2)
Perhaps the REAL problem isn't religion. Perhaps the REAL problem is human nature.
Re:Get used to it. We're in for a wild ride. (Score:2)
mmmmmmm. steaaaaaaak.
Also - no antibiotics = no eating antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Much better control of growth hormone residue. . . no parasites, so you can eat it fucking RAW if that's how you get your jollies.
That would be fucking awesome.
Re:Get used to it. We're in for a wild ride. (Score:2)
Re:I feel ill (Score:2)
Re:I feel ill (Score:2)
Re:Genetic engineering, the media, and 42. (Score:2)
Now, there is the implied directive that we not be idiots and abuse it to the point where we threaten our own existence, but then, most people don't appear to "get" that.
Re:Nothing new (Score:2)
German Shepards often have bad hip problems.
Greyhounds have issues with their teeth as they age past 3 years.
Persian cats don't seem to clean themselves after they poop.
My advice to you if you want to get a dog; go to an animal shelter, pick up a mutt about 1 year old. (go to a college town - you're much more likely to find abandoned pets, college freshmen living away from home for the first time, get lonely, buy a puppy or kitten, then when they have to go home for the summer, they usually abandon the pet - sad but all too common scenario).
Benefits - less likelyhood of genetic disorder. Mutts are often very cute, just as smart as purebreds for your standard sit/stay/roll over tricks, 1 year olds are already potty trained, and unless you know what you're doing, trust me, you do NOT want to get into that.
Re:Wonderful News (Score:3)
You should feel ill (Score:2)
This is stupid, I'll agree with you. I'm not willing to call it a conspiracy yet, but I'm sure getting suspicious of the cotton industry...
Be careful here, fella. Are you going to hold animals and humans as equals, since they're both "living beings"? In that case, you had better be prepared to support the consumption of babies as a food source as well.
There are two things wrong with your statement. First, you're not killing the animals, you're changing their essence (in the case of genetic manipulation). Whether that's right or wrong can be argued extensively (and probably will be). In the case of RU486, that [innocent baby || wad of meiotic cells that wouldn't fill a coke spoon] is no longer living, but rather becomes a nasty bit of excretion.
Second (and this is my prejudice, I'll admit up front), you're talking about the wanton execution of a human being! I find it pretty sad that we can exist in a world where it's perfectly okay to perform abortions, which (to me) is the same as smothering babies in their crib, and get incensed when a couple of teenagers go through a school with shotguns shooting people -- and then have the audacity to blame it on the guns.
Well, gee, if it's okay to suck up babies with a vacuum cleaner (or quietly smother them with a pill), why not shoot annoying and troublesome people at your school? Seems logical to me...
Reminds me of the Simpsons... (Score:5)
Scientist: "We don't play God here."
Homer: "Correction -- You do nothing _but_ play God, and I think you're Octo-parrot would agree."
Octo-parrot: "Rawk! Polly shouldn't be!"
Re:Get used to it. We're in for a wild ride. (Score:2)
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Re:for those of you who will not read the article: (Score:2)
The baby goats cannabalized the parent. Actually this is a good thing, because killing makes them strong.
There's nothing better than strong rope.
Old News, kinda... (Score:2)
Actually, it's short enough that I can quote it here...
Check out some of his other columns while you're at it...
Jay (=
Re:ethics (Score:2)
I see that there can be problems. Playing around with the engineering of replicating things is kind of worrisome from the perspective of the physical damage such things could cause. There is the particle physcisist's viewpoint that evolution has had a long time to create nasty replicators and we're unlikely to come up with something worse (the particle physics corollary being that the are lots of more energetic collisions happening in the Universe than what we make in our particle accelerators and they don't produce mini-black holes, or other forms of matter more stable than the forms we're familiar with). I think this argument holds less water for such complex things as replicators though.
We've already done some of that kind of engineering through breeding. Of course, change on the scale of what's possible with genetic engineering is somewhat foreign to us.
As far as humans go, there are two big problems that I see. One is a monoculture problem. Genetic engineering in some social environments will have the effect of severely diminishing genetic variability.
The other is a certain form of gene based classism that's not very distinguishable from racism.
Those are both social problems. I don't think America, in it's current state, is really capable of handling the genetic engineering of human beings. Luckily, it also probably won't happen here for awhile for some of the same reasons that we aren't socially ready for it.
