Scientists Modify Organism With Artificial Amino Acid 149
IndigoDarkwolf writes "The Beeb reports that biologists Sebastian Greiss and Jason Chin have genetically modified a multicellular organism (Caenorhabditis elegans, a tiny worm) to combine an amino acid not found in nature into a custom-built protein. The protein created by their genetically-modified worm contained a dye which glows when exposed to UV light. While previous work showed that genetic modification could incorporate non-natural amino acids into custom proteins for single-celled organisms, this is the first time an entire animal has been modified."
Adruino Worm anyone? (Score:1)
So... bets on how many years until we have enthusiast programmable critters? :)
Re:Adruino Worm anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Prior art? (Score:1)
How is this different from those glowing Chineese pigs or those neon tetras with unnatural colors that are illegal in California?
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How is this different from those glowing Chineese pigs or those neon tetras with unnatural colors that are illegal in California?
Those involved taking a gene that created a naturally created protein using naturally occurring amino acids and then injected them, frankenstein style into another animal. These take an artificially modified gene that uses an artificial amino acid to create worms that glow. Did you read TFS?
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I read it but I failed to comprehend it. Thank you for helping. (thanks to the other posts below helping clarify this for me as well)
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Please read the book before referencing Frankenstein, you sound like an idiot.
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Car analogy: Swapping the suspension from another car onto your own vs. machining your own suspension from scratch to a design not used on any other car.
Re:Prior art? (Score:5, Informative)
Being able to incorporate fluorescent amino acids into a protein -looks- pretty striking, but people have been able to get cells to attach a fluorescent protein onto other proteins for years. The fluorescence here was just an easy assay to tell if they had gotten the c elegans to use a different, entirely artificial building block. Fluorescent amino acids may turn out to be the biggest use for this discovery, but the real story here is that we have a new tool, not that the tool can be used to make organisms glow.
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It's the "amino acid not found in nature" that's the story here, not the "dye which glows when exposed to UV light".
They've modified the DNA of a multi-celluar organism to produce a non-natural amino acid. It's been done before, yes, but only in single-celled organisms. The sequence is
1) Take a fluorescing protein
2) Modify the protein so it only glows when contains_custom_amino_acid == TRUE.
3) Insert protein sequence in DNA
4) PROFIT!
The glowing pigs, cats, dogs, and fish omit step #2.
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I'm a little uneasy about this (Score:1)
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I don't mean like haha, "I, for one, welcome our new C. elegans overlords" or tagging the story with whatcouldpossiblygowrong. I mean The Stand. Could somebody with a reasonable knowledge of GM organisms please offer some reassurance that this technique couldn't backfire in some disastrous way?
IAABIT (I am a biologist in training) and based on my knowledge, there's honestly nothing to worry about for this, because it is fundamentally a chemical change. You're gaining the ability to use amino acids other than the 20 that naturally exist, but at that low of a level all that you're gaining is more biochemical versatility. You're going to have to go much higher in terms of complexity and organization before you get something that could potentially pose a danger or what not.
It's sort of like changing
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Suppose an alga with a gene containing an "unnatural" aminoacid escapes the enclosure and start multiplying (thus producing more of that unnatural aminoacid). What would happen to organisms that feed on that algae? Or just... I don't know... inhale it in the act of respiration?
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Nothing much. I'm recalling from HS biology a good 15 years ago, but here's what I remember: In case of animals with intestines, the amino acids would likely be transported into the absorptive cells in the lining of small intestine. I don't think that the transport mechanism is very selective. Once there, they get reexported into the bloodstream. Assuming that the presence of that new amino acid doesn't somehow destroy the absorptive cells in your gut, you're OK up to this point.
Then the amino acids can be
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Woah there!
Your second phrase requires an organism significantly different to the one described in your first phrase.
Specifically you are assuming that the use of a novel amino acid (or any other particular molecule) necessarily implies that that organism has the entire set of biochemical pathways and control genetics to manufacture that molecule fro
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IMHO, yes.
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I mean The Stand. Could somebody with a reasonable knowledge of GM organisms please offer some reassurance that this technique couldn't backfire in some disastrous way?
