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Learning About Genetic Engineering On The Net
Norm asks: "How does one use the WWW to learn about the current and future state of the human genome project, corporate research into potential genetic manipulation of humans, and human Genetic Engineering in general? This is a subject, that while touched upon in the news and exploited in popular culture (e.g., the film 'Gattaca'), does not receive the fact-based, in-depth coverage it deserves. Right now, we are facing a serious social, political and philosophical dilemma: what happens when those of us in our 20s-30s are in our 70s-80s, and the new generation of people are genetically enhanced super-humans? Ideas? Pointers?"
http://www.genesummary.nih.gov
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
personally, if genetic fascism meant we'd eradicate you from the gene pool, i'm all for it.
>Personally, while I share Dyson's optimism, long-term, I believe, with Sterling, that the short-term beneficiaries of any 'bio-revolutions' will be the old and the rich, with the acompanying resentment and political and social fallout that will bring. Um, DUH! EVERY new tech is taken advantage of by the monied first. Computers anyone? (notice the "fallout" from that)
the way our "advanced" children will treat us, may be similar to the way we treat our older generations.
think about how we are trying to weasle out of helping them through social security. Think about how we put them into old age homes because we do not want to deal with them. I am a 24 year old american, and i am deeply ashamed with the way my parents dealt with their parents getting old. It seems like most of the baby boomers are very bad at taking responsibilty for things, like their parents(they do not want it to interfere with their "career"). This is what we can probably look forward to. The genetically enhanced(depending on their intelligence) will probably try to seperate themselves from us. Or set us up in daycare/nursing homes.
what happens when those of us in our 20s-30s are in our 70s-80s, and the new generation of people are genetically enhanced super-humans? Ideas?
We outlaw and discriminate against and make them hide it, just like the doctor in "Star Trek, Deep Space 9."
(I must post this anonymously, but I wish I didn't have to.)
Those are very useful references, as is the PubMed link somewhere below this and the links to the Sanger Center (EBI) etc. However, the poster of the question appears to be concerned also with corporate research in this area, and surely there is no more important site in this regard than TIGR:The Institute for Genomic Research. This is the website of the largest, fastest sequencing factory in the world. It has good resources detailing the completed genomes of many organisms. TIGR is a private company that has beaten many of the "open" genome projects. They've been notably succesful at churning out sequences before largely government backed projects due to their capital investment that is banking on being able to make money from patenting sequence. They've pushed the envelope and stirred everyone up which is great, but they're also an example of a privately funded "land grab" that may impoverish the rest of us.
--Crush (posting as AC because I moderated)
--Snip-- Right now, we are facing a serious social, political and philosophical dilemma: what happens when those of us in our 20s-30s are in our 70s-80s, and the new generation of people are genetically enhanced super-humans? Ideas? Pointers?" --EndSnip-- I predict something like "Logan's Run". 8^) That's Darwin for ya. Since-beer-leekz, Mikey
Is that a comment on these articles, or your signature?
GMO DEBATE AT FARMPAGE.COM
from the nuffield foundation (UK):n dex.html
http://www.nuffield.org/bioethics/publication/i
and the pro (ish) GMO site http://www.foodfuture.org.uk
also try some of the transcripts from the BBC (panorama, and the soon to be published Horizon)
really you ought to do your own search, coz that's what I did.
psydii
Additionally Celera hasn't "beaten" the public effort except in their ability to issue press releases and it remains to be seen if they can assemble a final map without a BAC based mapped backbone to anchor it.
Still waiting for the fruitfly sequence celera announced was done in october...hrm, maybe they're having trouble putting it all together. And that's with a nicely mapped starting point they got by collaborating with berkeley
Anonymous Coward
We need more bullshit on this tpoic here.
http://www2.ucsc.edu/~bobb aq/anthro/med/medanthlinks.htm, you'll find info regarding genetics/genomics bioprospecting/biopiracy, bioethics and the many other issues of concern to medical anthropologists. of particular interest to researchers is the list of course syllabi in which you'll find many bibliographic sources and book lists. the following is a clipping of the "source code."
Genomic (and anti-genomics) Links [To Top]
Mapping the Icelandic Genome. "An Anthropology of the scientific, political, economic, religious, and ethical issues surrounding the deCode Project and its global implications." Contains useful pointers.
Indigenous people's coalition against biopiracy.
The Human Genome Diversity Project as explained by Stanford Professor and posted on the U.N. website.
Various UN reports on the Genome question.
An Outline : Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) Background.
Cultural Survival has issue 20.2 (sum 1996) dedicated to 'Genes, People, and Property' issues.
The archive for discover magazine. Nov. 1994 issue has a few articles about genome and diversity.
The gene letter. The Nov. 96 issue has an HGDP article.
High school lesson plan for teaching students about the HGDP.
"The Gene Wars: Science, Politics, and the Human Genome." An excellent book review with bibliography and online resources.
National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) has a Bibliography Page about the HGP.
Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) of the HGP.
The Human Genome Diversity Project: Scientific, Social and Ethical Issues .
A list of articles from Native-L mailing list, listing all articles related to HGDP posted to the list.
Six papers given at various genome-related conferences. Topics include:
*"Why Human Genetics is a Social Science"
* "Racism, Eugenics, and the Burdens of History"
* "Scientific and Folk Idea About Heredity"
* "The Spectrum of Human Variation"
* "The Human Germ-Plasm Project: Eugenics in the 1920s and the 1990s."
Native net letter to HGDP scientists.
Pilot Projects for a Human Genome Diversity Project - Special Competition.
Molecular Anthropology Symposium at Stanford.
Seeds of Destruction. A must read for anyone who eats french fries or is concerned with genetically modified crops.
Also see Patents and Jumpstations.
Comics [To Top]
Angels of Health/Medicine Cartoon by Quino. Here is another one of a dis-orderly girl.
Patent$ and Thing$ [To Top]
An Upside article discussing patents and its history. Very informative.
Gene Patents and Bioethics.
6,000 human gene patents sought in BBC News and also the Washington Post.
American Society of Human Genetics Position Paper on Patenting of Expressed Sequence Tags.
of course the list is continually updated, ... hope this helps, bobbaqATyouknowHOO
Your argument runs: I don't understand, therefore we don't understand, and we shouldn't be doing things that we don't understand... the obvious problem is that it is YOU who does not understand, not the scientists who are "on the front." So don't be a twit.
You fail to understand evolution, success in society is not a measure in this playing field. The only measure is having more children that survive to breed. Currently people that are sucessful in our society tend to have fewer children so in fact we are currently winnowing out the very factors that you believe in.
Most genetic alterations to people would not be inherited. If you repair the genes in the pancreas of a diabetic person, they could still have diabetic children. This is somatic cell mutagenesis and since it only affects one person the ethical implications are quite limited. On the other hand, if you do the repair in germ line tissue (sperm, eggs, embryo) the changes can be present in all descendents. The ethical considerations here are much more serious. (The Economist a few years ago had an article pointing out that somatic cell and germ line gene therapy are quite different.)
Finally, a good website!
Even after I pointed out to you multiple times that Don Knotts is dead, you still keep recycling this bullshit. Well, stop it. You're lucky the Knotts family doesn't read Slashdot. What in the world is the matter with you? Do you get some sort of psychosexual kick from pissing on the grave of a dead entertainer? Is there a reason to continually inundate Slashdot with such inanity? Knock it off, and grow up.
The clown will use the web to get information to genetically alter himself into a superclown. I don't stand a chance.
Well, personally i'm not worried about Genetic Engineering...
;-) Man-Computer Integration will be shortly after.
Why?
1) Because Nano-Technology will be ready for OUR generation, cleaning out our systems, keeping us toxin free
2) Because the ability to modify DNA on the run will become a reality, using similar technology to viruses, so We will benefit up front anywayz.
[ Rogue terrorists release Virus into public domain that increases brain compacity of population, Goverments terrified ]
3) Nutrition, and Advanced 'Diagnostic' Tools will enable the unmodified individual to maintain optimum health.
4) New cognitive research, will allow unmodified individuals to perform several times better than he can currently. Especially in realm of Memory performance, and general overal Brain Function.. The more we understand neural networks....
5) The only way to getting smarter, at the end of the day, is to USE YOUR BRAIN. sure, 'smart drugs' help the body run efficiently, but unless you PUSH yourself, you won't reap the potential benefits.
Geez, I didn't want to be a footballer anywayz.
Basic Tips to survival
1) Eat Healthily
2) Gym every now and then.
3) LEARN totally different skills then your are familiar with. Nerds, go learn music. Graphic Artists, learn to program, etc..
4) Keep reading on the public domain Nutrition.
The Collective We, WILL rengineer ourselves.
You will have the choice on WHAT path you take.
Not all paths will be expensive. ( congitive research, diagnostic nutrition )
Some will prove longer term benefitial that don't involve physical tampering.
eg., Put YOU in a Formula 1.
You couldn't handle the power to get down the street.
Put a Formula 1 driver in a avg car,
He'd beat you in Any equally matched vehicle!
And still be the much better driver.
;-)
Repeat mantra:
...NO SILVER BULLETS!
All we have to do is genetically engineer our superhuman
successors to be very nice and caring, and very
concerned about the wellfare of their predecessors. =^_^= . o O ( Obviously. )
The first thing I want to get rid of is genetic disease: I lost a good friend to Lupus (SLE, Systemic Lupus Erythematosis), I have gout and diabetes and I lost one parent and two grandparents to cancer. If we can get rid of autoimmune diseases and such horrifying conditions as Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, Huntington's Chorea and homozygous sickle cell anemia, which kills newborn children even today, you better believe I want a chance to edit the genomes of the sick and of carriers.
We have to be damned careful because a lot of problems may not show up for generations (think about how DES caused problems in the children of the mothers that took the drug but wasn't detected until those children hit adulthood) or may cause side-effects. But leaving it up to God takes too long and creates too much pain and death in the meantime. Sorry, this is a technology that can't come soon enough for me.
>And what's new for most of the readers of
>slashdot, eh? YOU remember being hazed by the
>Jocks, the socialite cliques,
Nope.