I don't think they'll ever succeed (Score:4)
There's a lot more to spiders silk than just a few proteins. Spider's silk actually arranges those proteins in rather complex ways. If it were just a matter of producing some proteins and seperating them from a mixture, you could genetically engineer bacteria to do it.
As for ethical concerns...
Numerous SF stories have dealt with all the horrors and benfits of genetic engineering. I can't say as I'm all that worried about it. There are a few concerns I'd have if we started genetically engineering humans, but, in general, I wouldn't even be against that. I don't understand what the problem is here.
The slippery slope (Score:3)
They first came for the spider silk and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a spider.
Then they came for the chitin and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an oyster.
Then they came for the maple syrup and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a tree.
Then they came for the raw dripping human brains and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Re:read more about it at (Score:2)
Re:This is as sexy as goats get, but... (Score:2)
Not really, it's just protein, and it can degrade or be digested. Many spiders will eat their own webs when getting ready to spin a new one.
Re:Thank you, Science (Score:2)
Your absolutely right. These Scientists much yield their control of their secret mines, where Science-bearing ore is hauled out of the earth and smelted into valuable knowledge ingots, knowledge which is too valuable to be wasted on such frivolous activies, especially at a time when we are faced with all the potential disasters you've mentioned.
I recommend we Nationalize the Science mines, so that their valuable output can be rationed to best serve the needs of the people, and establish strategic stockpiles of "Science" to protect us during times of ignorance.
Thank you.
So feed them g'damnit! :) (Score:2)
Re:I feel ill (Score:2)
Yep, it all starts off innocently enough, but the next thing you know, people start making ropes and backbacks and yellow legal pads out of coca leaf fiber, and they'll design cars that run on poppy seed oil! It's just not worth the risk of legalizing industrial hemp.
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Re:Yes, but what about the goats? (Score:2)
These cows will probably experience less pain than a normal dairy cow. They probably won't even know that anything special was done. It will be done to a few selected cells of semen, the cows will be fertilized artificially, as is currently normal, and the resulting calves will be tenderly cared for, and stand a better than average chance of reaching adulthood and reproducing successful offspring.
It's the normal cows who have some grounds for complaint, but the ones who really have ground for complaint are the veal calves. And the chickens. And the pigs, though to a lesser extent. I don't know where to fit in the turkeys.
Most modern farm animals are psychotic, and rightly so. A psychotic detatchment from reality is probably the only way to deal with their situation. OTOH, few of them are endangered as a species. Is it a good trade-off? Depends on who judges, and what their postulates are.
Of all the "domesticated" animals, I think cats are the only truly fortunate ones, with dogs coming a close second (the dogs really are domesticated, but it didn't do violence to their instincts).
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:Genetic engineering, the media, and 42. (Score:2)
I am not entirely against genetic engineering. It just seems to me to be a field with really, really high stakes. While I don't consider myself an expert by any stretch of the imagination, the approach taken by these companies seems cavalier at best, considering the risk. New solutions often create new problems, and I feel that we should concentrate on existing remedies before we open up what could very well be a Pandora's Box of creepy mutations and whatnot.
That being said, a third arm and another head would really help with my game of Brockian Ultra Cricket. Hmmm...
Spider-Woman (Score:2)
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Re:The Ganges: India's Sewer. (Score:2)
First off, money means dick. You don't need money to grow food, you need land great enough to sustain the people living on it. If there are too many people then they can't support themselves. End of story. But do the people spread out? No, they stay there and reproduce like bunnies until 5% of the earth's surface contains 20% of the earth's human population. Why? Because humans are stupid. Almost all of us are ready to follow any cultural tradition that has been passed down through the generations; blindly and unquestioningly. In most of these countries offspring are what people consider wealth. That tradition is killing them.
Secondly, you say that we could easily provide enough food so that no one goes hungry. While technically this is true, it is impossible for us with our current abilities to distribute food to all of the hungry people throughout the world. If you think it IS possible then you're falling victim to your own arrogance. There are so many obsticles in the way of food distribution to the areas that need it that it's rediculous. You have corrupt governments, vast distances, oceans... The list goes on.
I know this sounds cold hearted, but it's the facts of life. Neither greed nor nature is killing people. Our own stupidity is killing people. The only thing that can save them is going to where the food is!
