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Genetically Engineered "Smart" Mice
Lucius Lucanius writes "A smart gene that helps mice learn faster has been discovered. This follows recent discoveries about neuron generation in monkeys and the creation of doogie the smart mouse. Excitement abounds in the "smart pet" industry, but will it ever be applied to humans?"
If I use a smart mouse, will I be better at Quake II Arena?
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
for Algernon ...
Personally, I can't wait. Maybe we can get smart humans, instead of the dumb variety we have now. (want proof? Read at 0).
www.eFax.com are spammers
Lets find the Karma gene! I bet we could extract it from Signal 11. And while we're at it, lets eliminate the Troll and Flamebait genes.
---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
Excitement abounds in the "smart pet" industry, but will it ever be applied to humans?"
Who would want a smart human as a pet?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Intellimouse
---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
Come on guys, do we really NEED smarter mice? What happens when they "learn" what a mouse trap is? What happens when they "learn" to open the fridge? Come on, THINK before you act people!
:-)
http://kered.org
It's Pinky, it's Pinky and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain....
Please, I beg of you, do not moderate this down or reply in flame because you disagree! I'm only trying to make a point (that you may or not believe in) for the sake of discussion.
Evolution has held before a process of survival of the fittest. OK. This is very over-simplified, but let's just leave it at that. We can assume that there are minor differences in every creature, and those differences which prove beneficial tend to be passed on, thus evolving the species. I know we now know that there are conditions that can alter the rate of evolution, but again, for the sake of discussion, let's keep it simple.
The problem that I've always seen is that humans have stopped evolving. At least according to this scheme. Sure, we keep attaining more knowlege, but for the most part the biological (and this includes mental) aspect of humanity is not changing (at least in no way that is caused by the strictest sense of evolution). This is because we no longer abide by "survival of the fittest".
Sure, just because someone is smarter / stronger / etc than most gives him/her a huge advantage in life, but doesn't necessarily affect the outcome of survival. With some exceptions, no longer do the fittest survive only, but all do. This means that weak genes are just as likely to be passed along as strong ones. Evolution, for the most part, no longer applies.
Have we reached the stage where we need to evolve ourselves? Where we are in control of evolution? It's a scary thought. Granted, this article only hints of what may be possible in the future, but it's a concept that is relatively new and frighteningly, very feasable. The ability to modify genes in an unborn embryo.
Isn't this controlling the specie's evolution? No matter how many laws the nation or world passes, if the technology exists it will be used. There is not, however, any way to stop the progress.
Personally, I don't think the question is if we ever are able to control our own evolution, how to we stop it, but, when we are able to control our own evolution, how will we mold it?
Something to think about.
Peace,
DranoK
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die.
Shh! Nobody knows I'm gay!
Anyone else notice how OLD all of this news is ??
We read these papers in journal club last FALL !!
Yet Hemos is posting it now. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
And what would the consequences be if we were to take this discovery and apply it to humans? Why couldn't something like the movie Lawnmower Man happen (of course on a smaller scale)? We need to think long and hard before putting these types of discoveries to use.. we need to ask ourselves why these changes haven't evolved by themselves, in the same way they've been doing for millions of years.
--
Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
You can bet genetic scientists are looking at experimenting with this gene on humans.
If similar genes are found in the human genome, then there will be a lot of clandestine experimentation to find the "higher intelligence" switch. Once there is sufficient scientific proof of children with IQ>150 on a regular basis, the race will be on to market gene therapy for couples to ensure their children are super-geniuses, who will all go out and found dot.coms and make a fortune.
We can hope that when the majority of the human race has increased intelligence, education, health care, space exploration, and other necessary programs all get the support they deserve without evil politicing stealing away resources.
But in the short term, it will bring a whole new level of meaning to "haves" and "have-nots". Gattaca anyone?
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I wonder how many references we'll see to Flowers for Algernon. That was a great book, by the way.
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grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
you can see a picture of the engineered mice here.
Go get your free Palm V (25 referrals needed only!)
We escaped from the lab about two years ago - a rather famous lab that's had some problems "losing" things, maybe you've read about them? Anyway, we'd like to say things are working great - we built a library underground and have a small city there. Our first generation is a sight to behold - already at a mere four months they are already grasping the fundamentals of trig.. oh, the beauty.. *sniff* but that's not why I'm here.
You see, we try to stay out of the way and content ourselves with trying to take over the world in our free time at night (not related to a cartoon with a similar plot, puh-lease!).. well.. it's been going well. We were able to convince some "judge" who calls himself a "jackson" to destroy our only rival.