Well, c.elegans doesn't cause disease, they eat bacteria. They are also far, far, far too macroscopic to be airborne even if they were to suddenly take a liking to human flesh.
As far as assurances that this technique couldn't backfire, there are nearly infinite ways that absolutely anything could backfire if you don't look at probability. Turning on your car could backfire in that the engine might explode due to a defect, could explode due to some quirk of quantum physics, could produce through the bur
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Well, let's say these engineered worms escape into the environment. 1) the paper does not show whether the changes they made to the worm's genome are heritable, so the worm's offspring might not be able to incorporate the unnatural amino acids and the trait might go away after the escaped engineered worms die. Even if the trait is heritable, the paper suggests that the gene cassette they engineered into the worm gets lost from the genome over time, so after a few generations, the trait would likely be los
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But Dr Chin says any artificial amino acid could be chosen to produce specific new properties. Dr de Bono suggests the approach could now be used to introduce into organisms designer proteins that could be controlled by light.
On the "bright side" - some designer CART-s [wikipedia.org] activated by shining a laser [slashdot.org] inside the ear?
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Your post reminds me of the DoomSayers wailing about the imminent demise of humanity when the tech for test-tube babies was being developed way back when.
I'm not saying don't be concerned about disasters, but geez, there are other things to worry about in this sad world of ours.
Does this http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/antiviral-0810.html [mit.edu] also fill you with dread?
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It can't backfire in a disastrous 'the stand' way.
You want specifics? can't really do that in a /. post. so read up o the science. The actual science, not random returns from a google search.
Does This Present a Dilemma? (Score:4, Interesting)
So far in the Genetically Modified Foods debate, I've been arguing that, since the genes spliced into GMOs are genes that already exist in nature, GMOs really aren't the nightmarish cancer-causing foodstuffs people make them out to be and that GM foods are the only way we're going to support a population of 7 billion people on this planet just as nitrogen-fixing fertilizer caused a green revolution that allows us to support our current population size.
So what happens when we start splicing genes into organisms that don't exist in nature? When companies start wanting to work this stuff into our food, and the FDA and courts roll over to allow it unquestioningly, then I think I might start to side with the anti GM Food people. This could be a second green revolution, but with America gutting its science programs, there will be no one to make sure this stuff doesn't have horrible health repercussions.
Re:Does This Present a Dilemma? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, creating engineered novel protiens and biomechanics could open the doors to a whole range of "Very very cool" things.
Take for instance, slime molds modified to produce long chain carbon nanofiber as they crawl along, or plants able to extract energy from a wider frequency band than is currently possible with photosynthesis (Or even to do so more efficiently.)
Simply because the substance is artifically engineered does not necessarily mean it is going to cause problems. (and if it does, it will just spark a flash of evolutionary progression in impacted species, much like antibiotics have done for microbes.)
I can see this being used in foodstuffs, especially where Monsanto is involved, but where I see this really shining is in materials science. Microbes are the most efficient nano-machines in existence. Being able to custom program them to make novel substances and materials is a fundemental leap on technology.
Re:Does This Present a Dilemma? (Why yes it does.) (Score:1)
(and if it does, it will just spark a flash of evolutionary progression in impacted species, much like antibiotics have done for microbes.)
This seems like a good time to point out that one way of "sparking" evolutionary progression is killing off 95% of a population. Given the likelihood of homo sapiens counting among the "impacted species," I'd have to ask you if you like your odds?
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This seems like a good time to point out that one way of "sparking" evolutionary progression is killing off 95% of a population. Given the likelihood of homo sapiens counting among the "impacted species," I'd have to ask you if you like your odds?
The odds of us going extinct is 100%. The only question is how and when. The odds of some GM food introducing a fatal bit of DNA into the wild and causing our deaths is negligible at best. We are far more likely to kill ourselves simply by continuing our current consumption rates and mining out vital ecosystems.
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"or plants able to extract energy from a wider frequency band than is currently possible with photosynthesis (Or even to do so more efficiently.)"
This sounds a bit bonkers, not entirely, but still. Presumably, if a wider frequency band was beneficial for growth, plants would have evolved that trait many million years ago?
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Evolution favors local optima, not general optima.