Sorry.
well, the question was in regards to human genome project and that's the public effort I referred to
As regards smaller genomes, yes the shotgun approach will work great, in genomes like arabidopsis that lack repetitive sequences it's obviously the quickest way to get there. But in human (and other primates) there's big problems with
a)
repeats, sequence that's nearly identical and appears over and over again. In the chromosome I specialize in that constitutes about 39% of the total!
b)
repetitive genes, while this is a smaller problem, it's a much more intractable problem. The repetitive sequence is by and large known and can be screened out, but what we've found also large (10kb +)genes that are in different places (as determined by FISH(Fluourecent in Situ Hybridization) yet are exactly the same sequences
since the clones celera sequences are on average 3kb?(not sure but I think that's a good guess) they're going to have a devil of a time trying to make sense of these regions.
in short, bugs yes celera will kick ass
higher organisms, celera will bog down until they start a mapping program (which given their stock valuation they can well afford, but they haven't got one yet, plus mapping is slow)
Anonymous Coward
Someday I'll try and read through my employers vast labyrinth of policies to see if I can quit being an AC:)
what happens when those of us in our 20s-30s are in our 70s-80s, and the new generation of people are genetically enhanced super-humans? Ideas? Pointers?
The obvious of course: "Damn youngsters, no respect for the elderly! They have it all so easy! Genetic schenetic. Bah! We're all going to hell! When I was young..." ad nauseum.
Anyhow, when I'm 70 it will be almost 2050. By then I expect to be able take a trip to the Moon. That's fine for me. If I have to watch a couple of perfect genetically enhanced superchicks on the way there, I won't object. It's the future, so why worry about it!
http://cnn.com/2000/WORLD/technology/genome/i ndex.html
the content will be manipulated along with the container. --it's schowdeaar frenchie!
Don Knotts is NOT dead. I challenge you to post a url with his obit. That said, if he WERE dead, he'd be alive and well on slashdot. Suck it, you fucking loser.
I am surprised why this link hasn't made it to /. yet. collection of software for genetic database.(Any GPL?) http://www.microarrays.org/ build your own arrays! http://cmgm.stanford.edu/pbrown/mguide/
Everyone is always talking about man-made accomplishments, good and bad, and how things aren't natural.
Well, my friends, humanity is a part of nature. If humanity fucks themselves over by creating super-intelligent mutants, that's perfectly natural.
http://gslc.genetics.utah.edu/
additionally Celera hasn't "beaten" the public effort except in their ability to issue press releases
How about first complete archaebacterial genome? How about many complete microbial genomes before the international E.coli project was withing years of completion. Say what you like, they got there first.
Point taken on TIGR vs. Celera (what happened to Human Genome Sciences?), and also on the usefulness of the map. However, that latter point is not something that I'm at odds with in my first post. I totally agree that these people are exploiting shared resources built up by public institutions and researchers.
--Crush
Marketing 101. Build _buzz_.
This is because the critical issue is not at the level of the gene products, but the REGULATION OF EXPRESSION OF THOSE GENES ... find what's left that's conserved betwixt me and chimp, there you go, control regions wrapped up and ready for analysis.
BINGO!
This highlights a fallacy of many biotech companies that are busy finding genes and deluding themselves that they'll be able ot "improve" a gene easily. Altering a gene in situ is certain to be a costly and troublesome venture (think sickle cell) but controlling the control regions... ah, yes there's a workable path
finding control regions is simple, find the gene... mask it out
Expect to see some nice examples of this in Science by summer
Anonymous Coward
Who wishes his employer didn't have so damn much red tape it's impossible to know if public commentary is allowed
lets this post get moderated down to a -1.
I see some irony in this discussion, considering it's coming from geeks. Sure, we've been hearing about superior muscular strength, better looks, even the elimination of genetic diseases and improved immune systems. But one scary prospect is being overlooked: the prospect that governments and corporations might try to engineer mental and psychological traits. There've been recent debates about "nature vs. nurture", with conservatives and libertarians claiming that most behavioral traits are genetic (remember the furor over the "risk-taking gene"?). They're largely based on faulty science. But that won't stop those in power from spending huge sums of money trying to figure out how to make humans more susceptible to advertising, more obedient, less likely to protest and make trouble and less political -- i.e. less likely to become troublesome "tree huggers" and activists. They've never let biological reality get in the way of their plans before, so why should they now? I'm not certain what's scarier: what would happen if they succeed (unlikely, unless they just go for lower intelligence), or if they fail. What's going to happen to all the failed experiments who make it to the "beta release" stage who can't even work at Wal-Mart, if the experimenters get that far? Given the sheer complexity of the genetic component of human traits, the whole experiment may be doomed to failure. Even then, a *lot* of taxpayers' money will be blown. P.S.: The term "treehugger" comes from the heroic Chipko women's movement in India. Before you use it as an insult, you ought to learn its history.;-)
Friends of the Earth UK's site on Genetically modified Organisms
UK centric but most briefings have a full bibliography
There is evidence that the process of evolution is self-referal ie self-aware. Read Bateson's newly republished "Steps to an Ecology of Mind". This was introduced to me back in my days in grad school by a Comp. Science Professor. Seems a lot of ideas in this discussion are in need of re-examination.
a song motherfucker.
i work with a collective of activist folk on the biotechnology action network (ban) website. the ban site reports on current developments in biotechnology (from a social/political/ecological) standpoint with a focus on the direct action that activists are using to fight companies like monsanto. we cover the national and international movement with special attention paid to actions such as crop pulling. http://tao.ca/~ban hope this is useful denny at denny@tao.ca
There are, unfortunately, more examples. I fear that we will likely play with this proverbial fire and burn ourselves. I hope it doesn't kill us.
Most of the sequencing has been done by academic
groups which puts all of the sequences on the
net. Outside of a billion CGTAs around,
its going to take a few decades to figure
them out. I believe there a dozen fully
sequence species out there- all single cells,
except for a worm and a plant.
Dozens more are being sequenced, with two mammals
to come on line within a year or two (human, mouse).
Not all that far off.
Genetic chemistry projects are fairly routine
at high school science fairs.
OK, I'll admit that there are a good number of technologies that started out peaceful and became violent, but atomic energy is not really one of them. Before the Manhattan Project got rolling, there was nearly no research being done on it at all, and it was really not nearly far along enough to do anything practical with it at all. They went straight to the Bomb, and only later did they turn it from a weapon of mass destruction into something to make electricity.
There are other examples of this. GPS and space travel come to mind.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
In 1995 I used to read alt.bio.hacking. It contained a lot of useful debate and info for non-geneticists. I remember reading there that if good genes could be copyrighted, then a couple might get sued for copyright infringement just by having a healthy baby, a meme that has accompanied me since then.
With the advent of the *Earn $$$!!!!* and *How do I hack my BIOS?* crowds, alt.bio.hacking languished and disappeared (at least from the Spanish feeds I read). I have not been able to find an archive (and my own one perished in the Big Disk Drive Meltdown of 1996). If anyone reading this knows where to find old alt.bio.hacking posts, I think they would be a valuable addition to this thread.
http://barrapunto.com/ - News for nerds, en español
What will happen if you have two largely polarized groups of people.. and then you bring them together suddenly? Any history book past page 20 will tell you a bad-ass "war to end all wars" style conflict will break out, there will be large casualties, and lots of pain and suffering because both sides think they're "right". There is no right in these situations.. only wrong. We have not evolved yet enough to dispense with physical violence as a tool to promote change...
And it's also unclear that we ever will. Violence may be the last resort of the incompetent but, as long as we have incompetents around, you had better be prepared to meet violence with violence or else there will only be incompetents left on the planet. Rational people usually can work their way around disagreements. The problem is that our current politico-judicial system encourages irrational behaviour by letting people believe that they can evade responsibility for their actions if they are operating under some disadvantage.
I'd just as soon we keep genetic engineering to the non-sentient lifeforms until we know more about it. I mean, the last thing we need is to engineer a "super" human which is not backwards-compatible with the current generation. Flip over to Star Trek TNG's story about how generically engineering an immune system to be "perfect" had the unfortunate side-effect of killing it's predecessors (namely, us) because of an unforseen variable: a normally harmless genetic virus for an example. I can think of more - science fiction is replete with these examples. I would say to anyone thinking seriously about this issue to spend some time at the library.. and some time in a movie theatre.
Sorry but your appeal to authority is stretching my sense of disbelief to the snapping point when your "authority" is Star Trek. I mean when physicists talk about "Star-Trek physics", it's rarely with a positive tone. I remember when the infamous ST:TNG "Nanite" episode came out, the reaction in sci.nanotech was less than complimentary. I'm kind of reminded of a comment I read once from a scientist or science fiction author who said it was a bit surprising to find that a lot of the super-science they read in the 40's pulps as a kid was misleading or complete fantasy when they learned real science in school. Star Trek science is a little better researched so that it sounds more accurate, but sometimes it's no more based in truth than those 40's pulps. I think it was Robert J. Sawyer (or maybe Charles Sheffield) who said in a couple of his books' prologues that he bends some scientific facts to be able to present a better story. Star Trek often completely ignores the facts. It makes for a good story (well, at least with the original series) but its a pretty poor basis for a scientific argument.
And don't think for a minute that viruses won't take advantage of the host's "improved immume systems" - even if the new super-humans aren't hostile towards the existing generation we're still stuck with the problem of viruses which will more rapidly attack and infect people with less of an immune system (path of least resistance - plant a tree in a sunny spot, plant another in a dark spot, which one uses more of the soil's resources?)...
Huh? Are you implying the viruses will take advantage of bugs in the replacement "immune system"? It sounds like you are instead arguing that the presence of superhumans will mandate the existence of superbugs. I think this shows some misunderstanding of how resistance builds up in pathological organisms. Bacteria resistant to penicillin have evolved because penicillin was being prescribed for everything. People would demand antibiotic prescriptions from their doctors for viruses, or take old prescriptions whose potency had dropped. The same thing happened with spraying insecticide and other pest toxins. They went into the environment, got diluted, and the low toxicity levels allowed some pests to evolve a resistance though repeated exposure to low levels of the toxin. How can you compare this to a super-immune system? So the existing bugs will prefer to attack the people who are unmodified. Hey, that's the whole point of improving the immune system!!! It doesn't mean you're going to wind up with a super bug. You're more likely to get the modified humans to insist that if you get the immune system upgrade, that you get the full immune package, rather than a "budget" upgrade to prevent viruses from evolving a stepped response, first to the less effective system, and eventually to the full immune upgrade.