Science is ignoring global warming? (Score:2)
All of these issues (except maybe the Clippers) get ignored and their proponents squashed by a simple factor - how much money either industry or the US government sees fit to invest in the necessary R&D. And that in turn is very much determined by public and consumer interest in these things. If you feel they are important, get out there and evangelize! But don't blame "Science".
Re:Science is ignoring global warming? (Score:2)
More technically, "global warming" is referred to scientifically as "global climate change", and the issue on which there has been a SCIENTIFIC consensus for a long, long time (actually over 40 years now) is that humans have been putting enough CO2 gas into the atmosphere to make major long-term changes to global climate. Whether its a warming or cooling and by how much has certainly been a scientific debate for a while, but the fact that we are putting enough of these gases into the atmosphere now to make a difference has been agreed on for a long time. And that is what the politicians (sponsored by our huge oil, energy, and automotive industries) have ignored, and magnified scientific debates into do-nothingism.
More to the point on the warming side, the fact that extra CO2 in the atmosphere can lead to an enhanced greenhouse effect (warming) was first discovered by Arrhenius, over 100 years ago. This direct effect of CO2 has NEVER been refuted. What has been at issue are the sequence of consequences from enhanced CO2-based heat trapping, and obviously it's very complicated. But anybody with a smidgen of understanding of physics and chemistry intuitively knows that when a new force is imposed (human production of CO2) the response is almost always in the direction of that force, even if the response is buffered by other factors. I.E. Warming was always expected by the majority of scientists, though the degree was quite uncertain.
What triggered scientists concern was the extensive data taken and discussions that ensued from the International Geophysical Year 1957-1958. At that point the issue was considered more a curiosity - it did not really come to public attention until after 20 years of scientific discussion and conferences on the subject, when Congress was persuaded to pass the "National Climate Program Act" in 1978; the first World Climate Conference was held in Geneva the following year. 10 more years of international meetings followed, and then (under the Bush administration!) Congress passed the "Global Change Research Act" in 1989. The UN IPCC was also formed around that time, which continues to produce the most thorough reports on the issue.
Early on, the greenhouse forcing by human-introduced CO2 was known to have differing effects in different parts of the world, and in the late 1970's there were arguments that the Northern Hemisphere would cool, even while the tropics heated (increased desertification). However, by 1985 (BEFORE the hot summers of the late 1980's and even hotter years of the 1990's) the scientific consensus was pretty firm on warming:
was the conclusion of the second World Climate Program conference in 1985.
The scientific story has changed in only tiny details in 16 years since then, and what have our politicians done? Hemmed and hawed and said we need more research. Well, the "first half of the next century" is here, and now we have hosts of people who should know better (slashdot users in particular) who have bought the political line (paid for by our good old oil companies) without question, completely ignoring this over 100 year history of the question. Even the oil companies are abandoning their hard line now - BP is now "Beyond Petroleum"; but here in the US so many cling tenaciously to their deceptions and refuse to be disillusioned.
If anybody who reads this is ready for disillusionment, check out the EPA's excellent site:
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/index.html [epa.gov].
Historical information on meetings and US government involvement is available at:
http://www.cnie.org/nle/clim-6.html [cnie.org]
Re:Science is ignoring global warming? (Score:2)
As to going back to the stone age, that's really not necessary. Fossil fuels are far from the only energy sources. Nuclear does quite a good job and actually produces less radioactive pollution (and far less waste) than coal. Wind, hydropower, and ocean-based energy systems can contribute something. But the source of all those (and of fossil fuels originally too) is the Sun; solar energy in the long run can make a huge difference. Why do we spend almost no money on research into it? Space-based solar power could potentially provide us billions of times more energy than we use now; there's no lack of resources out there. But too many people have their heads in the sand to make that investment now. At least some changes are starting to happen though.
Re:Wonderful News (Score:2)
Not only are a good chunk of scientists traditional religions (Hindu, Judiasm or Christianity), but I'd challenge that assumption that people in technology fields question their beliefs rather than follow blindly the words of another person.
Look at the Cult of Steve Jobs, the vast army of people who believed that Bill Gates could single handedly solve the Y2K problem, and the people who follow RMS and his Software Must Be Free ideal.
And that's just computers... get into architecture, civic planning... just about any technical profession, and you'll find sharply defined groups that follow preexisting concepts, often blindly.