Photosynthetic lifeforms use either anthrocyanins, or chlorophylls. (Or both)
Each reacts to a different band of energy. Chloropyll reacts predominantly to yellow and red light, but totally ignores other kinds of light, like UV, or blue light. (Chlorophyll does faintly flouresce under uv light, but does not use it for photosynthesis).
Making plantlife that can absorb even just the whole of the visible spectrun (which would make them black instead of green) w
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What if the evolution had found a local maxima in terms of frequency band usage? If changing a _whole bunch_ of genes at a time caused the ability to "extract energy from a wider frequency band than is currently possible with photosynthesis", but only changing one or a few at a time was worse than the existing plants?
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We save energy by not needing the little light in the fridge.
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Rimshot!
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So far in the Genetically Modified Foods debate, I've been arguing that, since the genes spliced into GMOs are genes that already exist in nature, GMOs really aren't the nightmarish cancer-causing foodstuffs people make them out to be
The problem with that line of reasoning is that we've had hundreds of thousands of years to figure out what plants are safe to eat. When you mix-and-match genes, be they totally artificial or transplants from other species, you don't know what the outcome will be. It's entirely possible that this brand new combination will produce un-expected side-effects.
Obvious side-effects like producing massive quantities of arsenic will get noticed before it ever leaves the lab. But something more subtle that doesn'
Re:Does This Present a Dilemma? (Score:5, Insightful)
Boo fucking Hoo. Some people might possibly have health problems we can't foresee in ten years is your reasoning to stop the advancement of biology and nutrition science? I am so sick of the whole "we can't do anything that might possibly be dangerous" attitude. Shit Happens. People Die. Live with it (or don't, if you're one of the unlucky few). If you want to live in an absolutely safe environment your local mental institution has a nice padded cell for you. Out here in the real world us human beings have to take risks to get anywhere in life.
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Boo fucking Hoo. Some people might possibly have health problems we can't foresee in ten years is your reasoning to stop the advancement of biology and nutrition science
So, let me get this straight. A million people die of cancer 15 years down the road because of an unintended side-effect of say, GMO corn, and you think that's no big deal?
Out here in the real world us human beings have to take risks to get anywhere in life.
Yeah, why don't we do away with the FDA completely? Just put anything and everything on the market and let people decide on their own, amiright?
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Evert time I clap, a child dies from starvation[/bono], GMO crops have the potential to greatly increase food yields. I'd say the gain far outweighs the risk. That is only with the known benefits. That is the beauty of science, keep moving and you discover NEW good things to balance any new bad things. Stop moving and the best you can
Re:Does This Present a Dilemma? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying we shouldn't try to avoid it. By all means run the models and animal trials and don't approve anything for human trials that looks like it could kill tons of people. All I'm saying is if the science of today says it's safe, we should give it a chance. Especially if it's the sort of thing that's going to SAVE millions from starvation, but even if it's not! Accidents work both ways you know. Those guys goofing off making glowing pets might be the ones to stumble on a cure for those cancers you seem to be so worried about. You can't shut down a whole line of research just because your gut tells you it could be dangerous.
We should be encouraging creative thinking and new areas of development. We should also be encouraging basic rigor and safety protocols, of course, punishing those who act irresponsibly. But we can't punish those who honestly tried to safely make the world a better, more interesting, more awesome place, and ran into some unforeseeable consequences.
Imagine if Fleming had developed penicillin, started the antibiotic revolution saving countless lives, and then we discovered 20 years later that it caused anyone who had taken it to drop dead suddenly years down the line. Should we have lynched him for giving those people who probably would have died of infection 20 more years of happy healthy life? When the science of the day had NO WAY of knowing that would happen?
Should we test every new drug and GMO food by giving it to a small sample of people and locking them in a bubble for the rest of their natural life to control the experiment and make sure nothing bad happens to them, just on the off chance it could kill millions even though there is no known mechanism for it to do that? Even when NOT releasing it means millions of people will definitely die from starvation or disease?
My point is, sometimes, shit happens. Yes we should try to avoid it where possible, but not to the extent that we never learn anything new, such as WHY shit happens and how to prevent it.
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SO it's OK to let million of people die today for some highly improbably risk?