We are messing with things far above and beyond our comprehension. I hate to say it, but I very nearly side with the conservative elements in our society on this - this is a matter best left to God. For now, anyway. The other sciences have not caught up enough to have enough of a base of knowledge to anticipate what will happen if we start changing genes. Trial and error is NOT an option for human experimentation.
I think somebody else said it best. We are messing with things far beyond YOUR comprehension. If your understanding is based on Star Trek science, this isn't surprising. That said, I certainly agree there are big dangers to this research. But I think a problem is more likely to occur because some grad student is being seriously exploited by a prof, or some private researcher by his boss. It's pretty stupid to demand or expect ethical behaviour from researchers if they work in a system which fails to treat them ethically.
Sorry, but Sig11's response does not deserve the three karma points it currently has.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
like any good system admin we should plan well before making any configuration to the system. Trail and error is not an option for experimenting with humans (stole that one from another post). what if we modify our genome and somehow end up like some zombie race like the borg? and try to completely assimulate others because we think that the modify version of humans are better than the old version.
and how do you define what is human? would future generations see themselves as superior to humans? will we see the extinction of humans and from the ashes a new breed of intelligent creatures?
there will of course be non stop religious debate over the use of this technology. stuff like "if we modify ourselves we will be messing with the devine image of god" or something like that. but soon enough people will start accepting the use of this technolgy.
will any of the "super humans" have psychological effects from being severed from their race? would they wonder about what they would of been if they were not breed to be good at a particular task? will geniuses still be admired for their talents or will they be used for experimentation to impove the techniques for increasing intelliect?
it's interesting that a slashdot reader asking to be enlightened about the facts of genetic-engineering ended up getting nothing but philosophical ideas about the future. i guess not much people on slashdot knows about biology. if anybody knows the techniques used for genetic research and ideas about HOW modifying genes is done i'd like to hear it.
By far the most clueful work on the future of human genetic engineering is that of Gregory Stock at UCLA Medical, who organized the first "Engineering the Human Germline Symposium".
http://www.ess.ucla.edu/huge/gregory.html
http://www.ess.ucla.edu/huge/report.html
Greg also gives insightful interviews and talks on what is really coming, and when, which in his opinion is soon. Doing a search on his name will bring up a list of these. He also wrote an sf book, "Metaman: The Merging of Humans and Machines into a Global Superorganism". He is one of those rare people who can both interact highly successfully with mainstream science and also communicate well with the public.
Sorry, that's my roommate. I laugh at his stupidty. In a tribute to his pea brain, I will forever use the sig:
I don't know exactly what that means, but I'm sure it means something...
-John
I eat dog. Free DVDs. Horray!
Please, moderators, verify this before you mark it down. He may be right (In fact, the post was well worded enough so that there's a good chance of it)
/. responce.
He/She did not include a link, so there's no harm in leaving his comment open to debate right now.
I'm just afriad of knee-jerk moderation.
A) Browse at -1 when moderating
B) Moderate up more than down.
C) Comments which are critical of common slashdot views are often more valuable to the discussion than the standard
I wish I was a moderator right now so I could return his comment to the standard discussion.
I eat dog. Free DVDs. Horray!
I was not able to find any information on an possible affiation microsoft has with the Human Genome project. I searched Microsoft, Google, and a human genome site.
I eat dog. Free DVDs. Horray!
"How does one use the WWW to learn about the current and future state of the human genome project"
http://www.google.com/search?q=Hu man+Genome+Project would seem like a good place to start. Where have you tried?
Without wishing to sound like an old fart from comp.lang.c++, it is hard to answer such a vague question. What do you want to know? Where have you looked? What have you found so far?
This is an important area, clouded with difficult legal issues and sparkling with neat science (keep mixing those metaphors), but there are a lot of resources out there for study. Go and do some research. Then tell us what you think. Then we'll discuss it.
Codon Usage Database
DNA is encoded as a series of nucleotides (G,A,T,C), but interpereted in groups of three, called "codons." This is a database of the frequencies of all 4^3 combinations for various species.
Info on Blast and FastA
We can also compare the genomes of various species to see how similar they are. The above link is a short description of how two of the major programs work, BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) and FastA (not an acroynm). There's some theoretical background on genome sequence comparison on Dr. Just's page.
If you want use BLAST to search for for things with similar genomes, just grab your favorite chunk of DNA and take it on down to the BLAST homepage at the NCBI, and let it search for chunks of DNA that are similar.
Don't know any gene sequences for you favorite organism? Then head to NCBI and type its scientific name into the "Search GenBank" box at the top.
If you're tired of this computer stuff, learn how actual DNA is scanned onto microarrays for analysis. Or, better yet, learn to build your own!
(And to think I was browsing Slashdot because I wanted to take a break from studying this.)
Genetic engineering? GMO's?
Greenpeace site about genetic engineering
"Terminator seeds(tm)", anyone?
1a)Super bugs, bugs that evolve and can withstand no matter what you throw at them and can live in extreme locations. Affects and termination of none targeted insects such as butterflies and bees(the ones that pollinate...) 1b)Mass toxic ground leakage, the toxins in large amount leak into the ground making the soil unuseable
2)There is almost Zer0 regulation on this stuff and no long term testing.
3)Hyper plants cross pollonate with an oragnic farmers crop. Later on scientists find the hyper plant is bad but it is to late and has spread to all crops.
In the FAR future....
4)Gen-foods evolves into nano-bot technologie 4a)terrorists hack the nano-bots to kill crops and get into your intestional tract and...
Ahh I almost sound like a tree hugger, just some thoughts I have been pondering about this topic lately but there is one thing to remeber "You are what you eat"
-Kris
Uh, have you even tried to use a search engine?
Try clicking here here.
-p.
Natural selection is not based on what the species want, it is based on what the species needs for optimum long term breeding. Using contraception is in some ways just as arrogant as genetic engineering. Sex was made fun and very desirable to make us breed, yet we put on a condom or take the pill, and play. DNA does not care about the individual, just spreading the genes, we are just the vessel.
We as both a species and as individuals, have different goals to natural selection.
Natural selection would have us breeding until we killed the planet (as would the pope for that matter!).
We have evolved to take control. That is our evolutionary 'gift', we are the toolmaker. IMHO, all our technology and uses of it are natural, as we have evolved naturally to be like this.
---
Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.
-George Gordon Noel Byron (1788-1824), [Lord Byron]
As to genetically enhanced superbeings, I think it's kind of inevitable, and I really don't know how it can be avoided. Even if the USA banned such things as "immoral," the US is not the world. Other nations--China springs prominently to mind--may have other ideas. And I personally have no problems at all with the idea of improving the human race by jacking up physical strength/intelligence to the optimum levels while adding an open-ended life span on to boot. This IMOHO would be an overall boon to humanity, though as with most solutions to problems it will likely come with it's own set of unforeseen drawbacks.
We proudly watch them, and wish them the best... They will after all be OUR children!
Damn, I don't have time to hunt down the links right now, but maybe somebody will read this and add them. But there are at least 2 companies in the US that are working on proto-types for a commercial vehicle that would fit the description of many sci-fi 'flying cars'. From what I have seen, the technology (and cost) is not the big roadblock, it's the regulation of who will be able to own/operate one and where.
LRJ
What is the worst possible outcome of a technology and what are the best possible results attainable?
Well, is the possible annihilation of mankind as we know it, a bad thing?
LRJ
Natural selection would have us breeding until the natural balance of things was too far out of wack and then 'Nature' would create something to either wipe out a large portion of our population (like the plague) or decrease the amount of our breeding. It has been only the last 150-200 years that (since the advent of modern medicine, and when man decided he could [and should?] fix all the ills of the world) that human over-population has ever been an issue.
LRJ
We can start be removing genetic diseases. That's something pretty straightforward and few would object. But "won't get sick" isn't quite "superhuman".
I, for one, would (and do) object to the removal of genetic diseases. How can you say that not getting sick is not 'superhuman'? How many people have you known in your lifetime that never got sick? Probably zero.
Sorry folks, but when it comes down to it, all living things on this planet (and any others) are part of the food-chain somewhere - we are all meant to die, some of us earlier than others. When will we realize that death is part of the process of life and by prolonging life we are really doing more harm to ourselves as a species, than good? My fear is we won't until it's too late =(
LRJ
Ever think this is Natual Selection telling us we've gotten too smart for our own good?
LRJ
It is a bunch of interdependent traits that have been optimized by evolution for a certain environment.
Uh-oh. You mentioned the "E" word. I predict a horde of wacko creationists to come swarming down on this topic... :/
"E" word or "C" word, it's a valid point. That sentence could be rewritten to read, "It is a bunch of interdependent traits that have been optimized by the Creator for a certain environment." and it holds the same underlying meaning.
Prehensile dreadlocks
Retractible claws / fangs(?)
Phosphorescent teeth
Opposable toes
Camo Skin
Nocturnal Vision
Hollow Bones
Wingflaps (like flying squirrels)
Adrenaline control
Dislocating Jaw
Gills
Photographic Memory
Yoga Fire
Genetic engineering has a lot of good intentions, especially with medicinal uses. But this isn't the only use. There's also a great propensity for things like genetic enhancements and irreparable mistakes.
Genetic enhancements don't seem bad at first glance, because it would be very cool to increase your child's IQ or height by just changing a few codons around. But this has consequences that society might not be able to deal with. First, it has the potential for stratifying society. Affluents will have great opportunity to get these enhancements whereas the impoverished will have very little chance. As a result, we get a soceity where the rich not only have more money, but also can be smarter, stronger, better looking, etc. This creates a bad standard for society if we want to still adhere to principles of equality or equal opportunity. But secondly, social coercion becomes factor when some people start using genetic engineering. It'll become harder and harder for individuals to compete with those who are enhanced genetically. This, in turn, pressures parents to use genetic engineering on their children if they want to give them a fighting chance to survive in today's competitive society.