--
Evan
Re:Wonderful News (Score:3)
Why the hell would they do that? The core tenents of Christianity are "be good to each other" and "spread that message around". The teachings of Christ were that one should teach people to be good to each other, no matter what their contribution to society or how "bad" they are (Jesus hung out with the "unclean" and "harlots" and said they all people are worthy). That way the meme of self-sacrifice and being good to each other spreads.
Now, you can cite tons of baggage hung off the side of that message, or you can say "but that society didn't need the message", but I doubt you can say that the core message... the intent... is bad. Look at the original source (Jesus), and those who are revered for their sacrifice in the Catholic church (Mother Teresa).
And yes, I have serious problems with many Christians and some Christian organizations (having marched for Pro Choice and Gay Rights), but having a knee jerk reaction against religion is just as bad as the people who have a knee jerk reaction against technology.
The core concept of most religions and sciences and technologies are the same: to help people. It's amazing that they conflict in people's minds.
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Evan
Spiderman new arch enemy (Score:5)
Re:Get used to it. We're in for a wild ride. (Score:2)
If you think about it, all the bits you don't eat are a waste product. It's much more efficient if you simply don't grow it.
Imagine a machine that extrudes perfectly marbled sirloin, without any gristle. Just chop them to the desired thickness and you've got your steak. Quality control could be almost perfect because you'd dump pure raw materials in and get steak out, no need to use anything like ground sheep parts and risk BSE.
Who needs a cow, which is just a circulatory system for nutrients, to grow a steak? The steak doesn't need exercise, it just needs to be 'told' to grow as if it was exercised. That's just chemical cues.
Re:CauSality (Score:2)
Nothing new (Score:2)
Domesticated dogs are the prime example of this. From a chihuahua to a great dane, all of these animals have been carefully inbred for a long time to produce certain ideal qualities. Unfortunately, many of these breeds are now exhibiting rampant genetic defects. I don't remember which is which off the top of my head, but certain breeds a prone to be born with brain damage, while others go blind almost invariably.
So what's different about what we're doing now? It's a bit quicker, we've got a wider range of options, and we know what we're doing to a greater extent. There's still a lot that we don't know about, but from the Human Genome Project onwards, we're making some serious progress.
For an analogy that fits most people here, the past practices of selective breeding are like slowly and meticulously swapping jumpers around. But now we've actually got the chance to look at the documentation before making any changes.
Knowledge is power.
Re:Get used to it. We're in for a wild ride. (Score:2)
If that is your worry on this then you are too late. Cows. (We enslave them, and force them to convert water and grass to milk.) : )
Seriously, this is not much different IMHO, from breeding cattle to have udders that are vastly larger than would have occured in wild bovine... The transgenic part of it is whats kind of creepy.
And, in other news, The Spiderman movie thats coming out next summer will have an updated origin story. (like the new Ultimate comic did, too..)
Apparently, ol' Peter Parker gets bitten by a genetically altered spider, rather than a radioactive one. I guess radiation isn't as unknown and high-tech as it used to be, whereas anything genetic seems to be filling the technobabble gap now that we know that radiation mainly just kills you in extreme doses, rather than mutates you into superheros.
Re:Get used to it. We're in for a wild ride. (Score:2)
Other way around. The printing press broke the monopoly that Rome had over the Bible and literacy. This monopoly extended to quite a few things but literacy was the biggie. Once the common person could read the Bible in his own language, the Protestant movement became unstoppable. Since there was no need for the message to be dispensed from the pulpit of the R.C. Church, people became more and more independent from it. Economically, Protestantism also was more profitable sicne it emphasised, among other things, righteousness through faith rather than forking out wodges of cash to the priests.
Martin Luther, arguably the most influential early figure in the breakaway from Rome, had at one time published nearly half of all books circulating in Germany at the time. The printing press was - and is - the friend of the Christian right.
The modern parallel is of course the Internet. Rome = modern governments, printing press = Internet + cryptography + PCs. But I digress...
Re:Wonderful News (Score:2)
We already have a food surplus. The USA and EU feed their grain to animals instead of people, because "economics" says that your hamburger is more important than the life of someone you will never meet. Don't get me started on overfed "right to life" hypocrates.
I share your feelings, but it's way more complicated than you make it seem. The problem is that we haven't figured out how to organize a society to produce the right argicultural surplus and to distribute the surplus to every place it is needed.
