Speeding up Evolution 413
DaytonCIM writes ""We can rebuild him. Make him stronger... faster..." Slate.com has a great article on next generation gene research that promises to build "Supermen" or "Superwomen" out of us all. Insulin-like Growth Factor genes to make us stronger without ever visiting a weight room. EPO to generate more red blood cells and enable us to run "forever." Engineered human "Blood" to speed up evolution, so that we become less susceptible to disease and injury."
Born too late (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Born too late (Score:5, Informative)
They'd die anyways. You know what happens to water when you freeze it? It expands. Now picture all of your water in your body being frozen. When unfroze, you'd be a mass of humany bony glop from all your cells rupturing.
Now this MIGHT work if there was a sure fire way to replace water with a substance that was the similar size, similar weight, and didnt expand when frozen......
Re:Born too late (Score:5, Informative)
Water freezes differently depending on how it's frozen. If you freeze it slowly it forms a crystalline structure that takes up a significantly larger space than before. That expansion is what ruptures the cells. However, if the water is flash frozen it doesn't form into crystals and takes up approximately the same amount of space as when unfrozen. That means that the cells remain undamaged. Flash freezing is the technique that is used in human cryogenics.
Re:Born too late (Score:3, Informative)
Cryogenics by Nestle (c) (Score:5, Interesting)
There is research being done now that involves this [exploratorium.edu] neat little frog. The North American Wood Frog survives winter by freezing. It freezes during the cold, and actually thaws when the weather heats up. It can do this because of the excess of sugar stores in it's body.
Personally, I think that this is totally the way to go, so long as we can figure out a way to counteract the massive amounts of sugar we'd need to retain. It's all rather neat, imho. =)
Re:Born too late (Score:3, Informative)
"Cells do not burst as a result of freezing in almost all circumstances, because not only are animal cell walls generally elastic enough to accomodate a 10% expansion, but most of the ice is formed outside the cells." (The Immortalist, Nov-Dec 2002. Vol. 34, p. 5.)
In addition, various techniques exist, such as perfusion with glycerol, that further reduce the freezing damage.
"In [another method] vitrification more than 60% of the water inside cells is replaced by a mixture of cryoprotectant (antifreeze) compounds so that tissue does not freeze (or freezes negligibly) during cooling. Instead, below a temperature of -130 degrees Celsius, the tissue becomes a rigid glass with no ice crystal damage." (http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/index.htm, Alcor website, Frequently Asked Questions)
Better Late than Never (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me start out by saying, I've lost a contact lens, so I apoligize for the spelling in advance. I'm having a hard time seeing. That said......
The Cold War wasn't the only arms race going on. There's one that exits every day inside each one of it us. It's a race between various pathogens and our immune system. Oddly enough, DNA plays a HUGE role in the functioning of the immune system as a whole.
Did you realize that the reason that African-Americans have sickle cell anemia is that it is an evolved immune response? In order to develop the disease, you must inherit 2 recessive "defective" genes. But if you have only 1 "defective" gene and one "normal" gene, you are immune to malaria. Malaria is a mosquito borne disease that kills more than a million people a year in Africa. My point with is that genes that seem to be "bad" to us, might only seem "bad" because we don't have the whole story.
We've spent either thousands or millions of years, depending on your point of view, on this planet with our pathogens. They change us and we change them. We know that this happens because we can sit in a labratory and observe it. Antibiotic resistant strains are a prime example of this. I happen to call it evolution. Just as wolves thin the deer herds, making them faster, smarter, and stronger, so must the wolves become faster, smarter and stonger to continue to catch the deer. When you consider the amount of time that we humans have spent living with our various bacteria, parasites, etc. , it's logical to me that is happing with us on a microscopic scale.
Genes are very complicated things because they encode all sorts of information about how you function an unbelievably basic level. There are genes that encode the proteins that make up the cell wall. There are genes that encode the proteins that make up the receptor sites in cell wall. And guess what, mine don't look or work like yours! So I'm near sighted. My whole family is near sighted. My whole family also lives to be a 100 and it's a nice healthly 100, too. I suspect that there is some correlation since the ones that aren't near sighted died in their late 80's and early 90's.
The tinkering with plants hasn't gone as well as most of the public has been lead to believe. They figured out how to make cotton that didn't need to be dyed. It grew as red or blue. Well, they released it. People planted it and now they are being sued. Their neighbors are getting all kinds of odd color combinations in what was supposed to be their white cotton. There's also a "pest resistant" corn. Now that the corn flea beetle and corn worm can't eat corn, what will they be going to go after next? Or, worse yet, will they evolve in to a superpest that can eat the "pest resistant" plants? If they can eat the "pest resistant" corn, will they be able to eat the other "pest resistant " crops we're getting ready to release. We've created other "superpests" and a whole host of other problems with our use of chemicals because we really didn't understand the ramifications of what we were tinkering with - DDT, DES, MRSA, STSS, and a whole alphabet soup of acronyms. These are just the ones I can name off the top of my head.