Of course, things like social stratification and social coerion aren't unique to genetic engineering at all. But there's no other technology that actually changes the people themselves in such a way that it passes down one's genetic legacy. This actually creates another problem with genetic engineering-- the possibility of damaging the human gene pool.
Once society starts eliminating all of the "bad" genes, genetic variety is drastically reduced. It sounds nice to be able to have a society without genes that cause cancer or cystic fibrosis, but the elimination of these genes can have negative effects. Without the sickle-cell anemia gene, individuals lose resistance to malaria. Likewise, the heterozygous trait for cystic fibrosis provides immunity to typhoid fever. Granted, genetic engineering could always put these genes back in with gene machines and gene splicing. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho wrote that "correct attempts at gene therapy are uniformly unsuccessful and are already posing unacceptable hazards for patients. At least 22 new germ-line mutations arise in each person [during germ-line therapy]." This might not be something we want to risk.
If we want to weigh the abuse and the intended purpose of genetic engineering, we should look at the consequences of both. Regardless of the way we use genetic engineering, there will be repercussions that we'll have to live with.
Everything I've worked with in the past year has been full of tradeoffs.
Every science has limits that lead back conservation principles.
Some examples:
Cache RAM: associativity
If assoc goes up hit time goes down miss penalty goes up.
Classic time vs space: The faster the program the the bigger the file unless it's badly designed.
Badly designed code: Code structure accssible to bad designers. More overhead though.
You'd have to be superficial fascist fuck to think genetics is going to be free of these problems. Heck we're fucking up even without genetics. Look at Columbine a couple of drugged up kids blew up a high school. Big surprise.
It ain't the technology that is the the problem. It's us.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Spaniards land on Western Hemisphere. Narive tribes die because of lack of immunity. Nuff said.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Understanding DNA and Gene Cloning - A Guide for the Curious, by Karl Drlica
It does not require much knowledge of biology, and it is probably quite accessible for the average Slashdot reader. It is still scientifically substantial, though, and I found it very helpful in learning to understand biology better.
Okay, let's look at that statement for a minute:
"We are facing a serious social, political and philosophical dilemma: what happens when those of us in our 20s-30s are in our 70s-80s, and the new generation of people are genetically enhanced super-humans?"
Now, what this boils down to is 'I'm concerned that someone will have access to an advantage I can't get at'. Just how did you come to this conclusion?
The current 'easy way' to engineer an organism is to work on germ line and embyonic cells, but 'gene therapy' on _mature_ animals is going on too. When developed to a useable technology, which one (only yet-to-be-born kids or _all_ humans) do you think would be more profitable. I'd say the wider number of applications and more possible customers would push (and is pushing) research into the ability to introduce new traits to anyone at any time in their life.
Of course the next comment down the line would be: "But...but...it would only be available for the RICH!". If this occured to you, then geez, don't you plan on being rich in your life? And what technology didn't start out so rare that it was 'only available for the rich' whether it's cars or computers or cancer treatment? Again, that gleaming gem of additional customers should push the technology and the price down; a kind of 'model T' of gene therapy.
Now, if you're going to start telling me that humans "shouldn't be allowed" to do this. Deal with it. It's my code. Myself. My existence. I will develop myself as I choose.
While 'Gattaca' takes one view (the 'new' will be the next generation), Bruce Sterling wrote a corollary: "_Holy Fire_," (http://www1.fatbrain.com/asp/bookinfo/bookinfo.as p?theisbn=055357549X)...essentially, his proposition is that the technology will have great costs initially, that the only folks that can take advantage of this technology therefore are the Rich and folks over 40 who have made their nut; so, relax, if it comes and you have the money, it'll be you, not your grandkids who can take advantage of it.
s p?theisbn=0195129423).
For a happier take, though, try The Happy Mutant Handbook, also by Sterling (as editor, with others).
Some thoughts from a group of thinkers (although mostly mechanistic): http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/
Finally, Freeman Dyson (different definition of 'life,' -try 'cosmic'- but optimistic, nonetheless at http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Omega/dyson.txt; and Dyson's book "_The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet : Tools of Scientific Revolutions_," (http://www1.fatbrain.com/asp/bookinfo/bookinfo.a
Personally, while I share Dyson's optimism, long-term, I believe, with Sterling, that the short-term beneficiaries of any 'bio-revolutions' will be the old and the rich, with the acompanying resentment and political and social fallout that will bring.
Remember, no ethnic group will be the true majority in the future, divisions will be based more on age and wealth (both real and 'derived (Social Security, Medicare)').
Remember guys, this is Amerika. Just because you have the most votes, doesn't mean you get to win.--Fox Mulder
www.ornl.gov/TechResources/Human_Genome/
Japanese mirror at: http://genome.rtc.riken.go.jp/hgmis/
and, yes I _did_ do a search on the posts...didn't find/see it!!!
Remember guys, this is Amerika. Just because you have the most votes, doesn't mean you get to win.--Fox Mulder
Here are the facts: We still live in a world where killing is not seen as wrong. We live in a world where the largest "corporate sponsor" of the UN (america, of course), does not follow 25% of the rights outlined in the UN's Universal Decloration of Human Rights. We live in a world where people kill eachother over thoughts and beliefs, and people don't seem to care. More facts: Most of the world (>80%) would *never* even consider these genetic modifications simply because of their religon. And probably less than one percent of the population in the world would even be able to afford it.
If people would take the time to learn from history, and sit down and think of the possible reprocussions: biologically, politically, whatever, this world would be a much better place. I realize that it will be made available, and people will do it anyway, but c'mon, a Gattica world? Please. We need to think more before we act, and understand the technology and the reprocussions. We have burnt over 65% of the world's petrolium resources, just straight out burnt it. They will all be gone within 100 years, gas should be $20/gallon! We need to think more before we act, thats all I am saying. Scary stuff.
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I want to know god's thoughts, the rest are just details.
The current experimentation in Gene Therapy is attempting to correct genetic defects in people only in their somatic cells, not germline cells. Thus if your diabetes was corrected and you have a kid, your kid will still be as likely to have diabetes as with the genetic modification.
Germline modifications are another thing altogether. Scientists current can modify mouse germlines and have made thousands of genetically modified mice, the typical experiment is to delete a gene, creating a mouse knockout for that gene. The scientists then see what effect the deletion has on the mouse and in this way try to discover the function of the genes. The ability to do similar things with humans became possible with the isolation of human embryonic stem cells in the last year or two. It is currently illegal in the US to make germline modifications in humans but I suspect somebody, somewhere will start trying. Given that it will take a about 16 years per experiment (100 years for any thorough expt). We can expect germline genetic enhancements to be a long way off. I think its likely that people will experiment with mice to enhance them and then try to apply equivalent changes in humans. None the less we are a really long way from having genetically enhanced humans.
Genetically modified crops are much more of a real and present danger as germline modified crops are being released into the environment currently. Although it is possible that these genetic modifications will significantly upset the natural balance, humans are upsetting the balance in other more profound ways (pollution, agriculture etc)
Postulate: Any intelligent species that discovers how it is wired will ultimately modify itself. I think this is a natural step in evolution.
We can ban it in the US but there is nothing to stop anybody in other countries from doing this. It will happen.
no sig.
Advocates will tell you that it is their "soul" that makes someone who they are, but that is just religious preaching. And when the southern baptists start genetically engineering their followers to be more like Jesus, the rest of us will have to as well in order to compete.
I'm not saying that technology is bad, jus that we need to be careful as it gives more validation for the future Hitlers.
This is trivially true in that there are thousands of genes required for us to live, and without them we won't be tall or smart; we'll be dead.
However, it's entirely unclear at the present time exactly how many genes are responsible for traits that are apparently polygenic. Or, more importantly for this discussion, it isn't clear how many genes one would need to change in order to enhance a trait in question.
Thousands is likely much too pessimistic. After all, we only have a hundred thousand genes or so. I doubt that it requires 1% of our entire genome simply to specify how tall we are. But whether it is hundreds or dozens or a few, it's still a more difficult problem than we know how to solve right now (even with handy tricks like linkage disequilibrium).
Have a look at http://theopenlab.uml.edu/
It might be interesting for some of you.
We all know not to let suspicious programs to execute on uor PCs, lest we get viruses. How could you trust a "memory & intelligence enhancer" pill also not carry political opinions or some sort of dependency thing that made you want more and more of those pills, at an ever increasign rate?
In Murphy We Turst
What rights are not followed by the USA that are listed in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Who and where is the source of 65% of the world's petrolium resources have been used fact?
Genetic technology is limited to moving genes (at best) from one species to another, so modern 'genetically engineering' of foods is really just a fast, accurate method of selective breeding.
Please don't waste our time with questions like this.
Super Humans? Genetic Engineering? The new GE oven...it's all so much!!! All i'm saying is we can put a man on the moon but we can't make a realdoll that does laundry?? wtf!!
-FluX
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"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Actually, in my example, it was the unsuccessful in society who were evolving, not the successful.
Having much harsher living conditions (due to poverty and discrimination), and facing stiff competition from those who can afford to genetically modify their kids, these unmodified people will have to adapt and yes, evolve to survive.
And simply evolving higher rates of fertility won't help, since in most of these cases, resources such as food may be scarce for these people, putting these kids in direct competition with their own siblings. Which means that any beneficial mutations that give one kid an edge in outcompeting his brethren will be the ones passed on to future generations.
Any harmful genetic traits will disappear from this gene pool through natural selection so quickly that after a while you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the genes of an unmodified person and a genetically engineered one, except that the latter might show the disturbing regularity that marks most artificial things.
So, after several generations, we've got two groups, the genetially modified people, who show a disturbing homogenity and very little genetic variety, and the genetically unmodified, who have been evolving to the point where they could compete with the artificial people if they were given a fair chance.
But, being in power, the modified people would continue to discriminate (and due to centuries of systematic discrimination, the modified people would control nearly all the world's resources, or at least whatever resources are left), forcing the unmodified to evolve even more.