"Yeah, why don't we do away with the FDA completely? Just put anything and everything on the market and let people decide on their own, amiright?"
See, right there. Clearly you have no argument and are working with pure ignorant emotions. DO you know why I'm not worried? Controls, knowledge, benefits.
Yeah, take all the controls away then I would be concerned. But that's not what happens.
"...should demean themselves as good citizens
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DO you know why I'm not worried? Controls,
What controls? Like the 90 days of testing Monsanto did on their gmo corn? Or the zero days of testing that the FDA requires for new gmo foods? Or the lone(!) human feeding study of gmo foods? Or how about the zero epidemiological studies of general gmo food consumption?
I got into this argument for one reason -- to show that the "it's natural so it must be safe" argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny. But after seeing the massive fanboism here you all have caused me to do just the barest minimum of res
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GMOs, on the other hand, are tested for health effects when they're made.
Furthermore, when you modify a strain of crops, you only are trying to modify it a little. When you use artificial selection to
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The problem with your analysis is that you've picked an arbitrary criteria - the quantity of different metabolites. That criteria says nothing about the quality of the metabolites.
I'm not an expert, but I think it does actually. The lecture on the subject that I saw, the conclusion was that aside from the metabolite or metabolites that were intentionally changed with the genetic modifications, the GMO potatoes were nearly identical to the potato lines they were derived from. Between "natural" strains, on the other hand, there were hundreds or thousands of differences.
I see no reason to assume that the small number of metabolites changed with GMO would be the toxic ones. Seems
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I see no reason to assume that the small number of metabolites changed with GMO would be the toxic ones.
No more reason to assume that the small number of metabolites changed would not be the toxic ones. The fact is that a criteria that is just simply counting the changes does not say anything one way or the other about the nature of the changes. Its like saying this bucket of oranges is identical to that bucket of avocados because the number of fruits in each is the same.
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To go with your comparison, it's like a bucket of ten oranges and a bucket of 400 apples. Each fruit independently has a very slight chance of being poisoned. You're saying "Don't eat the bucket of oranges, they could be poiso
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You're missing my point: MORE METABOLITES ARE CHANGED WITH NATURAL METHODS.
No, I got it the first time. You believe that all metabolites are of equal risk, so the more difference there is, the higher the risk. Is that a fair restatement of your premise?
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Sure,
Good now you understand that I totally understood your argument from post 1.
You are wrong. Quality is what matters, not quantity. See my original example where the levels of single metabolite out of a thousand is all it takes to kill you. In other words, focusing on the numbers doesn't prove anything either way.
I think that neither one carries much risk, given that testing has been done in both cases.
I suggest you look into the kind of testing that gets done for GMO crops. All the GMO fanboism in this thread caused me to go looking. So far, what I've found is that testing is minimal. It loo
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It only takes one to kill you, sure, but traditionally farmers change thousands of them at a time. Now we're only changing a few of them. Fewer chances that a carcinogenic one is going to be increased. How is that less safe?
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It only takes one to kill you, sure, but traditionally farmers change thousands of them at a time. Now we're only changing a few of them. Fewer chances that a carcinogenic one is going to be increased. How is that less safe?
For one thing they were cross-breeding plants that were generally both human edible to begin with. The GMO guys are deliberately splicing together food crops with genes from non-food crops.
For another thing, traditionally farmers did their own crops, so one deadly mutant wasn't going to end up in the daily meals of hundreds of millions of people - good cross-breeds would still take decades to be widely adopted by other farmers as the new breed proved it self.
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In nature , plants and animals mix and match gene all the fucking time, and with no controls.
Now we can make changes with laser like precision, with controls and knowledge. That is better.
Tomorrow, nature could make a breed of carrot that sin't good to eat. In fact, it happens often, but they are weeded out through cultivation.
Just because it's man made, doesn't make it "unsafe"
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It's not even that unexpectable. When plants & animals have their genomes streamlined, and are designed to grow faster, one thing that's often removed is some of the vitamins traditionally made by the plant. This is often well known. (E.g., there are reports that the GM salmon being proposed are skimpy in some of the omega oils. Vital? No. Important? Yes.) But a real problem is that often a complete analysis isn't done, and we don't yet know what is needed to keep people healthy.