We can say, look, here's all this grain rotting in warehouses or being fed to cows and all we have to do is ship it to Ethiopia, but as logical as it would seem we don't have the economic mechanism to make it happen. Even if we wanted to, we'd have to find a way to make farmers grow human edible crops that would be acceptable to the consumers. Sure, when the people are starving they'll probably accept anything, but when the locally grown crops are doing OK then all those sweet pototoes are going to be rotting in US and EU warehouses, and our capital and energy intensive farmers are still going to want to be paid.
In the end, the starving of the world cannot and probably should not have to depend upon being fed from the surplus of the rich. I feel it woule be better to raise them to independence and if possible to put them on an equal footing with the EU and US.
There are some GE projects that are attempting to create better subsistence crops that will be in the public domain, such as sweet potatoes with higher protein content. I think this is good because it takes locally preferred crops and makes them better without creating a continuing dependency on the largesse of the first world. I also think that it would be great for people to learn to grow eat a greater variety of foods.
Of the thousands plant species on the planet that are probably edible, how many are used by people on any kind of a scale? Twenty? Fifty? Perhaps one hundred on the outside? It would provide better nutrition and less risk of crop collapse.
It's not such a bad idea for rich first world people to add new things to their diet. Recently I stewed some amranth, quinoa and barley in some stock and added a dash of tomato sauce. Yumm, and good for you too.
Re:Science is ignoring global warming? (Score:2)
There also happens to be a few dissenting voices in the scientific community--15,000 of them [sepp.org], in fact.
Finally, the steps we have taken to curtail global warming (Kyoto Accord, for instance) are really just a joke. To seriously cut back greenhouse gas emissions, we'd have to go back to the stone age, and that would come at a serious cost in standard of living and ultimately human lives. The burden would be especially heavy in developing countries, where modern pollution control technologies simply aren't available.
That's why not much has been done.
Re:Ultimate Animal (Score:2)
Bisexual means you will have sex with males or females, not that you have both sets of reproductive organs.
Re:Ultimate Animal (Score:2)
Either one would be a lose, though, for a higher form of life because there are too many negative traits need to be weeded out using sexual reproduction and natural selection.
Re:Get used to it. We're in for a wild ride. (Score:2)
--
Patrick Doyle
Here's the link... (Score:2)
The product: BioSteel [nexiabiotech.com]
Re:I feel ill (Score:2)
IMHO I think the U.S. should just legalize marijuana and start a strong hemp production.
_ _ _
I was working on a flat tax proposal and I accidentally proved there's no god.
Get used to it. We're in for a wild ride. (Score:4)
Before I start: All of this stuff is going to happen in the future, because if you Americans don't do it, us Canadians will, or the Europeans will, or the Japaneese, or the Chinese, or the Russians. Just because it doesn't fit into your morality doesn't mean much - welcome to globalization, and there isn't diddly you can do about it. All of my arguements follow from this point; You can debate this, but I see it as fact.
This is unrelated, but growing industrial hemp is a crime., but it's perfectly legal in Canada, about 40 miles north of the border. Take a stand on your government's international joke, er, war on drugs, or shut up and move. Listening to americans whine about the Wo(s)D when they all obediantly piss in a bottle to get a job is amusing.
Raising genetically altered mammals for industrial purposes is cool
You ain't seen nothing yet. I picked up a couple books on genetics at Chapters last weekend, just to see what's changed since the last time I took a biology couse (about 8 years ago, in high school). The amount of information being collected on how living organism works is absolutely incredible. People are beginning to apply lithographic techniques - commonly used to make chips - as templates to grow tissues with the ultra-fine blood vessles that before were impossible to grow artificially.
The nanotech people should take a good hard look at nature's nanotech - cells, viruses and how they work - I think that a lot of these advances are happening because engineers are finally getting the tools to work with life. It's potential benefits to mankind are absolutely amazing, and some might argue the risk is too high - maybe so - but someone, somewhere, IS going to do this stuff, because the benefits are too high not to. Chemicals and drugs that cost a fortune can be made cheaply and easily. Biological materials - like orange juice - can be mass produced in a factory, rather than pollute the earth with fertilizier and other pesticides.
Did I get something wrong here? Because the longer I think about it, the sicker I get...