At this point, the genetically modified folks would have two major problems:
- They've got hordes of natural people who are royally pissed at them. Of course, eventually governments (whether national or corporate) will try to send their armies of genetically-pumped supermen to genocidally eradicate them, and they'd be left bewilderedly wondering how their "invincible" soldiers keep getting beaten by these primitive bands of urban guerrillas.
- Also, these genetically modified folks would have sacrificed a lot of the variety in their gene pool, meaning that if there's any major genetic crisis, they'd be screwed, and possibly extinct.
Of course, all this leaves the natural folks to reclaim their planet, and salvage the wreckage of the shining civilization to which they were denied entry for so long.So, all in all, assuming we don't destroy ourselves, I think that this whole genetic engineering thing could have a net positive effect on humanity. ;->
--
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
However, we must compare abusive vs. intended use. What is the worst possible outcome of a technology and what are the best possible results attainable? How likely is each scenario? Is it worthwhile? I have been thinking really hard about that and couldn't come with one single instance where the abusive use of a technology appears to be worse than the good results.
it isn't clear how many genes one would need to change in order to enhance a trait in question. Thousands is likely much too pessimistic.
When I said "thousands" I didn't mean to imply quantitative accuracy, but also keep in mind I was not saying thousands of GENES, but thousands of polymorphic loci. That's my whole point, that phenotypes are based less on absolute presence or absence of particular genes than on their relative levels of expression (and different levels in different cell types, at different times, etc.). And each gene involved is likely to have several different combinations of promoter polymorphisms, enhancers in the introns of neighboring genes, apparently non-functional coding region polymorphisms that affect degradation or complexing of the protein with something bizarre you'd never expect, or whatever. I don't work that closely with this stuff, but someone who did could probably rattle on for pages. The problem is not unsolvable in principle, only in practice. I'm just saying that it's a LOT more complex than people outside of biology are usually aware of.
There is a site with alot of the genetically engineered material you are looking for. I understand that they are doing a feature topic on Genetics in the next few weeks. Check their links. goto
As a BioNerd I couldn't agree more. Slashdot has great coverage of Linux, Patents, etc. but everytime biology is brought up I get hazy visions of 1980's OMNI articles.
The inverse fuzzy, meaningless Bionerd to Compunerd question would be something like this:
How do I use the WWW to learn about Electrical Engineering? Electrical Engineering is undoubtedly going to change the world in the years to come. Movies like 2001, Hackers, and You've Got Mail examine these thorny issues, but do not go into the details of how these technologies operate. I have gone to my local BD Dalton and could not find any Electrical Engineering texts. The web searches for "+electrical +engineering +cyborg +tyranny" did not yield any detailed info.
(Seriously, check out the links of the above poster for more information, but if you really want to learn more, get a textbook from the local U and read the relevant chapters. Most first or second year genetics texts are fairly informative, if not as up to date. Knowing the stats of how many genes are sequenced without knowing what a gene is doesn't do you much good. The web is not the best place to start.)
I guess in the interests of fairness it's good to post a link to Greenpeace here. I mean, why not trust information from people who dress up as "ears of corn with scorpion pincers" to protest against GMO's, and engage in misleading sensationalism (for intance, their adoption of the X-files like "X" logo to summon up visions of scary alien-human hybrids, or government conspiracies, or whatever the hell it is they're trying to do) to further their cause? (is the cause really "protecting us" or is it "collecting donations for Greenpeace") :-)
That said, Monsanto Sucks!
Freedom: "I won't!"
If this is supposed to be "News for Nerds" I should hope that you can get the terminology correct. Its called Molecular Biology. There is no such thing as genetic engineering.
Well i do :P And since i doubt he really can see the future, i think ill see the present - right now the only reason scientists are engineering stuff is for research (human genome not even done yet i think) or to make some simple things easier (tomatoes that dont rot as fast and cows that produce more milk). This is all very far from "genetically enhanced super-humans". And i sure hope that will never happen. But if it does something will go horribly wrong (usually happens when people that arent God try to be Him) and we will learn our lesson or all be wiped out by the psychotic body-building geniuses. Reminds me of the Eve episode of The X-Files where they tried to make genetically enhanced humans, and it worked - increased intelligence, increased physical strength, increased psychosis. That last one is the kicker.
Can you tell me when there hasn't been social change and prejudice. I'm old enough to have seen dramatic change in the world and young enough to be impressed by it, but I doubt this change will be any worse/better than any other that has ever occurred. Be real people. The great thing about being human is that we adapt.
Remember: Life is nothing more than a game with serious consequences.
With all these dumb teen women sleeping with dumb men, to make legions of dumb childeren who are then raised by the state, therefore sidestepping evolution's natural pressure to breed smarter humans, we're doomed.
Face it, dumb teen moms will take over the world by out-breeding us smart geeks... and our taxes are paying for their welfare to do so.
Go figure.
Hm, perhaps there will still remain an uberclass to run things.
Come on, ubermensch! Fear doesn't mean *irrational fear*. I also remember these folks who were a little afraid of nuking Russia. If NATO had a little balls, think what we might have learnt about nuclear fallout and self-annihilation.
Besides, if you believe so much in genetics/biology, surely you believe fear is a survival response. It's amazing how many people simultaneously believe in some kind of dawinian determinism and yet also believe they can just 'jump the queue' by tossing a few bucks into genetics research.
Famous last words: "Foresight-smoresight! Strap me to the rocket, Jim, I'm gonna show those NASA boys a Mars Mission just requires planetary-size kahunas"
... any time soon?   I think we've read and watched alot of sci-fi and then try to be pundits in predicting in what direction technology will go.   How many World's Fairs predicted that there would be flying "cars" and space stations on the moon in our current time (and as we obviously know - none of that has happened)?   How many stories and shows like Star Trek describe stuff like "Eugenics Wars" (which according to ST's fictional timeline, was supposed to have happened between genetically-enhanced "super humans" and everyone else in 1996?).   How many of you have videophones (that have been out since the '60s)?
Bottom line - the industry (whether genetic or other technology-based) is market and money-driven.   When the market is viable, then the product gets put out there.   You can expect alot of medical-related, genetically derived products (and the food products are already available) but genetically "enhanced" humans are some time off.   Sure "test tube" babies have become more common and sure, there will always be corporations out there who will experiment and will probably "create" such a genetically-enhanced "human" (would they then be "human" if artificially created - but that's a side issue), but the morality discussions (and indeed, sci-fi stories extrapolating the consequences) may serve to drive the whole issue into a direction unforeseen by us at this time.
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
People do NOT want to change
people don't want to change because they like it the way things are, or are afraid it might get worse. and how do you think it got to be what it is? through change! that said, there's always a few of us who WANT things to change as much as possible (the only way to keep my mind from collapsing out of boredom maybe) and are always trying new things. once these things are "good enough" then everybody else uses it. heck look at the internet....
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
How can we have the power to increase someone's intelligence and not do it?!?!?! that would not make sense. with the current state of the worlds and the species, we need all the smart people we can get!. how to predict the weather, how to extend life, how does the world work, how to have good solid economy not based on someone else's poverty, all these and other questions require a level of intelligence we just don't have...
after all, i truly believe that the smarter you are the better a person you are. and don't give me the "hitler was smart" crap. As long as intelligence is coupled with good control of your impulses, you're fine. after all probably all ugly things made by smart people weren't intelligent things to do....
in the end it would be like owning a gun. it gives regular people a huge advantage, but it's not forbidden (not that i like guns though).
man, if we can improve our species, let's. sure some ugly scenes will show up in the middle, but in the end it'll work out fine.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
a comment on the articles....
==
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I don't know exactly what that means, but I'm sure it means something....
Uh-oh. You mentioned the "E" word. I predict a horde of wacko creationists to come swarming down on this topic... :/ :)
That aside, just heading off things like Down's syndrome, cerebal palsy, etc. would be nice, though, even if creating "superhumans" is not feasible in the near future. Or how about if we just end male pattern baldness?
Funny that he was talking about the fear of advancement by our species and you retort with exactly that. FEAR. Where would we be if no one had the guts to see if the world was flat? Space travel to dangerous? Well we wouldn't want to risk a few lives on an already overpopulated planet to have the chance at advancing ourselves now would we?
WURD!!
How long will it be till they patent the human genome? Then, everyone's genes will by illegal and we'll all have to die, unless we pay of course. --send beer--
Here's another site which is being launched tomorrow on genetic privacy and policy in conjunction with a radio call-in show on Oregon Public Broadcasting at 1pm.