Now this wouldn'
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I've heard marvelous things about golden rice. The others I don't know about. I'd like to taste a "rainbow papaya". I have my doubts that it's taste would be up to that of a ripe Hawaiian papaya, but as I no longer live in Hawaii, I no longer taste those anyway. (The stuff you can buy in the stores here doesn't even seem to be the same fruit. And I mean the ones imported from Hawaii. The Mexican papaya are clearly quite different, but, if they were picked ripe, they might actually turn out to be edibl
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I'd like to taste a "rainbow papaya".
If you've eaten papaya from Hawaii anytime in the last decade or so you already have. Having never been to Hawaii I don't know how the taste of a shipped papaya compares to a fresh one but I doubt any difference can be attributed to the transgene...variety, freshness, time harvested, ect sure, but not the single extra protein, a viral coat protein likely to be present in higher quantity in non-GMO varieties.
Who holds the patents? Are the farmers allowed to harvest the seed for replanting?
I'm guessing the University of Hawaii, and IIRC, you can save the seeds of the Rainbow papaya. Go
Re:Does This Present a Dilemma? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it's a dilemma.
On the one hand, GM foods might pose a risk somewhere in the future, but lots of really smart people have been trying to quantify and identify what these risks might be, to no effect.
On the other hand, people are starving *now*. I'm all for safety, but can we eat first?
People are scared because in the past we've made mistakes. For example, DDT accumulates, and causes problems higher up in the food chain. On the other hand, DDT was not fatal, it was not an extinction-level event, we noticed the risks and stopped.
It's the future, we've learned a great deal, and we're being more careful. It's much less *likely* that we'll be making these types of mistakes overall. Mistakes will still be made, but that's inevitable whatever we do. When it happens, we'll identify the causes, change the conditions and move on.
I'm willing to allow the possibility that a percentage of the world's poor will have some as-yet-undiscovered problem (which may be an inconvenience or may be life-threatening) in exchange for reducing the immediate suffering of massive populations of people *now*.
It's a typical risk/reward tradeoff, something we make every day, such as driving a car. Take the path where the benefits outweigh the risks.
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This is, at least often, the problem. OTOH, it's also occasionally true that there *IS* a shortfall in production. But it's not generally clear that GMO foods would solve the problem.
E.G.: In northern India the farmers are depleting the water table faster that it is replenished. If they grew wheat instead of rice this would be less of a problem, as wheat requires a lot less water. What's actually being done is improvements in techniques for monitoring soil moisture, so they won't water quite as much.
St
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"DDT accumulates, and causes problems higher up in the food chain."
haha, there isn't any evidence of this, and the statements made in 'silent spring' were completely made up. As in they had NO scientific baking simply Speculation.
The thinning shell argument was a great case of confusing correlation with causation. I could just as easily say the thinning was cause bad leaded fuel. actually that's more plausible, but still its just speculation. That said 'Silent Spring' never argues for the ban of DDT, just i
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Today's genes 'that don't exist in nature' are tomorrow's genes that do. Organisms naturally acquire new genes and new gene combinations; hence, evolution. I don't see why we would trust random cosmic radiation with unknowable mutagenic capacity more than we would trust the carefully tested and purposeful work of dedicated scientists. Nor is it really relevant to its biological effects whether a new protein comes from a lab or a paramecium--it's going to be equally alien to our anatomy either way.
All in
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With E. coli, introducing the extra amino acid doesn't usually confer an advantage because
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Well, considering the green revolution and GMO foods have already given us the soy and corn based diet that is slowly fattening us up and then killing us (due to all the diseases related to either obesity or increased inflammation), I kind of feel like maybe we're already in deep enough shit. Fucking around with our food at a fundamental chemical level seems like a whole new level of wtf. Then again, people gotta eat. I don't know what the solution is, other than buy less useless shit from Wal Mart and spen
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"given us the soy and corn based diet that is slowly fattening us up and then killing u"
no it's not, stop being stupid.
Corn and soy is fine. Putting to many calories in your mouth is the problem.
" Fucking around with our food at a fundamental chemical level seems like a whole new level of wtf."
No it's not. If you think what we do is crazy, you should study on what nature does. It's mixing and maxing cross species gene all the fucking time.