We're right about ready to license out our compiler and new chip architecture under the MGPL (Mouse GPL), as well as the MouSE OS, which is a simple form of AI life I'm sure your scientists will like. This AI will quickly infiltrate the 'net and hold all pr0n ransom, allowing us to control you feeble species. You see, we've been watching television and understand that you humans are very reliant on your taboo pr0n and we intend to leverage our OS into the pr0n market and take it over.
Thank you,
- The Mouse
The thieves apparently entered the cafeteria late at night through a ceiling heating duct and lowered themselves to the floor using a stolen fishing rod. After disabling the security motion detector, they picked the combination lock on the cupboard and stole various food supplies, including American cheese singles, peanut butter crackers, and java-chip power bars.
"It's really strange," said cashier Fred Tunalu, "that heating duct is really, really small."
In a completely unrelated story, Pets.com has been suffering from an abnormal increase in fraudulent credit card transactions, resulting in (continued on page 42)
It scares me to know (not think) that eventually this is going to be applied to humanity. Of all the apocalyptical scenarios envisioned by science fiction writers, the genetically-bred humans vs. natural humans forwarded in media such as Star Wars and Gattica seems the most real and most likely. While aliens or meteors may come out of the sky, there's a certain lack of denial that eventually human beings are going to genetically alter themselves in more than trivial ways, and given human nature, it's not a stretch to imagine a way peeking its head out of such a development.
The only hope I draw is from Mother Nature herself. Everyone talks about this being a step in evolution, but what if there's a reason we haven't evolved there yet? I like stories like Ender's Shadows that posit what corrective measures nature may have preinstalled. Card's certainly not alone in his view, either. What isn't as interesting as a genetic super-mouse is the development of a genetic super-mouse. Is it normal in every way except for intelligence, or will other genes be affected by this one being turned on, genes that may lead to super strength or self-destruction.
Our view of gene structure is simplified. We turn a gene on and consider it a success. Nature, however, does not live in a vacuum. Everything is balanced tenuously in nature, and turning on one gene may disrupt that balance completely. So when, not if, we make these leaps, the study shouldn't be about the object being modified, but about the way that nature reacts to those modifications, for that will be where the real benefits are found.
What does this spell out for the power struggles between Tom and Jerry, Itchy and Scratchy, Mighty Mouse and assorted bad guys, Danger Mouse and Baron Greenback (not a cat, but probably in the same union)?
Please add to the list. Those damn cartoon mice get away with murder.
zaugg
So you get a smart gene "installed" in your child- Who owns it? I was just reading this scary story at Wired News about the Monsanto/Farmer sue-sounter-sue situation. Supposedly some Monsanto-patented genes made it into his field- They accuse him of stealing, and he counter-sues because the genes made it into his crop without his knowledge or consent. -Freaky stuff. Will you have to pay a yearly licensing fee for some of you're childrens genes? What if you didn't want those genes there in the first place? How do you compartmentalize genetic material?
air and light and time and space
Evolution is not just about survival, it is about breeding. Individuals with poor genes may survive, but no hot chicks will want to fuck them, so they will not pass those genes on.
Many 'nerds' and other less-than-prime specimens are able to attract women through their high salaries and material security. However, studies have shown that up to 50% of their children were actually conceived in extra-marital affares with hot young studs, because women have a deep instinct to get the best DNA for their offspring.
Many people with what would be considered 'undesirable' genes are able to mate quite easily with other ugly, stupid people. Just look at an episode of Jerry Springer for evidence of this. There is a theory that these people are breeding faster (a girl's IQ is proportional to the age at which she first gets knocked up, and inversley to the number of children she eventually has) and therefore evolution is decreasing our average IQ.
Many of the markers developed by evolution to pick out potential mates are actually quite accidental 'red herrings' that are now propogated through the mechanism of evolution, but serve no real purpose. For instance, one day a caveman decides he finds large breasts attractive. He marries a girl with big tits. All his children inherit his desire for breasts, and also look for wives with big knockers. Eventually, having large breasts is considered a desirable quality in a mate, even though it serves no real purpose.
Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is
"The problem that I've always seen is that humans have stopped evolving."
This is the foundation of your entire post--but you have not backed up this assertion. Cro-Magnon appeared, what, 25,000 years ago (can a paleontologist supply us with a real number, please)? Not much evolution happens in 25,000 years.