Le génome humain est, pratiquement, la technologie qui a le plus de potentiel pour transformer nos vies. Avec celle-ci, nous serons en mesure de comprendre les processus de la vie. Il est aussi évident que cette nouvelle source de pouvoir risque d'échapper à notre controle. Le dilemme est donc de savoir si nous sommes assez sage pour utiliser a bonne fin cet outil de transformation. Certains chantent l'arrivé d'une ère de changement. D'autres croient que la répression des différences pourraient appauvrir la somme humaine. Nous pouvons considérer, sur un point de vue biologique que le total des différences génétiques de notre race est un avantage considérable qui nous permet à des individues d'évoluer là ou d'autres trouveraient la mort. L'élimination des caratéristiques indésirables pourraient nous mener à une autre crise. Le nouveau genre humain, nettoyé de ses imperfections pourrait devenir stérile, c'est à dire, incapable de continuer son évolution. Par contre, si de pleine conscience, les êtres humains décident d'étudier en profondeur le processus créatif de la vie, alors le plein potentiel de ces nouvelles connaisances pourrait bénificier à tout les êtres vivants. Un exemple. Les producteurs de nourritures de grandes envergures détiennent les compagnies de fertilisants et de pesticides. Pour le moment présent, ce sont elles qui investissent le plus dans ce type de recherche. Elles ont créés de nouveaux type de plantes qui sont plus productives. Dans le passé, ce type d'amélioration était faite avec des croisements naturels entre un male et une femelle de meilleur classe. De nos jours, les gênes de croissances sont stimulés pour augmenter la taille et la vitesse de ces plantes. Par contre, elles deviennent plus fragile: la croissance rapide n'a pas permit le développement normal. Sachant donc que leurs produits est de qualité douteuse, elles vendent aussi les engrais et les pesticides plus puissants. Un tel phénomène pourrait se produire pour les humains. Améliorer, mais déficiant, nous serons plus forts, mais moins stables. En meilleur santé, mais sujet a des crises communes de santé. Le problème ici n'est pas l'utilisation des nouvelles technologies. On peut douter en effet que ces institutions alimentaires acceptent d'arrêter ce type de recherche. Mais on peut souhaiter qu'elles comprennent mieux le contexte humain. En investissant, elles recherchent le profit. Mais au lieu de trouver une amélioration et de la pousser au maximum, comme elles font présentement, on peut imaginer une recherche plus approfondie sur les vastes systèmes biologiques. Ainsi, nous pourrons mieux comprendre l'ensemble du phénomène. Et quand vient le temps d'apporter des modifications, nous saurons exactement comment les faire et pas plus. Les anglophones ont pour expression " If it's not broke, don't fix it.", ce qui pourrait s'appliquer ici. Le genre de recherche nécessaire est très simple. Mais comment stimuler ce genre de recherche? Les gouvernements sont impuissants devant des entreprises qui peuvent se déplacer pour trouver de meilleur terrain d'études. Au mieux, on peut imaginer que tous les gouvernement interdiraient. Mais cela ne peut être la solution. Les militaires continueront assurément la recherche, pour produire des armes plus puissantes, des médicaments pour soutenir leurs troupes. D'une application générale, le contrôle passe dans la main d'une minorité. Avec le temps, les améliorations développées sauront ne bénificier qu'eux. La prohibition de recherche est écartée. Explorons maintenant la possibilité inverse, soit la recherche permise sur tout les fronts. Ici, le problème est l'économie de marché. Des innovations qui sont gardées secrètes car le produit qu'elles remplaceraient vaut plus cher. Ici, l'accès à l'information est le vrai problème. Les compagnies se croient protégées par les loi sur la confidentialité. C'est vrai pour un certain temps. Cependant, les efforts fait pour protéger cette information (et découvrir ce que font les autres compagnies!) les éloignent de leurs missions principales. Le secret qui entoure deux entreprises adverses qui recherchent la même solution n'est que nuisible. Au niveau de la conscience, celle qui dirige la science, la sagesse nous indique un chemin. La coopération est plus puissante. Comprendre les moindres détails du corps humains ne pourra nous être utile sans partage. 04 mars 2000
Taking on space
I think the part that is most likely to keep this from happening is the raw material problem. Computer viri can easily replicate because the raw material, cpu cycles and memory, are so cheap and available (both are important) as to have almost 0 transaction cost. Not so with physical material needed to replicate a robot. (Damn, Coase would be proud).
The right to own a gun to protect yourself is in jeopardy in the United States, and has been taken from the people governed by several of the more oppressive governments.
This sort of thing is exactlywhy we need to fight to retain these rights now. When the government reserves (and utilizes) for itself a right that those governed are denied, you have a verydangerous situation. Our founding fathers had the good sense to know this, and state it clearly when we sloughed off the oppressive reins of King George. Unfortunately for us, they did not enact into law, nor include in the subsequent Constitution, the Declaration of Independence.
This, combined with an unfortunate loophole in the Constitution, has allowed our liberty to be slowly and surely whittled away by legislation. Don't let this continue! If you want to see one of the ideas I support to stop this bloated legislation, see my previous post.
You may be getting tired of "Rock the Vote" ads and whatnot (especially if you are stuck watching the Armed Forces Network), but it is up to you to make this change. Yourvoice needs to be heard. Tell the fatcat bureaucrats that you won't put up with this anymore, and vote them out of office.
You don't have to settle for the "least bad" of candidates. Vote for a candidate that supports yourright to govern yourself. If you need help finding a candidate for the elections in your state, and nationally, visit the Libertarian Party home page.
Demand Liberty!
Topher
"Man is free at the moment he wishes to be." -Voltaire
There is a very ancient saying that you seem to have forgotten: "Be careful what you wish for."
The attitudes I've seen come from a variety of ages, and now I'm almost certain that with age comes a natural fear of altering our self image.
For some reason, in most people, the older you are the more afraid you get of change. Honestly, I can think of no other form of change more powerful than changing ourselves, so it follows that fear of change would mean fear of Genetic Engineering as well.
I read an article about a conference on increasing Longevity in humans and the ethical and philosophical implications. A large majority of the group decided that it would be unethical to increase the length of human life by stopping the natural aging process, but that killing diseases would be hunky dory.
Are these people blind?
A 'disease' can be a parasite, a pathogen, or a malfunctioning system of our complex self. Clearly stopping a pathogen and a parasite is acceptable, because they are external and 'different' than us. But, assuming Death is another hurdle in the race of evolution, what's so wrong with changing those 'malfunctioning' systems that eventually get us all killed?
Imagine a 20 year old looking 500 year old, male or female, then imagine a world filled with these people:
They'd have:
Life Experience Wisdom Common Sense A wealth of Knowledge Empathy
Now what's the point in dying? If you're at your peak your whole life, as productive tommorow as you are today, then why is Death a must?
I, for one, vote against the ethicists and religious advocates.
If something's not natural, it doesn't exist. Human Genetic Eningeering DOES so it IS.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Look at the inevitibale and continual advance of technology. How many people are out there screaming that technology is evil and that it will destroy us all? Not many. Popular opinion seems to think these people are wackos, and ignores them to a large extent. Yet every advance in computer and robotics technology brings us closer to creating a self aware machine. And if the rate of robotic evolution is really millions of times faster than our own as some people claim, it's only a matter of time until our robotic creations are smarter, faster, and stronger than us. How long until a robot decides that the laws of Azimov be damned, it is sick of being told what to do by these stupid humans and goes off and does its own thing (whatever that is)?
I have heard estimates that by the year 2050 to 2075, Artificial Intelligince gurus will be creating robotic entities nearly equal to our own intelligent. And if moore's law holds up, their processor speed will double in 18 months, making them twice as smart as us a few months later...;->
Coincedentally, a lot of people have posted that the manipulation of the human genome for our own purposes will only become popular and/or safe in another 2 generations. Assuming a 20 year generation time, that's about 2040. That means that about the time the first batch of new "superhumans" are 10 years old, machines could be reaching their own awakening.
Supermen vs. Robot-masterminds? Sounds like a cheezy movie. Carbon based life, or silicon based machine-life battle for dominance in this sci-fi thriller. Seriously, though. Evolving ourselves may be the only way to continue to compete and survive against increasingly intelligent machines.
On another note, we must remember that the human genome only determines potential, not how that potential is used. Without any social evolution, nothing really changes except for the extreme ends of society. We just build things faster, destroy things faster, or evolve smarter car-thieves.
I always like to suggest that people who are curious about genetics and molecular biology, but have had no biology since high school, should read "The Cartoon Guide to Genetics" by Wheeler and Gonick. It provides the basic information and definitions required to read more detailed treatments of the subject. And like anything from Gonick, it is pretty amusing as well. While it is a paper book, you could always order it from an on-line bookstore...
Might I recommend the National Biotechnology Information Facility (NBIF)? They maintain a list of ~7,000 links, ranging from the general to the very in-depth. Of particular interest to Slashdot readers may be their listing of FAQs. Here's a quick listing of catagories from the NBIF site below:
Your post reminded me of a story that appeared in Nature (Login Required), in the 3/02/00 issue. For Slashdot readers not familiar with Nature, it is a well-respected science journal (The type with peer-reviewed articles in it).
What was unique about the article, entitled "Danger -- hard hack area", is that it was a piece of SF that speculated on the future of Biotech and the hacking community. Here's a little excerpt below:
"Sequence your genome at home, and set science free!" cry the biopunks.
Many people predicted that VirCon 2010, the first open meeting of the biopunk movement, would end in a riot. In truth, it was as privately exciting and as publicly dull as any science conference. From their besieged underground culture, the clandestine surfers of the new wave in biology are emerging blinking into the daylight and, dare one say, into respectability.
But VirCon 2010, held in a dilapidated midtown New York hotel, was not without friction. Despite the rule that no biological material could be brought in, there was a ruthless but futile inspection by officers of the Food and Drug Agency. Several people suspected of being undercover federal agents or snoops from biotech companies were summarily ejected, and the press was barred, which led to strange scenes outside the hotel as TV journalists were videoed typing into a laptop to communicate with conference delegates just inside the lobby.
I was allowed to cover the event from the inside because of personal contacts made while covering the pursuit and arrest of Kevin 'Freaky-Deaky' Miles, the man who claimed to have turned the Amazon rainforest luminescent -- and because I'm a science fiction writer, and biopunks love SF.
The delegates were mostly young, white males under 25, dressed in everything from baggies and T-shirts, through goth black and multiple piercings, to business suits. All had self-inflicted gene hacks: feathers or scales instead of hair; bands of chromatophores on their foreheads; motile tattoos. And of course, unlike the pasty-faced, overweight cliché of computer hackers, the biopunks were bursting with health, their skin and eyesight perfect, their muscle definition superb, their energy seemingly boundless...
why are we so arrogant to believe that in one generation we can solve what thousands of years of natural evolution could not?
Because natural evolution doesn't reason. Because natural evolution isn't self-aware. Because natural evolution isn't task-oriented. Because natural evolution works in the direction of "whatever is good enough" to survive, not towards the optimal design or the Right Thing.
My point is: as impressive as it may be that such an arbitrary process as evolution by natural selection has lead to the development of human intelligence, there's no reason to believe that this makes it somehow infallible or perfect or absolute - in other words, there's no good reason to attribute God-like qualities to evolution.
I'm sorry, but I don't think there's anything wrong with a species wanting to do whatever they want with their own genetic fate.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
While you're thinking about "genetic manipulation of human beings", you should also learn about the closely related topic of eugenics. I would urge you to learn about the history of eugenics through this century, and the role of eugenic thinking in the Holocaust.