But no, be alarmist and ignorant.
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So, just to be sure I understand, your argument is "nuh uh!"
Well shit, I'm convinced. Thanks for setting me straight.
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I'd worry about the opposite effect of America gutting the science programs: that you have uneducated masses of pitchfork-wielding idiots who live in the 21st century and have about as much knowledge about the world as the medieval peasants had. And they go to the polls and vote.
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Basically your fear starts where you knowledge drops off.
Any horrible repercussion will need to be so dramatic, it will be noticeable wright away.
"The technique, they say, could give biologists "atom-by-atom control" over the molecules in living organisms.
That means control and testing will be easier and and better.
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I *am* opposed ot GM foods, but largely because of patent law. Most of the technical problems encountered so have easy technical solutions. Legal problems are something else. The laws might have been specially designed to allow corporations to commit any evil they choose and escape from paying for the damage caused. This coupled with patent laws causes me to be strongly opposed to GM foods, and to many other GM products.
What's with the glowing? (Score:2)
Seriously. Every time I hear about genes being crammed into some other species or amino acids being pushed where they "don't belong", something starts glowing. What's the deal with glowies, did they play too much WoW and now thing only if it glows it's epic or what?
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Basically this. Glowing is one of the most easily measurable markers, without the need for any fancy tools or followup experimental procedures other than perhaps your fluorescent microscope (the other would probably be viability, but that kills the organism which you may not actually want). There's a reason green fluorescent protein won the chem Nobel prize a few years back.
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They want a demonstration of their result that has visual impact.
Glowing for tracing (Score:2)
Seriously. Every time I hear about genes being crammed into some other species or amino acids being pushed where they "don't belong", something starts glowing. What's the deal with glowies, did they play too much WoW and now thing only if it glows it's epic or what?
Glowing is a way for scientists to monitor gene expression. You can't really watch it on its own, so you incorporate the gene you are working with with a fluorescent protein. Then the gene you are interested in will be expressed with the fluorescent protein, allowing you to see when and where your gene is being expressed.
That also gives you a way to monitor the noise of the system; if you are trying to deploy something with good control but your critter glows green all the time, you need to adjust so
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Ugh... now I have that mental image of a gay porn looking like a scene from Star Wars stuck in my head.
So this is where the zombie virus comes from (Score:2)
I was wondering how the virus was going to get developed. Now we know.
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Good news! When the come and eat your brain you will experience no loss what so ever.
Am I the only one.... (Score:2)
...who read 'orgasm' instead of 'organism'?
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Came here to say this.
So you're not the only one. There are at least two sick bastages.
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HIV Research (Score:1)
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Patents anyone? (Score:2)
Yes, lets create proteins that won't break down (Score:2)
..because no bacteria will be able to process the new amino acid. I'm sure if these build up in the enviroment there couldn't possibly be any problems. Oh no.
how long before (Score:2)
How long before we get that cool black goo from spiderman 3?
I could use some of that!
Proof of creation (Score:1)
Proof that it is possible for a higher life form to create/edit/delete a lessor life form.
Also proof of synthetic humanoids in the future.
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Troll.
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Hey I first read the title as "Scientists Modify Orgasm With Artificial Amino Acid.
How disappointed am I?
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Chemistry is clean, is nice, will offer us so many modern conveniences! Now, decades later, our best minds are all saying, "Wow, we didn't think of that."
What crap. Whilst there may be side effects of long term build up of chemicals that are discovered after they are in use, it does not mean that we should forsake all chemicals "just in case". And it is not as if scientists do not put a lot of effort into determining the safety of chemicals. They will never have a 100% success rate, but benefits do outweigh the risks.
Cancer and heart disease of the big killers now, and not just of old people, but children too. Life expectancy for adults has not gone up drastically in the last two centuries, and most of that is due to sanitation and hygiene.
Cancer and heart disease were big killers in the past too, but we didn't understand them. A lot of things killed us in the past that we could n
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"but benefits do outweigh the risks."
The benefits to whom? The animals who's sexuallity is being modified by oestrogen mimicing pthalate additives in plastic? What advantages are they getting from it exactly?
And somebody please call Fox Mulder! (Score:2)