This is a really really good example of "Just because you CAN, doesn't mean you SHOULD". They don't understand what the side effects to the environment are with a simple thing like colored cotton. They sure aren't going to understand the full ramifications of making changes to humans any time in this century. Anybody that thinks that is a good idea, should probably get some IQ points spliced in to the DNS sequence.
Queen BKhaaaaaan! (Score:5, Funny)
Supermen or Superwomen? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Supermen or Superwomen? (Score:2, Funny)
Mod down please (Score:2)
Now... having a show that's so bad that the WB would cancel it is funny, but I don't personally find the fact that christopher reeve is in a wheelchair to be at all humourous.
Re:Mod down please (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny thing is, we are not even masters of our own domain. We introduce species into an environment as pest control, and they become new, toughter pests. We pop pills with the latest and greatest chemicals only to discover they cause deaths in people with a previously unknown genetic trait. We split the atom, and proceed to use it to threaten our own existence. We eradicate diseases ( Smallpox, the most virulent strains of Influenza, etc ), but this simply means that is any one of them were ro resurge, it would have the same deadly effect as the Black Plague due to no resistance in the population.
We liken ourselves to supermen every day by pushing the boundaries without knowing or thoroughly considering all the consequences. The fact that "Superman" is in a wheelchair only serves to remind us how foolish we are as a race.
No matter how advanced we become, we are only human. Mortal. Fallible.
Re:Mod down please (Score:4, Insightful)
While I don't believe that we'll ever perfectly know how to know things and thus not occasially shoot ourselves in the foot, I do believe that our epistomological self-consciousness is increasing.
Re:Supermen or Superwomen? (Score:2, Funny)
In the year 2000! (Score:5, Funny)
Slightly off topic... (Score:5, Interesting)
Food for thought...
Food for love... (Score:2, Insightful)
A love that is dependent on beauty, is superficial and leads only to misery.
So why be obsessed about superficial attributes such as beauty, strength and intelligence, when love is what we seek?
When you have much love, beauty comes naturally. You even cannot have beauty, without love.
Re:Slightly off topic... (Score:3, Informative)
This stuff was reported in Science News a couple or three years ago. I don't remember the author or title though.
Re:Slightly off topic... (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you honestly think that if we could have complete control over our appearance we would choose to simply look like some supermodel? Well, I'm sure some people would, those with the creativity of a ant. The rest of us would become something cool.
I know exactly what I would want:
I'd wand really black skin, two small horns, and (most important) a thick layer of soft, white sheep wool (everywhere but on my face, hands, etc.). That way, I wouldn't have to think about what I want to wear when I go out. In the summers I'd have myself shorn so that I wouldn't get too hot, and I'd always be experimenting with dying my wool in various artistic ways. I suspect the chicks would love it (especially if my competition were a bunch of nobodys that look like Ken dolls). But even if the chicks wouldn't love it, I would.
Philosophical afterword: Isn't it interesting how we usually think we should not praise or blame people for the things that are outside their control, but we have just the opposite attitude about their appearance. If somebody actually takes charge and dramatically alters their "natural" appearance, we critisize it for being "fake" and so somehow second-best. But we praise people who just look good naturally, even though we know they did absolutely nothing to earn our praise. Maybe these attitudes will change once controlling our appearance genetically becomes more common.
jocks (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah but the muscles pull the chicks!
Lack of diversity can kill us. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lack of diversity can kill us. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lack of diversity can kill us. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Lack of diversity can kill us. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention the expense. (Score:3, Interesting)
--
http://www.superbad.com [superbad.com]
Re:Not to mention the expense. (Score:5, Insightful)
All this is legal, and getting cheaper (Moore's law... blah... Blah...).
Whether the rich or the poor or both get the benefits and/or curses of the technology depends on the laws and the cultural aspects, not the science.
Unlike plutonium which is a relatively rare and dangerous element, the the chemicals that this technology uses exist in every cell of your body. You didn't think that your cells went and sliced and diced DNA without the benefit of restriction enzymes did you?
Furthermore, are your gender politics assuming that all the rich people who go for this technology are male? I find your logic there rickety at best.
Re:Restriction Enzymes (Score:3, Interesting)
Secondly, while in terms of physical space, you don't need much, you do still need to purchase some industrial equipment, like incubators and reagents and simple things like Erlenmeyer flasks and micropipets. Surely affordable for the average millionaire, but in this day and age, at least in the U.S., I can't imagine the Department of Homeland Security being too enthusiastic about anyone buying these things for their garage.