Don't be ignorant and pick up some books and start reading. A lot of the panic out there is by people that don't understand the science - hell, mutations happen all the time and are part of, and required for, all life. It's just like anything else - I'm sure there were people that thought electricity was the work of the devil, and the good 'ol christian right had something to say about the printing press back in the day, too.
I think that by understanding and engineering the base principles of life, we'll be able to understand and evaluate the risks much more intelligently, for the benefit of all of man. These advances are going to happen; Find a way to deal with it. Pick up a book and learn about your good buddy, DNA, and cellular metabolism. A lot has changed since I last looked.
Re:Thank you, Science (Score:3)
Genetic engineering, the media, and 42. (Score:5)
How is tinkering with genetic codes more 'playing god' then creating new lakes where there were none before, changing ecological niches, probably causing new species to evolve, to fit the new ecological niches created.
How about the effect from electomagnetic fields? New roads through the countryside?
Face it people, we're playing God. We always have. Chaos theory argues that our existance on this planet will change things, even if we all stood perfectly still and didn't move for all our lives.
Like any technology, there will be ethical considerations, and we'll screw it up occasionaly.
Can we cause irreperable damage? Probably. Can we use the technology to save ourselves? Probably.
On the other hand, one of those cosmic rays could zap one of us just right and randomly cause any given mutation "naturally". Does that make it OK?
Let's face it, we already have plenty of technologies that let us wipe out the planet earth. Anyone who feels like it can use one of them, or the new one. What this gives us is a whole new way to solve problems.
Being an optimist, I like to assume that we will cause more good then harm from new techologies.
Unfortunatly, the media finds it easier to sell (insert medium here) using bad news. So we all hear about 'clones' being evil (most of which assume a clone will be of the memorex variety, not the identical twin reality), and nanotech will destroy the earth, and the internet will cause our children to become porn loving, rocket launcher shooting, black clothing wearing, 3l337 hax0rz.
I find it suprising that so many
Nuff Said.
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Remove the rocks to send email
World hunger is a political not agricultural issue (Score:2)
Stable, well managed countries with no civil wars don't have catastrophic famines. Begging food from the first world is not and never will be more than a very temporary solution. Good governance is what is needed.
Re:read more about it at (Score:2)
Also, there was a quite fitting quote at the bottom:
All your dangifiknow [dangifiknow.com] are belong to us.
for those of you who will not read the article: (Score:5)
All your dangifiknow [dangifiknow.com] are belong to us.
Hoax or sensational treatment? (Score:2)
At BEST I'd expect the milk from the goats to perhaps contain some spider silk like material (and I'm still skeptical), but there is just no way that udders are spinning silk as this article suggests.
Did you ever notice? (Score:2)
Plus, they always give these animals dumb names, once again, these two are named Mille and Muscade. I mean, is it me, or do you get the idea they named them after they made the breakthrough - just so they were something memorable. I highly doubt anybody initially named an animal Muscade. I figure, if you wouldn't name your child it, you wouldn't name your "pet" or "project" it as well.
And why did they choose spider silk as their concentrated trait. I find that as random as say the 3-asses from the south park episide. Next thing we'll be hearing about monkeys which milk silk, and ponies which milk silk, and so on...
Which brings me to my final thought: How stupid does "milk silk" sound. I tell you, its about the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Next we'll be able to get red-meated chickens, chickens with four sets of breasts, and of course, pork with 3 asses (increasing the number of rump roasts available).
Genetics, B'AH!
Re:Spiderman new arch enemy (Score:2)
"Spiderman vs. spidergoatse.cx"
Will both give the illustrators nightmares, and become and instant collectors issue
0.02,
Mike.
Re:I feel ill (Score:4)
Actually, industrial hemp can not be used to produce the same psychoactive effects as its close relative marijuana. In fact, industrial hemp contains a relatively high level of CBD, a chemical that inhibits any effects that the plant's modicum of THC could have on a person.
Check out The Ultimate Web Resource for Hemp [industrialhemp.net].
I do not really feel like arguing the validity of the 'stepping stone' myth regarding marijuana, but I tend to think that it is greatly overstated by its supporters.
Re:Thats sick (Score:2)
No Problem! (Score:2)
We'll field test it at the next Oscars awards.
Spinder Woman (Score:2)
Biofactories straight out of Dune (Score:2)
.. and then it will get ill... (Score:2)
Some day we'll just have the single ultimate animal and get rid of the rest. Then another 20 years down the line we'll find it's susceptible to some terrible illness like Ebola or HIV/AIDS. We'll be well stuffed then.