In any case, remember that evolution isn't really "survival of the fittest"--it's "reproduction of the survivors". It doesn't matter how long you live (due to glasses, neighbors, organ donors and other miracles of modern science). What matters is: Did you have any children? If not, the species "evolves away from you". If so, it "evolves towards you".
And there are plenty of modern-day factors that create "reproductive differentials": attractiveness, diseases that people survive but that leave them sterile, income (I realize you can't literally inherit wealth--but if wealth was biologically linked, like through racism, it might be/become a heritable characteristic), etc.
This is not to say that some species don't change very slowly or not at all over time--for instance the modern cockroach is nearly identical (or so the story goes) to it's ancient predecessor. But again, that just means that it is "evolving in place"--every time a cockroach is born that is different, it dies--current cockroach design is apparently optimal for it's niche.
In other words, no, there is no need to "evolve ourselves". There is no target we are trying to hit that we are getting behind on. Evolution is merely the process of fitting a species into a niche. If we fit, we're OK.
--
Compaq dropping MAILWorks?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
We are not 'dirtying' our gene pool with people who have disabilities! The very definition of evolution is such that, if we frame a disability as a trait, that in certain environmental circumstances a trait is a disadvantage, useless, or an advantage. So that means that if we start throwing things out of our gene pool, we lose evolutionary power because we won't be able to match those genes to future cases because they happened to fail on past cases.
In this case, a disabled person can have *perfectly* healthy/good genes and an unfortunate environmental circumstance. Like mothers who take drugs during pregnancy. Or we have extreme cases, like Steven Hawkings, where a disability is paired with a bonus.
Evolution is still alive and well! As long as there are factors that control our birth rate and survival rate, evolution is at work!
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
You need to understand that surviving as a species and surviving as a civilization are two different things. There are absolutely NO threats to our species on a large scale (with the exeption of outside factors such as Nuclear Anihilation, Ecological Destruciton, or Gigantic Meteors). The "Quality" of humans as a species, while arguably stagnant, is certainly not biologically on the decline. That being said, physical and mental disability are present in ALL species of animal, and chromosomal abnormality is present in ALL forms of life. This is mutation, NOT evolution. Secondly, the disabled rarely procreate. Its not like we are breeding a race of mongoloid mutants. Support and compassion are what make us human, beyond our Dioxyribonucleic makeup. When we stop supporting and caring for those that are not able to care for ourselves, we do more for the species than "Good Breeding" could ever do.
I will name some factors that influence our birth rate, our propogation, and our survival. By those very factors then the human race is evolving because they are selecting survivors.
AIDS is going to change the landscape of very many countries over the next 2 generations.
Affluence and technology seems to very effectively strangle the population growth of a country, again effecting birth rate and growth rate.
Religions and beliefs the encourage large families affect the growth and birth rate as well, and these will also effect human evolution.
Affluence and technology also seems to retard the age of conception, and this will change the way in which humans select, reproduce, and care for our young.
So no, there are still evolutionary forces in action, even if we try our best to get rid of them!
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
When has nature ever proven it knows better than us? I can't think of a case, can you? Inteligence hasn't been an "alpha" trait in any species for long enough to matter. Human's started that with breeding programs - and THAT has affected certain species in what seems to me to be a positive manner. I've never mat a truly wild dog, and I never want to! I even believe a domestic guard dog would beat one in a fight by being more aware - and, likely, healthier.
"Survival of the fitest" - at best a gross oversiplification - no loger applies to humans. The "alpha -male" bit still does, but it does not focus on pure inteligence - I'd more call it ingenuity, or "Savvy" maybe. Think about it, Bill Gates is a great business man... his daughter is gonna be prime meat too... (sorry for the slur - it seemed fitting).
Anyway, if anything, animal breeding results has shown we're not actually wrong about wanting to encourage specific traits, and I'd bet we could apply it to ourselves sucsessfully. Anyway, if you wanna think Drawback, read the new Ender book "Ender's Shaddow" By Orson Scott Card.
Everything and everyone is an aspect of Gd. So remember to show proper respect!
Evolution is still proceeding, just along different lines. As you state, almost all genes survive to breed, not just the fittest. So the genes that propagate the most successfully will be those belonging to the people who have the most offspring. Therefore we are evolving into Catholics.
(Warning for the humour impaired, this isn't serious).
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
I find that when I play Mozart around the house, the mice that hang around the place get smarter, steal the cheese without setting off the traps, and all that. It's much cheaper than genetic engineering, and more practical too, unless you don't like Mozart. (I don't. I wear earplugs during the experiments. Pretty soon the mice will be smarter than me am.)