But then again, these R&D issues, and the complications of national defense, similarly cropped up in the history of software development as well. I'm sure that not many people in the '60s and '70s envisioned a world where everyone had a computer. For all I know, in a few decades, incubators for PCR the size of a desktop computer with built-in automated purification mechanisms will be just as ubiquitous.
Superman? In whose eyes? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Superman? In whose eyes? (Score:2)
Re:Superman? In whose eyes? (Score:5, Insightful)
How many parents in America want a brunette child with a stocky figure in a girl? I'm not sure if you're a parent yourself. If you are I'm pretty hopeful that you would tell me that you wouldn't trade your baby for anything. But suppose you were not a parent yet, but about to become one. the doctor shows you a gattaca style menu of possible babies and one of them is the cookycutter bobbie model from snowcrash. And you think to yourself "Nobody will ever call her fat. Or demean her for her appearance. She will fit in in every way. And there's no way in hell I'm going to chose the one with glasses."
And thus, in nine months time, you look down your street at the identical babies in identical prams being pushed out of identical houses into identical ford broncos and realise that the Madison Avenue types who booked 30 seconds during the superbowl outsmarted all of you... except the family down the street who are new here and could only afford a No-Diseases package.
Now imagine if that was true, imagine what it would be like if you were the only UNmodified girl in your class. Would the teasing over being different get easier, or worse? Imagine if your parents had modified you for brains rather than looks and the side effects involved a hairy neck and small horn-like protrusions on your forehead.
Never underestimate the herd mentality. You'll find as many barbies walking the streets as there are people drinking coke today. The pepsi generation will be populated entirley by ken.
God help those whoes parents decided to choose something unpopular or obscure, because your birth-body is one thing you can't throw away when it becomes unfashionable.
hmmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can anyone else see where this is going?
Re:hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:hmmm... (Score:2)
Re:hmmm... (Score:2)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/08/opinion/08WAT
Derek
Re:hmmm... (Score:2)
Re:hmmm... (Score:2)
The third most populous country is a very notable exception.
Re:hmmm... (Score:2)
More muscle = More trouble ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Bodybuilding for Couch Potatoes...
Now geeks everywhere will all be able to carry a 24 inch CRT under each arm from one side of the building to the other ;-). Seriously, though, this could be a bad thing. If you just wake up one day, and you are super-strong, you are gonna screw stuff up. Maybe you'll break someone's hand (ala a Star Trek The Next Generation episode when some guy takes over Data's body), or you are just going to generally screw up your super-muscles. You'll probably still never exercise, and end up pulling your super-strong muscles (which will probably hurt more, because there is more mass).
We're gonna need new bayesian filters (Score:5, Funny)
"Make your penis 3 inches longer."
"Grow Muscle Mass without exercise."
"Horny cheerleaders wet 4 u"
"Run virtually forever without breaking a sweat."
Good luck to the SPAM Assassin folks if I can't tell the difference.
Nazis... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nazis... (Score:5, Informative)
Eugenics vs. Genetic Engineering (Score:5, Informative)
That may need a little elaboration, as the two touch on related areas.
Eugenics is a theory which holds that certain individuals are innately superior to others, and that the superior few are vastly outnumbered by the inferior many. If you accept these two premises, then it follows that the inferior many are sure to reproduce faster than the superior few, with the result that the characteristics of the superior individuals will be lost. Basically, a eugenicist sees the world in terms of a conflict between those with big brains and those with big dicks. In order to improve the species, therefore, a eugenicist will attempt to discourage the inferior from procreating, and encourage the superior.
The biggest problem with this theory is figuring out how to tell who's superior and who's inferior. The answer depends on how you ask the question, and on what your beliefs are about what would constitute a "superior" human being. The Nazis believed that a certain physical type was superior -- blond hair, blue eyes, extremely fair skin, what they called "Aryan". They conducted experiments attempting to further these characteristics; for example they would take a pair of brown-eyed twins, and inject chemicals into their eyes in an attempt to change the eye-color to blue. This particular study was carried out at Auschwitz by Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death [crimelibrary.com].
If, on the other hand, you are an American eugenicist, what you do to separate the inferior and the superior is come up with the Intellectual Quotient Test and administer it to all schoolchildren. Those who do well are deemed fit, and allowed to do things like take college prep courses in high school. Those who are deemed unfit are only allowed to take classes in, say, technical arts, thereby preparing them for a lifetime working as drones in a factory. Also, you get laws passed in many states requiring the forced sterilization [go.com] of any person below a certain IQ level who attempts to reproduce. You might also conduct studies such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments [npr.org] which were begun with the understanding that the subjects would be black because black men are naturally more lascivious than white men, and therefore more likely to have syphilis. These experiments were funded by Congress, continued for four decades, involved hideously painful procedures like spinal fluid taps, and worst of all the subjects were never told that they had syphilis. By the time they found out, it was far too late for any of them to seek treatment.