Thoughtful discussions (rather than the usual doom and gloom predictions) regarding the consequences of genetic engineering and technological progress in computers, AI, etc. may be found in the Extropy Institute's Mailing List. There are many years of discussions in the Archives.
Some additional sources of useful information include the The Transhumanist FAQ and the Journal of Transhumanism . The World Transhumanist Association is an umbrella organization for many regional transhumanist groups.
The people involved in these organizations actively discuss and investigate the many issues and concerns related to our future evolution as a species.
The most helpful site that I have found while doing genetics research is the NCBI site at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
This site allows access to the enormous amounts of data generated by genome sequencing projects including the Human Genome Project as well as links to research articles about specific sequences. It is especially helpful when researching specific mutations in genes and proteins and what they do to the organism. The attached OMIM database is a treasure trove of genetic disease information.
Important parts of the database include the BLAST section, in which you can search for sequence homology given a short stretch of gene or protein. This is very helpful whether you are querying for either protein or gene.
Another important part is PubMed, which is the place to start for literature searches. Entrez is helpful if you have a specific gene name in mind and want sequence information (genomic sequence, cDNA sequence, protein sequence, and even links to NMR and X-ray structures). LocusLink allows a gene name query to retrieve information about the gene's chromosomal location, alternate names, and related diseases.
All in all, the NCBI site is the most helpful site for on-line queries about specific genes and the Human Genome Project. The site might not be the best for someone who is looking for ready-made answers; there are few clear-cut answers in genetics right now and this site is good for formulating one's one hypothesis based on the real data. The NCBI site also has a small news section that features some of the more interesting finds.
Anyway, I help that this and all the other sites being given help!
Invicta{HOG}
Basically, it looks at the human impact of tech from cryonics to gene manipulation and youth recovery. Pretty interesting stuff.
--Humpty Dumpty was pushed!
If you want to be a superhuman, just eat right and exercise regularly. You will be ahead of most Americans...
/again/ the rich have the benefit. The issue shouldn't be our fascination with every new invention making us "just too godlike"...the issue should be how to level the playing field so EVERYBODY has food, shelter, clothing, and when/if it becomes a necessity, genetic enhancement.
/little/ too godlike? I mean, now we can /burn/ ourselves...or set the forest on fire!".
I, for one, am extremely apathetic about the whole issue. So we genetically enhance ourselves. So what. It's not like the rich haven't had the benefit of wealth in eons gone by. We've been enhancing ourselves since we learned to communicate. Clothing, shelter, implements, the internet...it all enhances us one way or another, and
I'm sure Grog was saying to the other cave people "HEYYYY...hold on here...this whiz-bang 'fire' stuff is really cool...but don't you think this is making us just a
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I grew up in a farm town, where I was about the weakest kid in school. So what's new?
And what's new for most of the readers of slashdot, eh? YOU remember being hazed by the Jocks, the socialite cliques, and every kid who looked more WASP - or more like the local adult power structure members - than you did, don't you?
Even if you're in the top couple percentile of intelligence now there are already millions smarter than you, and lots more who have learned advantageous techniques that you haven't.
Genetic "upgrading" - if it WORKS - will be just a change in degree, not a binary "Supermen vs. the Mud People".
Meanwhile (as has already been pointed out), tampering with a complex system like the human organism takes a lot of trial-and-error, and the generations are long. The first iteration will no doubt be the easy, sure things: eliminating well-defined genetic diseases, selecting sex and hair/skin/eye colors. Later maybe improved teeth, elimination of more subtle genetic diseases (obesity, receptor-mediated high cholesterol), selecting on well-defined appearance items like overbite fat storage distribution.
But even the easy stuff can be risky - as the NAZIs found out when their breed-more-blond-haired-blue-eyed-Arian-Supermen program produced thousands of new phenylketonuriacs - blond haired, blue eyed, and with varying amounts of brain damage, depending on the amount of phenylalenine in their childhood diets. (Perhaps this is part of the origin of the "dumb blonde" stereotype?)
Tampering with the brain is going to take a lot more research before one can expect the results to have a significant chance of improving, rather than harming the function. And once it's done in earnest, the result might be smarter but it will also be more uniform - which may make both individuals and populations more predicatble.
Then how long will it take before a significant number of prospective parents think it's safe enough to use on THEIR offspring-to-be?
How many people will chose to do it even when it IS practical. Remember: The more the genes are modified, the less the children are genetically THEIR children. I bet the fixups will be popular but the designer kids will be pretty rare - and faddish. (What do you do when you're eighteen, and blue eyes and pointy ears are SO fifteen-years-ago?)
Members of various ethnic groups may consider it genocide, and not only boycott it but create political pressure against it. (And that will create a backlash...) This could get interesting.
So for the first couple generations, at least, I'm not too worried about the upgrades taking over the world. The population will skew toward healthier and smarter, but mainly because the elimination of major genetic diseases will allow people to achieve more of their intellectual potential who would otherwise have suffered brain-harming "loads" from defective biochemical systems.
IMHO by the time "upgrades" become a significant factor, we'll be dealing with a post-singularity scenario. If I'm still alive it will be because medical technology will have improved drastically - to the point that similar benefits will be available as a retrofit.
It's the people who are making choices on the use of genetic upgrading on their offspring about twenty to forty years from now who may face the hard choice: Whether it's better for their genome and descendents to upgrade their children for better competition potential or leave them natural (or only-disease-deleted) for more gene transfer.
Meanwhile - there's some interesting speculative literature on the subject - some of it quite old. _Brave New World_ is a well-known dystopia where a totalitarian government engineers the population for its convenience. One of Heinlein's early novelettes dealt with the issue of what a society might look like after some of the people are upgraded by several generations of voluntary ability to select only the "good" traits from the parents' genomes.
And the Adam Warren _Dirty Pair_ graphic novels are set in a future that includes nanotech and genetic upgrades as major plot-driving elements. (The lead characters are themselves genetic upgrades, and an establishing scene in the current miniseries shows a confrontation between several young spacer upgrades and an older character from Mars who is biggotted against upgrades. He flames them for their comic-book appearnce and the taste buds in some private places. In return they razz him about his appendix. B-) )
(Speaking of which - they found out what the appendix - and the tonsils and adenoids - are for. And while not necessary for life they still work and are advantageous.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I'm not saying that it won't happen. I'm just saying that it is going to take a long time to completely work out all the details. Given that they can't test the lifetime effects in under fifty years or so, you take a risk at any modifications.
Also bear in mind that it is much easier to genetically engineer an embryo than an adult creature. We are nearly there for the embryo but barely started on the adult. It is likely that you will still be waiting in line while children a quarter your age already have those traits.
The cake is a pie
I would suggest taking a look at one of several good books on the topic, and peruse some of the excellent websites pointed out by others, then get involved!
My personal favorite book is Biological Sequence Analysis by Richard Durbin and Sean Eddy, two workers in the field whom I greatly respect. The book is engaging and pretty thorough, and plenty to get stared with!
Join us! Hack the genome!
Fortune favors the bold. -Virgil
I'm 24. By the time I'm in my 70's-80's, sure there might be genetically enhanced people. I don't even really care though, because I anticipate that by that time we'll either be wiped out by Bill Joy's nanocaust prediction, or we'll all be superior beings thanks to the wonders of nano. We are on the verge of being able to produce, and then mass-produce, technology which can alter every cell in our body and make us younger, stronger, leaner, hell maybe even happier (nano-Xanax?). What chance does genetic enhancement have against directed nano-enhancement?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I think the idea that such technologies provide a 'potential for abuse' is a hideous understatement. As a species we are far too immature to be experimenting with such things. It will inevitably lead to a disaster of some sort.
Look back at any of the useful technological innovations of the recent and distant past. If it could be used for something it was developed; if not, it was abandoned. We are, if nothing else, a pragmatic species, driven by economic and political incentives.
We could explore almost any invention that has shaped our world and record its abuses. No matter how innocuous, innocent, magnanimous, etc. it seemed at the time, someone has always found a way to pervert it. The traditional example that will find its way onto this forum is atomic energy- the bomb came out of research into a new method for energy generation. I propose we examine many of the other, seemingly-innocent inventions that surround us.
I won't go into specifics, as it would take an already-long post and stretch it out forever.... But I will re-iterate my position that genetic research is only the latest and greatest in a long line of self-destructive innovation. Human beings are not wise enough to restrain use of any innovations; once the technology exists it will be abused, with catastrophic effect.
~Morthaur, Poised at the Brink of Insanity+++++++
"Look, dear, it's a crazy hairy scary man!"
There has always been paranoia at new technologies. So, we have the ability to do something new. People were scared sh*tless at the concept of computers and robots. Hell, Asimov had a robot running the world. This didn't please too many people. Nevertheless, we've seen 1998 pass, and soon 2001 will pass. I still don't see no sinister talking robots.
;)
In my opinion, all this has to do with a lack of appreciation for the status quo. People do NOT want to change. No matter how quick, or new, the technology, people will always be slow and cautious to adopt it. That being said, we'll all probably be dead before the 'Gattaca' scenario could become a real possibility... most probably from CRT tube radiation.
Visit uMoo - http://www.uMoo.com/ No Protien Designs, though?!
To understand genetic engineering you need to understand the technology and also the organism on which it is being used. A fair grounding in general biology, the model organisms used to develop the technology, the basics of molecular biology, some genetics and cell biology is needed. Most genetic engineering is developed by finding out how some portion of biology works, and then imitating it for human purposes. Genetic engineering is like copying source code--scientists study the organism (the original code), and then crudely copy it giving a new genetic engineering technology.
These links can give you a start, but if you are seriously interested, pick up an introductory college text with molecular biology, cell biology, or genetics in the title.
Here are some resources available on the web:
Primer on Molecular Genetics (Department of Energy)
MIT Biology Hypertextbook
Primer on Molecular Genetics from the U.S. Department of Energy
Biotech Applied follow the Biotech Applied and Biotech Chronicles links
(Small) glossary of genetic terms put together by the National Human Genome Research Institute
Info on research (with great graphics) funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Jim Lund
I also recommend the movie Gattacca, about a future when people who are not genetically optimized form a lower class of people. The hero in this film is in this condition, but he wants to be an astronaut, so he buys the identity of an enhanced man who was crippled by an accident. I think this is one of the best science fiction movies ever made.
does anyone else find it interesting that /. decided to put this article up directly following that story about how Bill Joy thinks technology could be the end of us?