/. science section next month.)
Right now I'm trying to build one of those newfangled robots with the two lamprey neurons, to see whether Mozart makes it (err, them?) smarter too.
If that works, I'm going to try it on the fungus that grows in my shower. (For this I may have to do a little 'shaping', since fungus isn't very bright to start with. For example, I'll zap it with a shot of Tilex every time it pushes the wrong button. I'm optimistic about the whole thing. Look for my paper in the
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Either way, here's a list to chew on;
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
There's always a lot of talk about "improving" the human species. But what really would we want to change?
Let's look at intelligence. Most people tend to focus on that. Do we really want to blindly engineer people with IQs of 150? I've known a number of people who have had PhDs, yet also had the worst interpersonal skills I had ever encountered. One person I knew had a PhD in physics, yet chose to work in retail. A roommate of mine in college carried a 4.0 average in a 5 year mechanical engineering program, but had the personality of a rock and smelled like a goat. On the other hand, I've also known people who barely made it through school, but were the best organizers of people and events. Maybe there IS an inverse relationship between classical IQ and the ability to work in groups. Humanity has advanced though its ability to work in groups. Occasionally, a bright individual appears and influences the group, but this doesn't happen often. The history of civilization is more the story of newer groups standing on the shoulders of the older ones to build newer things. Within humanity, there are people who are best at organizing, there are people who are best at following and there are those who are best at working alone, needing no direction and offering none. These three personalities merge together to give us the humanity we are most familiar with. Humanity is not just a collection of individuals, it is a dynamic, supremely adaptable mass greater than the sum of its parts.
Are we still evolving? That depends on your point of view. Humanity has left the bush. It's less likely that odd populations will become so isolated as to allow genetic mutations to create new breeds or species of humans. Today's focus in genetics lies in curing diseases. Can we create a smarter person? Quite possibly. Can we force that newly created person to act intelligently? Quite probably NOT. Humans CHOOSE to act stupidly. That act of intelligent decision making requires WORK - and there are LOTS of lazy people.
When changing the genetic behavior of individuals, the group aspects must be considered.
Social selection has been at work on ants, bees, wolves, etc; anything with a social structure where the existence of the structure aids or hurts the survival of the species.
Look at *sterile* ants, bees, and insects, yet they very much reproduce, evolve, and survive.
Look at pack/pod/social creatures where some never get to mate, while others get all the eggs. They survive, reproduce, evolve, mate, etc.
We are no different.
We have not outsmarted evolution. By it's definition of 'survival of the fittest', anything, social, genetic, or otherwise, that enhance reproduction, survival, and mating, is encouraged, while anything that reduces the three is discouraged.
Culture can both help and hurt; religions that want people to breed like rabits work in one way. Culture that value quality of living(and less children) push it the other way. Culture that encourage diversity, growth, and success help us, where culture that suppresses it hurt us.
There are socio-genetic cultural forces that enact evolutionary forces on us. AIDs, birth rates, quality of living, hormones in our food, contaminated environments, diabetes, drugs, etc.
So to say that 'another form of evolution is at work' now is misleading, because this force has been here from the dawn of time.
We're just smart enough to minimize the 'natural' process of the more brute force eat/die/mate/breed selection, while encouraging the other more secondary terms instead
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
And my title was cooler...
Wonderful! Now all we need to do is procure grant money for the National Institute for Mental Health and give them a few years to be able to bring one of my favorite books as a child to life!
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...after the next big die-off.
The bright ones will leave the planet and be free to expand exponentially. The dim-witted ones will be left behind for Malthus to deal with. Once some of our eggs are out of the one basket, I give it a century before Holy Terra goes up in the Holy Fire of the Atom.
The ways of Nature are harsh, but just.
BTW, what are breasts made of? Mostly fat. A woman with large breasts and a small waist is well-fed but physically fit (and not pregnant), add in a good set of child-bearing hips, long legs (indicating maturity), and regular facial features (indicating both health and a genetic history of being able to attract the best mates), and you've got an ideal mate. In modern society, large breasts due to implants are also a sign of wealth, something people rarely admit to looking for in a mate, but never turn their noses up at. They are also a sign of willingness to surgically tamper with one's own body for some gain, which may turn out to be a damned adaptive trait in the coming years of cybernetic enhancement.
when I posted the original with a score of 1 someone promptly marked it down 'offtopic' - hence my rant - and yeah I was wrong it wasn't Asimov/s
How long, I wonder, until we can "uplift" a few other species? Apes, dolphins, dogs, pigs, parrots all seem good candidates. Myself I'd love that; the variety would truly make things interesting.