Eugenics is no longer an accepted theory. It depends on an arbitrary vision of what constitutes "superiority", and led to some truly barbaric practices, both in Germany and in the United States. I do not know how well the theory was received in other countries. I am, however, truly grateful that it is no longer accepted.
Genetic engineering, on the other hand, is a technique for the modification of living creatures by altering their genetic structure. It could very easily be used for eugenics, but has other more benign purposes as well.
There are two kinds of genetic engineering. One involves the modification of an existing organism. For example, take a child afflicted with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease which causes the lungs to fill with mucus, thereby making it extremely difficult to breathe. That child might be treated by inhaling a vapor of specially created viruses that insert themselves into the affected lung cells and alter their genetic code in such a way that they stop producing the mucus. This is also known as gene therapy [uiowa.edu].
The other form of genetic engineering involves modifying an organism before it starts growing. Thus you might take a fertilized egg and modify its DNA prior to its implantation in the wall of the mother's womb. Since all cells in the body ultimately derive from that egg, your modification would change the fundamental nature of the adult organism. Genetic modifications have been carried out on plants, for example to make them resistant to a particular disease, or to increase the per-acre yield of a food crop. You yourself have probably eaten such genetically modified food. It is quite common in America; less so in Europe, where there are a great many people who protest against it.
Genetic engineering is a field which has enormous potential for good -- the elimination of genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis. If two people are aware that their child might suffer from CF, they could perform an artificial insemination of an egg which had been "fixed", or avoid the disease simply by choosing an egg that wasn't affected in the first place. On the other hand, genetic engineering also has a staggering potential for abuse. A genetic engineer could not only cure diseases, but also create entirely new ones. The new disease might be used in biological warfare. It is conceivable (though currently not possible) that genetic engineering might be able to create a contagious mutagen -- a virus that would spread throughout the population, and make a particular modification within the bodies of the victims. Imagine if the Nazis had been able to create a virus that would alter the eggs and testicles of those who contracted it. They could have ensured that the next generation would be blond and blue-eyed, against the will of the parents.
Then, of course, there is the danger that we might screw up. We know a lot about genetics now, but there's even more that's not well understood. Sequencing out a full human gene doesn't mean that we understand how all the parts interact with another. There are large portions of the genome that don't seem to do anything (introns) . . . but then again maybe they do, and we just haven't figured it out quite yet. Then there's the fact that one sequence of DNA might control or contribute to three or four different finished structures. If you alter it to give a child green eyes, you might also cause the child to be bald. (That's just an example, I have no idea if the sequences controlling hair production and eye color are at all related.)
Basically, we don't know enough at this point to engage in wholesale manipulation of human genetics. We should not outlaw it -- the genie is out of the bottle, and if we tried outlawing it, the research would merely be undertaken by unethical scientists with little or no oversight. On the other hand, we should NOT perform modifications of human beings without a clear idea of what we're doing and a damn good reason to do it. Giving your kid a particular eye color is NOT a good reason for genetic engineering. Avoiding cystic fibrosis is acceptable. Engineering for more abstract qualities -- musical talent, mathematical skill, linquistic ability -- should be avoided at all costs until we have some idea what the hell we're doing. We don't even know if those qualities are controlled by genes; in the process of trying it out we might very well screw up and make some truly horrible mistakes. Note that many autistic people are also extremely good at math.
Then there are the social issues. Genetic engineering is expensive. If we're not careful, it could become a way for the wealthy to reinforce their dominance over world affairs. It is natural to want to give your child every advantage in life that you can; but doing so can simultaneously disadvantage other people's children.
In short, genetic engineering of humans is problematic. It could provide some unparalleled benefits to the human species . . . but it is also an ethical minefield, and could easily be turned to selfish or downright evil purposes.
Re:Eugenics vs. Genetic Engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, as with every other new technology, the wealthy will pay for the privilege of being guinea pigs (aka "early adopters") which the rest of the population will benefit from later. Wealthy patrons (and/or governments) could be benevolent and sponsor poor and needy patients in need of genetic engineering (your cystic fibrosis example, for instance), if they don't mind risking being accused of using the poor as lab rats in their scheme for global hegemony or some other paranoid fantasy du jour.
I don't mean for that to be a flame, I'm just trying to point out that intentions can be spun in all sorts of ways depending on a person's point of view. Given the heavy populist prejudice against "the rich" this issue is likely going to get very messy, as you described.