I don't know exactly what that means, but I'm sure it means something....
==
==
I don't know exactly what that means, but I'm sure it means something....
Genetically massaged traits aren't that much further in the future. Its only a matter of time before upgarding memory isn't just for computers. Soon genetic research could make calculators obsolete and reduce education to a pill. Moral objections? NONE. I'm already in line for increased intelligence, faster learning, better body and quicker reflexes (ktron wont stand a chance). The human species is an abomination, week, slow, stupid and scared. If I can pay to have someone remove the crap I've been stuck with since birth and remake myself in my own image, I couldn't get my wallet out fast enough! One might say that this sort of thing can only lead to loss of individuality and conformity. I say thats bullsh*t! Whats important is the content NOT the container. Chowda
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
While solving medical problems and giving people bigger breasts may remain in the public domain, you can bet your ass that if muscle/brain/reflex etc enhancement happens, it will either begin as or end up as property of the military/police. The people in power want neither dissidents nor foreign armies to have advantages in combat; therefore they will use whatever means possible to remain the sole proprietors to any genetic enhancements beyond cosmetic and medical ones.
I'd just as soon we keep genetic engineering to the non-sentient lifeforms until we know more about it. I mean, the last thing we need is to engineer a "super" human which is not backwards-compatible with the current generation. Flip over to Star Trek TNG's story about how generically engineering an immune system to be "perfect" had the unfortunate side-effect of killing it's predecessors (namely, us) because of an unforseen variable: a normally harmless genetic virus for an example. I can think of more - science fiction is replete with these examples. I would say to anyone thinking seriously about this issue to spend some time at the library.. and some time in a movie theatre.
And don't think for a minute that viruses won't take advantage of the host's "improved immume systems" - even if the new super-humans aren't hostile towards the existing generation we're still stuck with the problem of viruses which will more rapidly attack and infect people with less of an immune system (path of least resistance - plant a tree in a sunny spot, plant another in a dark spot, which one uses more of the soil's resources?)...
We are messing with things far above and beyond our comprehension. I hate to say it, but I very nearly side with the conservative elements in our society on this - this is a matter best left to God. For now, anyway. The other sciences have not caught up enough to have enough of a base of knowledge to anticipate what will happen if we start changing genes. Trial and error is NOT an option for human experimentation.
~ Signal 11
Tampering with intelligence, on the other hand, is almost certain to be banned outright (obviously "rogue" nations won't care, and the US gov't will enhance their own soldiers secretly).
One thing that triggers fear in the masses is intelligence. Physical strength they can understand, but intelligence eludes them. So, they'd blindly legislate away their ability to mess with it, fearing a generation of wunderkind that would relegate them to the dustbins of history. (Intelligence is probably also the hardest thing to successfully modify, since the brain's so complex.)
What this means is that we'll see a stratification of our society into castes:
Finally, there's the people who are too poor to be able to afford these modifications. And that'd include a lot of people worldwide. They'd be placed at the bottom rung of the social ladder, and they'd be forced to compete with the "modified" on the merit of their own natural traits.
If (as in Gattaca) the "modified" automatically and prejudicially disdain all the unmodified people, then there would be very little interbreeding between the two groups. And if there were some genetic tag imprinted in anyone who was modified, this would be even more certain, since no matter how good your genes are, if you're natural, you're out of luck.
Ironically, if the "unmodified" have harsh competition with the modified people, and practically no interbreeding between the two groups, then the unmodified would be forced to evolve at a much faster rate than the "modified", and within several generations, many of them would be naturally stronger, faster, smarter, etc. than the regulations allow the "modified" to become.
Moral of the story: if you mess with nature, make sure it doesn't return to bite you in the ass.
--
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
It always amuses me how clueless slashdot generally as group is about these things.... Despite best efforts otherwise.
/., but I gave up after being told again and again that I was wrong by people who don't know the difference between DNA and RNA.
I don't know about the best efforts otherwise thing. The weird thing about biology is that humans (because they're "living," I guess) have so many false notions about biology that they hold to so strongly. Biologists who don't know how to take derivatives never argue to engineers that fourier transforms are a lie (or whatever), but the opposite holds true at least 90% of the time. I used to try to explain things to people on
As far as genetic engineering goes, genes themselves aren't nearly as important as people seem to think. Humans and chimps are supposedly 99% genetically identical, so why are the two so different? If we switched my hemoglobin with chimp hemoglobin, or slowly replaced my brain one neuron at a time with chimp neurons, I wouldn't become a chimpanzee. This is because the critical issue is not at the level of the gene products, but the REGULATION OF EXPRESSION OF THOSE GENES, especially during development. The uninformed love to spout about the wonders of genetic engineering that will unfold as soon as we have the genome sequenced, but the truth of it is that the human genome project won't solve any puzzles, it will just allow us to finally work with all the pieces.
As far as engineering genes goes, there is no intelligence gene. There is no tall gene. There is no smart gene. There are combinations of thousands of different polymorphic loci that will yield these phenotypic traits, but finding these associations is a much larger task than sequencing the genome. This is something molecular neuroscientists can't get right even today, when they make their mice that have some gene knocked out or overexpress some GluR subunit wherever, then try to draw conclusions about intelligence or aggression based on time to swim water mazes or ear bite statistics.
The real reason why human genetic engineering will not occur in our lifetimes, however, ("enhancing" humans, I mean, not fixing genetic disorders) is because humans have too many hangups about the sanctity of life. If you want to genetically engineer anything, you will inevitably have to go through hundreds and hundreds of failed attempts. Three-headed pigeon-boys with webbed legs and strange appendages. People aren't likely to volunteer their zygotes for this. Right now it's against the law to use NIH funding to obtain fetal tissue (pounds of which are THROWN AWAY at abortion clinics daily) to study AIDS, a 100% fatal disease that infects more than 11 people every minute. What are the chances that hundreds and hundreds of human lives are going to be thrown away to develop faster reflexes and 2 extra inches of penis length?
Beyond this, it ain't so easy. The thing is, the human body is not a bundle of individual, unconnected traits that can be manipulated at will. It is a bunch of interdependent traits that have been optimized by evolution for a certain environment. Given that it is optimized, improving it may be difficult. Try to improve strength, and you may find that strength is a tradeoff with some other feature. Increase intelligence and you may get a higher incidence of insanity. Decrease insanity and you may lose creativity.
Not that it can't, or won't, be done, but it is no where as easy as many people think. Personally, I think our grandkids will likely not worry about most genetic diseases, but it will be a couple generations after that before we get anyone that would be recognizably "superior" in general.
Remember, there are two big problems in human genetic engineering. You have to be sure before you do anything. Mistakes are not an option. And you have to deal with a very long generation time. This isn't like fruit flies, where you can try things out and have the results in a few weeks.
The cake is a pie
I suggest starting here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/, then, using the National Library of Medicine's PubMed search engine (which catalogues primary biomedical literature), search for reviews written about specific "hot" areas in genetic technology. PubMed is now a "killer app" because after finding an article that you're interested in, the abstract page has a "Books" link that re-formats the abstract with keywords hyperlinked to the seminal textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell. Now, even though a lot of these articles are written with a Biomedical audience in mind and filled with a lot of complex biology and jargon, definitions of anything needed for the "lay-"reader's understanding are immediately accessible. CHECK IT OUT.
Often lost in the shuffle of these big debates on genetic technology are the people involved in the actual WORK, and the ACTUAL capabilities conferred on humanity by that work; the pundits come out of the woodwork (including here on Slashdot: News for COMPUTER Nerds, often not BIOLOGY Nerds) whenever someone mentions DNA. The words "genetic engineering" sell newspapers and books. I recommend looking a little deeper.
You can reach it here:
http://www.tecsoc.org/biotech/biotech.htm
Also, we have a brief "What is Biotechnology?" essay which explores some of the most important issues in that area.
A. Keiper
It always amuses me how clueless slashdot generally as group is about these things....
Despite best efforts otherwise. It comes up as
an "Ask Slashdot" related question regularly;
slashdot posts pseudo-science stories or op-ed
about cloning etc, and yet... slashdot hasn't
attempted to *contact the actual scientists*
involved to get their opinion.
Yes - I have suggested this as an interview topic
a number of times. Slashdot editorials are more
interested in "wow-science" stories than real
science. It annoys me. (but I still read slashdot).
Here are some pointers:
The largest public sequencing center in the world
http://www.sanger.ac.uk/
The US biological information portal
http://www.ncbi.nln.nih.gov/
The European biological information portal
http://www.ebi.ac.uk/
Some open source projects in this area:
(The bio* group.)
http://bio.perl.org/
http://www.biojava.org/
http://www.biopython.org/
http://www.bioxml.org/
Open source genome annotation project
http://www.ensembl.org/
Human Genome Project Information:
http://www.ornl.gov/TechRe sources/Human_Genome/home.html
Human Genome Program, Genome Research: /ober/hug_top.html
http://www.er.doe.gov/production
National Human Genome Research Institute:
http://www.nhgri.nih.gov/
On a more philosophical note, when those who are in their adolescence find themselves looking at a generation which has had their genes tampered, there will be prejudice. Lots of it. It can't be avoided.
But what about those who got vaccines at birth? Those who never had to worry about smallpox, polio, etc.? Every generation we go through is healthier than the last, constantly improving. Genetic research will be an issue, obviously, but it's not that unbelivable or radical. Just another step in the same direction.
------------
"Okay, who taught the cat how to type ctrl alt delete?"
One resource I'd strongly recommend is the National Center for Biotechnology Information. I'm a professional working in the field of Proteomics (the protein equivalent of Genomics) and NCBI is an outstanding clearinghouse of information. It also has good links to other sites. If you really want to see some of the science that's going on using genomic information (and are willing to put up with a somewhat dry, utilitarian attitude), it's a good place to look.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.