Does somebody want to draw anologies with the current possible problems threatening monoculture farming? Feeding cows on other dead cows seems to have given us BSE for starters.
Can anybody say 'biodiversity'?
ah if only (Score:2)
Troll? (Score:2)
Re:I feel ill (Score:5)
What would be better (Score:2)
Mmmm... goat beer
Re:Wonderful News (Score:2)
Of course scientists have already [theatlantic.com] made huge contributions to fighting world hunger, and there's less starvation and malnutrition in the world than ever before.
Let's see, has the idea about putting caring above economics been tried before? Yes, come to think of it, in the USSR and China, among other places. The result? 100 MILLION people died.
Also, what's this bullshit about "right to life" got to do with it? The "right to life" Catholic Church is one of the biggest charity providers in the third world.
Re:I don't think they'll ever succeed (Score:2)
BIG difference, and I'm noping for one over the other.
Re:Ultimate Animal (Score:2)
This is as sexy as goats get, but... (Score:3)
What are the implications of creating new transgenic species as biological manufacturing machines for products that aren't throw-away?
I freely admit I haven't thought about it that much, but silk is at the very least, *less* disposable that the products that are usually created by biologicals. Most everything else is food, so that what gets produced goes back into the ecosystem... If the average food product lasts three months before it's consumed, and these spidersilk products last for seven years, say, before wearing out... I wonder what the effect of introducing that lag time into the system will be.
Re:Wonderful News (Score:3)
Re:Does this mean... (Score:2)
Not necessarily. Some scientists have seriously considered genetically engineering animals so that the males excrete engineered proteins in their semen. It would certainly make a very interesting web shooter.
Irrational fear (Score:2)
But this quote is good evidence that these problems are hardly distinctive to genetic engineering. Companies produce new products with potentially serious health, environmental, and other consequences every day. Look at worries about cell phones causing brain damage, food additives causing cancer, cars causing pollution, etc. We don't even blink when people create those things, but suddenly flinch when people start talking about genetic engineering. There's no rational reason to be especially worried about things produced by genetic engineering relative to other processes- particularly when you're talking about a big thing like a goat that's comparatively easy to keep from escaping and reproducing in the wild.
If anything, genetic engineering like this seems likely to be safer than trying to produce new synthetic materials with the same properties. After all, spider silk is something that already exists in nature, so we'd have a pretty good idea if coming in contact with it were likely to cause cancer, acting like Steve Ballmer, or the like. The goat produced silk is chemically identical, just derived from a different source. And we already have some idea of the environmental impact of raising goats. Compare that to a new synthetic polymer. Because it would be completely novel, rather than simply a new way of producing an existing thing, we would actually need to study it much more carefully to be sure that it had no terrible consequences. And we'd also need to look very carefully at the environmental consequences of the factories set up to produce it, since their impact would not be known either.
I'm dubious (Score:3)
One thing that I'm a bit suspicious about is this quote:
While there may be some biochemical similarities, my understanding is that part of the reason that spider silk is as strong as it is is because of the precise physical arrangement of the protein fibers relative to each other, and that the spiders' glands contain special protein machinery that guarantees correct alignment. IOW, even if you can get the protein, you still have to "spin" it in a special way to get the properties you want, and the goats aren't equipped to do that. So there's a serious question about whether or not the engineered silk will actually be useful. Don't start saving for your ultralight climbing ropes yet.
Re:I feel ill (Score:2)
Disease prevention - beware (Score:2)
Actually, the regular consumption of "disease prevention substances" might end up being bad for you (and everybody else) in the long term.
It goes like this:
- Some disease prevention substances work by being "unpleasent" for viruses and bacteria (ie killing them).
- Viruses and bacteria mutate a lot.
- The more common it is for a certain substance to be in the host's body (the more people consume it), the more probable it is that those viral and
bacterial mutations face that substance. When it happens the best mutations survive and the others die.
- The next generation of viruses, bacterias will be born (and mutate) from some that are already partialy-imune to the substance
- Sooner or later a bug comes up that can thrive on the stuff (maybe even eat it).
- Now you have a viral/bacterial strain that's resistat to the substance
...