Re:Eugenics vs. Genetic Engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
Eugenics was adopted in most major Western nations. The United States more or less led the way, Britain, Canada, several other countries soon followed. What's interesting to note here is that Germany actually came into the game extremely late compared to the rest of the Western world, and that the Eugenics laws in Germany were formed and passed before the instatement of the Nazi party. The Nazis just happened to take it up with a vengance.
A little history for the crowd: Eugenics rose from the ideas of Social Darwinism, which of course rose from Darwin's ideas of evolution, though Darwin was rather appalled by Social Darwinism and never supported it at all. Social Darwinism took the ideas of evolution and applied them to society. The idea was that society, like nature, would become increasingly better over time, by nature of evolution. Those who fit in well with society and contributed would help advance society, and those who were a drag on society would fall by the wayside, and the ideas taken on by society would evolve and become better, closer and closer to perfect. This caused great hope amongst the people - don't worry, there's nothing bad around the corner, because society will continue to get better indefinitely. Talk about cheery ideas.
Then someone had the bright idea of meddling. We cull our herds, we cull our crops. We breed the best with the best to make even better, don't we? Why shouldn't we do that to humanity? We'll take the best and brightest and encourage them to reproduce, often, and we'll... well, we'll cull the sick and useless from the herds so they don't taint the stock. And so they did. Eugenics laws involving sterilization of the sick, the feeble-minded, the low of society, were passed, and how. Leilani Muir [google.ca] is a perfect example. An Albertan girl, 'feeble minded', she was sterilized. Today, her IQ is measured at around the 90's, I believe, and she's perfectly capable of functioning in society. They didn't care. It was for the glory of society.
Eugenics laws were gleefully adopted by everyone... Then World War II came. The Nazis came, and they took Eugenics to the logical extreme, and the world watched in horror at what lay at the end of the path they all had decided to travel down. Laws were thrown out, lawsuits were filed, and everything went to shit. People realized that ideal society was something we'd have to work towards, that there was no free ride. Supposedly. Some governments, including some in Canada, took as late as the 1970s to repeal their Eugenics laws, even though they weren't being used. Sad, but at least it happened.
So, for anyone who thinks that racial superiority and the like was born with the Nazis, think again. Canadians, Americans, Britons, we're guilty, because we started it. The Nazis took it to the extreme all at once, but I fear that if they hadn't been so quick about it, that might've been the way the rest of our societies went.
Frightening.
--Dan
Re:Nazis... (Score:2, Insightful)
And anyways, what they were doing was not genetic engineering. Hell, DNA wasn't discovered until 1953.
Re:Nazis... (Score:4, Informative)
The Nazis got the idea from Americans.
Re:Nazis... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sadly, that is partially true. See The Pivot of Civilization [pro-life.net] by Margaret Sanger, with introduction by none other than H.G. Wells. From the appendix:
"STERILIZATION of the insane and feebleminded and the encouragement of this operation upon those afflicted with inherited or transmissible diseases, with the understanding that sterilization does not deprive the individual of his or her sex expression, but merely renders him incapable of producing children.
EDUCATIONAL: The program of education includes: The enlightenment of the public at large, mainly through the education of leaders of thought and opinion--teachers, ministers, editors and writers--to the moral and scientific soundness of the principles of Birth Control and the imperative necessity of its adoption as the basis of national and racial progress.
POLITICAL AND LEGISLATIVE: To enlist the support and cooperation of legal advisers, statesmen and legislators in effecting the removal of state and federal statutes which encourage dysgenic breeding, increase the sum total of disease, misery and poverty and prevent the establishment of a policy of national health and strength."
I've only read Wells' intro and the appendix, fwiw. In all fairness to Sanger, Hitler added more than a few ideas of his own, but the National Socialists did use her writings as a starting point.
"Speeding Up Evolution" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Speeding Up Evolution" (Score:3, Funny)
Re:"Speeding Up Evolution" (Score:3, Funny)
Re:"Speeding Up Evolution" (Score:3, Interesting)
N.B.: This doesn't mean that evolution stops. It just changes the ground rules a bit. But evolution is a slow process, and before it can have much effect this will be POTENT STUFF. But evolution applies to everything from sub-atomic particles to galaxy-clusters, and everything in between. The details of how it operates change a bit as you change your perspective from area to area, but the general concept always applies. It's closely tied into entropy, and it's nearly as basic (is does require that there be differences between things, and that somethings can transform into other things [e.g., a neutron a proton + an electron a hydrogen atom -- but I left out that neutrino!, so the example is over simplified].). As a catch-phrase you could say "The survival of the most stable."
Re:"Speeding Up Evolution" (Score:3, Insightful)
PLEASE tell me that you're not anthromorphosizeing evolution!