Willard
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The way I see it is that we have substituted genetic evolution by memetic evolution (= culture).
Just as hardware is less flexible that software (hence the names), genes are less adaptable than memes.
Science and culture have taken the human species to the Moon and other interesting niches. No species has genetically evolved to reach this (well, some species have evolved to parasite/symbiotize humans (rats, lice, seagulls), and so they follow humankind in our evolution
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Nancy Kress' "Beggars in Spain" (handy, this Google thing) deals with "genetically-bred humans vs. natural humans " and how changing a gene involves other changes in genes and finally in society.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
See, this is the evolution that will happen if we continue to get smarter & smarter, become less & less active. We no longer have to chase down zebras with a spear just to get breakfast. We're not as active. We've lost almost all our hair, since we no longer have to be wooly mammoths to keep warm. heck, just turn the Heater on! And we're losing the hair we have anyways just because of baseball caps (ok, just a theory of mine about hats) Aliens are white, because they don't just program all-nighters, but all-monthers. They don't see the sun months at a time.
See, just because we don't HAVE to survive Nature's environment doesn't mean evolution has stopped. We now have to survive our Technology environment we created. We'll be flying in spaceships soon, and nature is slowly disappearing anyways due to Yet-Another-Suburb(tm). We're already slowly turning into a society where brains can get you ahead. And even starting to get more and more a MUST. For instance... it used to be a big deal to finish your High School, then it was college. Now everyone goes to college. Soon, it'll be triple PHD, and we've already seen the small small rift in Computer-ese vs. NonComputer users.
Evolution is happening! Even if we're sociologically morally allowing People with disabilites to live and procreate, and as another poster said, "all the poor people are having 20 kids, so there'll be all these genes with dumb people spreading", blah blah. Yes, see.. that is evolution. Maybe just not in the direction you're thinking of.
Ok, here's an anology. Let's say that the government made it really cool and easy to get Welfare. Infact, they make it desirable to. (wait, that sounds familiar) Get to watch all the day time crap TV you want! And get payed! So more and more trailer park trash (another poster's words) start to procreate and join welfare. Pretty soon we've got GENERATIONS of Welfare people. See, that's evolution!
Then! All the money dries up because there were only like 10 of us going to work, and 95% of our money went to taxes. So now all of a sudden there's no longer any Welfare cheese to survive on, and they all start to die because they have the "I-dont-know-how-to-work" gene. Another step in Evolution!
This actually happened with a certain type of moth in England. All the trees in this region were birch or something (white bark, being the key here). All these moths were white, and could survive because they blended into the white. Well, once in a while, genetics would make a freak, and a black moth was born. Usually he got eaten by the birds, and no more black moths in that family.
Well, the industrial revolution came for a visit, and spewed forth black soot in the air (and haven't stopped since, i'd wager) Anyway, the trees started to get this darker and darker and darker color to them from the polution. All of a sudden, the freaks of nature that were dark colored moths continued to live and pass their "freaky" gene on, as their white bretheren started to become easy to find on the black trees.
So the point is, we're all slowly turning into non-action related brainy people. If a catastrophe happened, and we'd all have to haul our fat asses after the zebra to eat, instead of driving to the grocery store, yea, we're screwed. But if this catastrophe doesn't happen, then its ok, because we're creating an environment where it's cool to be an out of shape, porphyric, attrophied, possibly fat, computer geek. Yea
Rader
Our ability to modify ourselves through intelligent analysis of ourselves and our environment is really just another mutation. Same as big boobs or a 3rd leg.
We've been close to our present level of sophistication for what, 2-3,000 years? More maybe? Still just a blink of an eye in terms of the long haul. The last 200 years have seen what looks to be a boiling point of sorts in terms of our ability to modify ourselves and our environment. To what end? Who knows?
The jury's still out - only Time will tell if this mutation stays or goes!
**>>BELCH
Dogs and pigs could probably be made a smart as apes and dolphins are now, but parrots? Why, because they seem to be able to talk? There's no way, their brains are waaaaay too small.
I've seen on a TV documentary a parrot able to make such abstract distinctions as "what color?", "which one is metal?", "how many blue?", "which one is square" - getting it right first time, from amongst many objects which differ along all these axes at once.
The small brain size is confusing, but perhaps running a parrot body doesn't take much processing power, so there's more left over for smarts.