- ... and a substance that could previously be used to cure that disease and now is worthless
This problem also affects plants that are geneticaly modified to contain a certain antibiotic - resisting strains develop faster, and then the whole culture field (because of monoculture practices) die.Also because of this people shouldn't take antibiotics before they are actually sick.
Re:Science is ignoring global warming? (Score:2)
By tunning your statistical processes you can generate whatever results you want. For example:
I can generate numbers that "prove" that the average temperature of the planet in the last 100 years has come down by 10 degrees. I simply limit my sample of temperatures to values taken around vulcanos which were active in the past and are not active anymore. (actualy i could use it to prove a decrease in temperature of 1000 degrees)
By looking at my process it seems immediatly obvious that the values are skewed.
However if all i present is a nice chart of values that "definitivly prove my theory" plus a nice headline like "Global Cooling in the 20th century", i can convince a lot of people ...
Re:Thats sick (Score:2)
Re:I feel ill (Score:2)
Yes you did, Injesting RU486 is perfictly legal in the US, although Bush wants the FDA to 'reevaluate' it. Anyway, what exactly causes the huge moral sepreation between abortion and genetic enginering?
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
Everyone is overlooking the most important aspect (Score:2)
The US Army is majorly funding this endeavor, because many years ago they recognized the possibilities of such a new technology. They wanted it for use in super-flexible, super-light, super-strong body armor that they could also rig up with electronics so they could be fully aware of their surroundings in possible upcoming urban combat situations. They could also use the silk to make ropes that they could use to tow things around in air. They just have to think of a way to keep the plane connected to the rope.
Beyond the options the army has already come up with, this goat silk could be used as the frame for subcompact cars, which would greatly reduce the weight.
Instead of thinking of why goat silk sounds funny, why don't we all try to think of something to do with these endless possibilites. Happy hunting. !
Alternate story title... (Score:3)
Re:Cauality (Score:2)
So there you go. Pot stinks and just the smoke makes me feel sleepy, fuck that, I went straight for the good stuff. Sure I may be a minority, but we're definitely out here
Just what the military always wanted (Score:2)
Surely bullet-proof vests made from goat's milk will strike fear into the hearts of any enemy...
Hey Paco! Looook at the Amereecan seesies!
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Ultimate Animal (Score:4)
The future looks more exciting than ever!
rr
Re:Thank you, Science (Score:2)
It's not as if "Science" acts with one mind. What you are saying is as ridiculous as me blaming you for the global warming and the Clippers. What were YOU doing this weekend? Maybe when you were out seeing a movie there was some homeless guy freezing to death in an alley, or dying from an OD, right in your town? And what did YOU do to stop it? Nothing. When you were watching Babylon 5 reruns this week, you weren't doing anything to stop nuclear proliferation, were you? Clearly YOU are at fault for these things and probably many more.
That's a stupid argument, isn't it? So stop blaming "Science."
Re:Silky (Score:2)
It depends on the protein.
The "prions" that are thought to cause "mad cow disease" are proteins. They are also exceptionally tough. Autoclaving won't wreck them, for example. It all depends on how the protein is formed and folded.
Re:You sure you mean this god? (Score:2)
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I feel ill (Score:5)
Raising genetically altered mammals for industrial purposes is cool, but growing industrial hemp is a crime. Custom-designing living beings is all good, but ingesting RU486 in the first trimester is murder.
Did I get something wrong here? Because the longer I think about it, the sicker I get...
We thieves, we liars, we vandals, and poets. Networked agents of Cthulhu Borealis.
Re:Wonderful News (Score:3)
Yes, there are some issues with patents that are getting in the way, but that has more to do with European bureaucracy than "profit hungry capitalists" (who happy to have food hungry mouths to feed themselves, so of course they want to make money).
Re:Revelations (Score:3)
Yes, but what about the goats? (Score:4)
In other news.... (Score:3)
Re:Wonderful News (Score:5)
Sorry to contradict you, but this has been done already, and the genetically modified rice has met what they're calling "consumer resistance". That means the people who need it are not buying it. Because, presumably, they have no money as well as no food. Until we start caring about world hunger GE will just be used the same way every other technology is used - to insulate the already wealthy from the world around them.
<rant>We already have a food surplus. The USA and EU feed their grain to animals instead of people, because "economics" says that your hamburger is more important than the life of someone you will never meet. Don't get me started on overfed "right to life" hypocrates. </rant>