Humanity is no more or less predictable than any other species on the planet. We just happen to have intelligence, which makes us far more "fit" to a variety of changing climes than any other creature on the planet--barring, maybe, cockroaches.
Considering our species an "experiment" linguistically supposes some other sentient force--either the Almighty God, a neo-pagan manifestsation of nature, or some random aliens. If you didn't mean to say this, then please don't phrase your words like you do.
(And if you DID mean to say it--what's to say that we're not going to be due for another intervention?)
In Some Other Context... (Score:5, Interesting)
"And don't EVER make the mistake that you can design something better than
what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a
feedback cycle. That's giving your intelligence _much_ too much credit."
Re:In Some Other Context... (Score:3, Insightful)
There were *two* people on that particular flight. The one who stayed with the parameters of the design was *successful* in his flight.
Think about it.
KFG
Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Where's my warranty card? (Score:4, Funny)
Spider-Man? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Spider-Man? (Score:2, Funny)
My evolution is speeding as you read this. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:My evolution is speeding as you read this. (Score:2)
Do people still use it? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Do people still use it? (Score:2, Funny)
How to speed up Evolution. (Score:2)
Best script ever. Bring on the IMAP rewrite.
Do the Evolution! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Do the Evolution! (Score:2, Funny)
"Jack's mom let him grow horns! Why won't you just let me get tusks?"
Re:Do the Evolution! (Score:2)
or maybe it's just me.
Re:Do the Evolution! (Score:2, Insightful)
It's much more likely that this type of evolution will creep in slowly. People's embryos are already scanned for certain hereditary diseases when they are in a high risk group.
How far off is it before embryos will be routinely evaluated for heart & cancer risk later in life. Only the best embryo will be chosen to grow up.
This seems a logical step. It also seems logical that if you have several good quality boy embryos, you will choose the one that doesn't have the genes for early baldness.
There we go, man made evolution in progress.
I whish I could be around long enough to see where it all will end...
How 'bout we fix sick people first (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently, the current thinking is that through gene therapy there's at least a possibilty the kid could be cured, ('cept there's a moratorium on gene therapy).
So, being super people is I guess all well and good, for me I'd just like to see this kid not have to eat through a tube.
Problems with longevity (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't underestimate the enzymes (Score:3, Interesting)
However, there are people who either lack this enzyme, or have a genetic defect that makes this system nonfunctional... those people grow cancers like it's their job. The same thing happens to people on long-term immunosuppresive drugs (transplant patients, most notably).
Your body also has something called apoptosis, or programmed cell death. Some cells die at a certain point in human development, because they are programmed to do so... Who knows what extending their telomeres will do to normal human embryology?
Your body is hard-wired to take care of itself, and it does so pretty effectively. I can't help but wonder what kind of badness we'll create when we start monkeying with the human genome in earnest.
Re:Problems with longevity (Score:2, Funny)
So, theoreticaly, I could greatly enhance my lifespan simply by sleeping more, avoiding stress, and never exercising?
Re:Problems with longevity (Score:4, Insightful)
This is readily debunked. Start with bats and most birds.
Doesn't make sense.... (Score:2)
Muscle mass automagically atrophies when not in use, so I don't see how someone can "grow" muscle like they would grow hair.
Obviously, there are serious moral and biological questions that have yet to be answered about all this. And unfortunately, these types of people usually have too optimistic view of the near-future. I mean, where are the flying-cars and annual visits to the moon?
Is this playing god? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm all for creating new organs out of stems cells, if its needed for life. I know many good people would have lived longer if all they needed was an organ transplant.
Science is good, but you have to keep it in check with average human prosperity. Its like the "Prime Directive," you have to follow it or theres drastic consequences you can never forsee. You wouldn't give a monkey a gun if you knew he could understand the consequences of using it. Same thing applies here in an obscewred point.
Re:Is this playing god? (Score:2)
In the software world.... (Score:3, Interesting)
And now for a comment from someone who knows... (Score:5, Interesting)
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While IGF-1 does wonderful things in mice, don't look for it at your local store or spam e-mail. Whatever people are selling in the spam shops isn't IGF-1, or anything remotely related to it. The real stuff is approximately $25 000 (US) per gram, which will treat 25 mice for a month, or one human for a day.
The problem with gene therapy is that it isn't available "now or soon", as stated in the article. The problem is that when the gene is injected, only a very small percentage of the muscle cells will express it. This means that delivery of the gene is very inefficient.
Adding onto this, there will be an immune response to the gene or the vector delivering the gene. This means that it won't hang around very long.
Next, there is a massive area to deliver to (all your skeletal muscle). And no efficient mechanism by which to accomplish this.
Basically, gene therapy is far from being a reality, let alone a mass market one that you could afford. To worry about gene doping at any Olympics in the forseable future is exceedingly premature.
The reason you can alter genes in mice is that their eggs can be manipulated in vitro . The manipulated eggs are artificially fertilized and injected into a pseudo-pregnant female. And while with this approach, only one cell has to be targetted, it still takes many many many months to create a transgenic mouse that expresses the proper genotype. Once that's done, you have to breed them - that's a lot of ass work for post-docs and PhD students.
Re:And now for a comment from someone who knows... (Score:2)
Even I have a girlfriend now..
These are different times, you gotta hang on, or be lost in a turn.
The joke isn't funny anymore.
And Where can I buy my super-sex bot gene? (Score:4, Funny)
that's not evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
obligatory Gattaca reference (Score:5, Insightful)
aS A Drunk biochemist i'll lend my thoughts... (Score:5, Interesting)
Only a few daredevils, for example, would risk surgery to upgrade their vision from normal to extraordinary.
This is mostly because the surgery (lasic) has a potential to go horribly wrong and doesn't give much better than 20/20.
Athletes, enticed by fat contracts, Olympic medals, and fan adulation, will accept almost any health risk to steal an advantage.
yes. Believe it or not a survey of athletes I read, said that 90+% would take *any* drug to improve their performance with or without serious side-effects. The key was *not getting caught*.
Steroids and nutritional supplements-certified by home-run records and 350-pound offensive linemen-have already found their way to every major high-school sports program in the United States.
This is true. But the *only* supplement that has been shown in real clinical trials to work is creatine. ALL THE OTHERS ARE BOGUS. And steroids REALLY work. But their side-effects are really fucking bad.
Anyone who injects steroids can get very strong, but only if he lifts weights regularly
You don't *necessarily* have to lift weights for steroids to build muscle, but it helps a lot.
In recent years, doctors have been virtually dragging seniors to the weight room to get them buffed up. /.
Yes, this is because the benefit is FUCKING ENOURMOUS. take this to heart old people reading
The IGF gene is a multitasker.
Bad analogy. What they're trying to get at is that IGF genes turn on many other responses both at the genetic level and other. It turns on other genes and interacts with many pathways. It's a controler gene.
Both MGF and IGF-1 encourage muscles to grow. Yeah. just watch out for the shitty side effects.. like CANCER.
Goldspink hopes MGF could be a therapy for the sick and frail
Yes, here's the deal... Frail people, the elderly, those who are lacking in what these genes provide are the ones who will recieve the biggest benefit with the least side-effects. This is important.
The technique for inserting the gene into muscles is not complicated
Yes it bloody well is. don't lie. Right now, it's bloody complicated.
Although Goldspink's experiment resulted in Schwarzenegger mice, that doesn't mean that MGF will successfully pump up normal humans
Theres a bloody good chance of it tho. I'd lay money on it.
And as for IGF-1, it may have health risks that MGF does not
ok, let's make this clear. Don't take IGF-1. It DOES cause a lot of death-leading problems. heart failure AND cancer are just 2 of them.
Athletes are already experimenting with IGF-1
This HAS lead to deaths. It doesn't appear from the research that taking IGF-1 is safe at any level. But human trials are not done because we have laws in the U.S. against killing people for the sake of research.
On EPO:
Here is the trade-off. More bloodcells = slightly better performance & slightly increased risk of clogging your arteries. My opinion is nature worked out the proper ratio.
In fact, if you exercise regularly you will be amazed at how much you are rewarded.
You can start fucking around with your body. It can produce very large effects. But you're fucking with millions of years of evolution. You better have a good reason. There *might* be situations where it's beneficial. For example, humans evolved to fit an environment where food was a little more scarce than nowadays. That's why people are overweight. Evolution didn't get it wrong.. we changed the rules. But for a HECK of a lot of other things, evolution has found the perfect balance... don't fuck with millions of years of trial & error. That's all I have to say. Yes, if you have a genetic disease, then you're merely correcting the "error" part of "trial & error". Don't forget that without the error part there's no trial part and no improvement..
Look I'm really sorry if I've just laid drunken post on you guys. /. & gnu/Linux geek, a biochemist and a bodybuilder.
I just felt like saying something because I happen to be a few things. A
I felt like opining. Some of my opinions are based on research I've read for classes. Other parts are just speculation.
an annual cedes to the perennials (Score:2, Insightful)
Then I get that sense of parental wonder, what are these amazing little beings going to get up to... and the prospect of them staving off aging stretches that wonder out another order of magnitude.
/. gene? (Score:2)
I'd like my PFC's .. (Score:2)
Macka
Story in Analog a long time ago (Score:3, Interesting)
if it was so easy.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:if it was so easy.. (Score:2, Insightful)
You are wrong in two respects. Your first mistake is in supposing that the psuedo-goals of evolution are the same as our goals. Our genes aim to propagate, but we have other interests. So a "tweak" that looks bad to evolution (perhaps women who are smarter but have fewer children) might look just fine to us. Your second mistake is to suppose that evolution made us well suited to our current environment. Most of our adaptive characteristics arose to meet environmental challenges that no longer exist. For example, first world citizens do not, and will never, have to worry about starving to death, so all of our adaptations for dealing with food scarcity are a either pointless or even dangerous.
Evolution is slow. Environmental change is fast. There is no reason to think that we could not, sometimes at least, do a better job of matching ourselves to our environment than natural selection would.
Re:if it was so easy.. (Score:2)
For example, there is little evolutionary advantage for us in remaining physically strong after we've had children and brought them up. And in todays society, physical strength is less and less of an evolutionary advantage even earlier.
On the other hand, there has been a distinct evolutionary disadvantage in being stronger than "needed": Muscle mass burn more calories, which mean you'll need to eat more to sustain yourself. Now, for most people in industrialized countries today this is an advantage, not a problem, as an increasing number of us struggle to keep slim and fit, but someone with less muscle mass, more body fat and low metabolism would be much more likely to survive a famine.
Now this is an example of a case where evolution doesn't match todays society, where being overweight is a problem for many people, and doesn't provide the advantage, as most of us don't have to deal with famine. It's possible evolution will eventually catch up, but even then evolution will always reflect only what makes us most likely to procreate and create offspring that will survive, not on what give us a chance to live long, healthy, full lives.
You can't speed up evolution... (Score:2, Insightful)
Since evolution doesn't have speed... or goal.
Superman? Why Not? (Score:4, Interesting)
Heck, 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 of us need to wear glasses these day... I wonder if most animals suffer the equivelent proportions of bad eyesight within their species?
Now I'm not against helping out the sick and weak whatsoever. Though we are animals we have the opportunity to be better than animals (note I say opportunity, it is not a freebie, gotta work for it). But I still if we are going to fight evolution, we should use whatever backdoor we can find to strengthen us as a species.
Let's just hope we don't make ourselves genetically similar enough to let a single flu bug wipe us out later
Speeding up Evolution? Right... (Score:2, Funny)
I knew it! (Score:2)
Re: Speeding Up Evolution (Score:3, Insightful)
Evolution is a powerful but imperfect engine. It's great at solving specific problems, but it comes with strange side effects, always, such as the human body's tendency to store fat. Overweight? Blame evolution for your outdated software. Compounding the problem is that evolved systems are difficult to understand, because evolution uses the whole environment to form solutions. Therefore, we won't fully understand our own genetics for a while. Our bodies are evolved with forces present that we can't even see.
Sure, it's nice to tinker. Genetic research is inevitable and really not too far off from selective breeding that we do in life and with lifestock and plants. But there's a difference between using evolution and altering genes. Altering genes does not "speed up evolution". Gene therapy changes evolved code, and we have no idea what the results might be. Fix one thing, and you get a new problem. We will end up chasing windwills in search of the "perfect" body, or we will end up with specifically suited bodies -- people who can live well in zero g; people who can run fast; people who live long.
And seriously, it's all fun and games until Khan strands you in the middle of an astroid.
KKHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
Speeding up getting cancer (Score:3, Insightful)
While undoubtedly, all these growth factors will give benefits, like all substances, they have wonderful side effects. IGF has been linked to many types of cancer (although the mechanism is not understood) HGH will cause acromegaly and possibly (reading off the list of adverse reactions to Humatrope) leukemia, intracranial hemorrhage, and pancreatitis. And don't forget that, as mentioned in the article, the whole purpose of these factors is to promote cell division. And while cell division results in growth, it also increases the chances that some random error will occur and create an initiating mutation, eventually leading to malignancy.
Good luck with winning the Olympic gold medal when your body is riddled with sarcoma and you're getting chemo and radiation.
star trek... (Score:3, Interesting)
Didn't they start out as 'super humans' and end up hating us 'none superhumans' and want to take over the world, cause they were better?
Yeah it was science fiction, but the point to science fiction is often to teach us lessons, and in this case the lesson is, just becuase we can do this doesn't mean we should.
Re:And where.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And where.. (Score:5, Funny)
(checking).....(done)
Well, I've got a very high potential of increasing penis and breast size. And if I act now, I'll get double the 'supplements'.
Re:Godwin's Law in 3...2...1... (Score:2, Insightful)
Guess this is the end of the discussion, huh? heh.
Re:Eugenics (Score:2)
It wont fly in the U.S. because of the religous folk.
It won't fly, because everyone who goes to Wal-Mart would have to get sterilised. You'd depopulate the country.