Slashdot Mirror
Genetically Engineered Big-brained Mice
StefanJ writes "'Are you pondering what I'm pondering Pinky?' An item on MSNBC reports that researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston have produced mice with big, convoluted brains by inserting an single extra gene. I am reminded of two pieces of SF: Olaf Stapledon's novel Sirius, about a lab experiment that produces a brainy dog, and Bruce Sterling "Our Neural Chernobyl," in which the country is overrun with cunning coyotes and tribes of raccoons."
Huzzah! Bring in the Data Dogs! Ein* rocked.
I wouldn't mind a smarter dog...
*From Cowboy Bebop
moox. for a new generation.
someone else
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Um, why did they do that? Did the scientists just give the mice an X-ray and say "OMG THESE MOUSES ARE SO FREEKIN SMART EWWWWWWW I DONT WANT SMARTY-SMART MICE SQUISH IT SQUISH IT SQUISH IT!!!!!!!!!!!" and then they all stood on top of lab chairs waiting for their spouses to squish the brainy mice, (but of course they had to settle for the building custodian)?
Look, I'm just guessing, okay?
Sorry, may God have mercy on our souls.
Slow Down Cowboy!
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Flowers for Algernon...Its really almost here.
If they gave this to a dolphin or a whale which already have larger brains than us, but presumably don't have our overabundance of the magic protein.
Or our nearest neighbors like chimps and gorillas... Though I think it would be more interesting to give it exclusively to Bonobos, they'd probably write some interesting erotica
The same thing we do every night. Try to take over the _world_!!!
<i>It's Pinky, it's Pinky and the Brain, brain brain...</i>
Algernon, perhaps?
In other news...
A pastry factory custodian's brain was doubled in size by the insertion of an extra gene. He's reported to be in good spirits, and looks forward to a full life of intelligence and happiness.
*everything* is Orwellian to cats.
They said that the mice were "Killed soon after birth"... what they didn't say is that they were killed after leading a bloody rebellion that culminated in a tense showdown in the lab, with one of the engineered mice holding a poisoned needle to one of the researcher's throats.
Luckily they were able to calm down the miscreant with a piece of cheese, and lured him far enough away from the researcher to turn him into a bloody splot on the (otherwise spotlessly clean linolium) floor.
Back to you Bob.
With my dying breath, I curse Zoidberg!
The Lysenko Maze - David Grinnell - F&SF Jul '54
A short story about hyperintelligent mice. OK, they were bred --- we didn't have DNA manipulation in '54, and for that matter the discovery of DNA was only in the near-future.
The story's worth reading all the way through at least once.
This article, about a single gene that could revolutionize civilization, only got on the science section page. While an article about Perl 5.8.0 got FP. I don't think another slightly different version of Perl will change civilization as we know it.
EDITORS: WHY ISN'T THIS FP!
Maybe you should double-check with other editors to make sure stories are where they belong.
The researchers genetically altered the brain cells, but not bone growth - so I wonder whether the increased folding is a response to being crammed into a cranial cavity that is too small.
In the early 1600's members of the church were saying much the same thing about Galileo and his support of Copernican heliocentric theory. Echoes were again heard with the introduction of Newtonian physics, and Darwin's natural selection. Throughout history people have feared and even violently supressed new ideas and methodologies that would later prove beneficial and increase our understanding of the wonderous and often mystifying universe that we live in. While I agree that new discoveries can be frightening, I don't think that we should even attempt to place limitations on the growth of the human sphere of knowledge (mostly,because we can't). We are, by nature, an inquisitive species and that trait has brought us some amazing things like computers( and there was MUCH rejoicing!), air-conditioning, antibiotics, books, Hitchhiker's Guide on compact disc, etc. At any given time in our past there were people saying," Hey, that's enough! We go much farther with all of this new-fangled learning and we are in grave danger!{Insert name of deity here} is going to punish us if we don't cut it out this instant!" The end result? We are already in a hell of our own creation where there are effective treatments for a vast number of diseases, where we have the tools to combat drought and famine, where we can accurately predict storms and the path of a hurricane, where we can communicate with loved ones across vast distances by simply pressing a few buttons, and where doomsday criers can post their warnings on the internet for all of the world to see! You see, we have always been "extremely close" to your imaginary line with our unlocking of seemingly insoluble mysteries and looking back, we find that that line was never really there.
Oh great!
First it was H1B's from India, Pakistan, and China. Now we have to compete with smart mice also.
Shudduv been a dentist like Mom warned.
Table-ized A.I.
If such a simple mutation could make you smarter, evolution would have found already. After all, intellegence is an evolutionary advantage, just look at all the chicks us geeks get...
Quick! Kill those mice before they build the death ray to destroy us!
These must be those vastly hyperintelligent pandimensional mice that are actually experimenting on US!
Head for the hills, the Vorgons are coming!!
Don't Bogart the fish sticks
What good would it would do to SMARTER PEOPLE!
At the very least we would not have to put up with so many stupid ones.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Should have previewed...should read:
What good it would do to have SMARTER PEOPLE!
At the very least we would not have to put up with so many stupid ones.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
What have men got to do with anything?
Let's not forget about Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH!
The movie even has curse words, deaths, and a psychedelic sequence of rats undergoing DNA mutation. Gotta love Don Bluth back when he was good.
it was only a matter of time before someone finally decided to go with the notion to create some super-animal. First we put ears on them, now we've made them with big brains. Just shows that those guys back in the fifties making the b-grade giant spider movies were onto something. Although this story seems much more familiar to "deep blue sea"
Righteousness postpones the inevitable
http://burningaureole.caveism.net
Looks like Spielberg's 'Pinky and the brain' was a prediction and not simply a cartoon - doh. Maybe the heading should have been
Pinky: "Gee Brain, what are we going to do tonight?"
Brain: "what we do every night - try to take over the world!"
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
"Earthman, the planet you lived on was commissioned, paid for, and run by mice. It was destroyed five minutes before the completion of the purpose for which it was built, and we've got to build another one."
..."
..." said Slartibartfast, "one has to admire it."
...
Only one word registered with Arthur.
"Mice?" he said.
"Indeed Earthman."
"Look, sorry - are we talking about the little white furry things with the cheese fixation and women standing on tables screaming in early sixties sit coms?"
Slartibartfast coughed politely.
"Earthman," he said, "it is sometimes hard to follow your mode of speech. Remember I have been asleep inside this planet of Magrathea for five million years and know little of these early sixties sit coms of which you speak. These creatures you call mice, you see, they are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vast hyperintelligent pan- dimensional beings. The whole business with the cheese and the squeaking is just a front."
The old man paused, and with a sympathetic frown continued.
"They've been experimenting on you I'm afraid."
Arthur thought about this for a second, and then his face cleared.
"Ah no," he said, "I see the source of the misunderstanding now. No, look you see, what happened was that we used to do experiments on them. They were often used in behavioural research, Pavlov and all that sort of stuff. So what happened was that the mice would be set all sorts of tests, learning to ring bells, run around mazes and things so that the whole nature of the learning process could be examined. From our observations of their behaviour we were able to learn all sorts of things about our own
Arthur's voice tailed off.
"Such subtlety
"What?" said Arthur.
"How better to disguise their real natures, and how better to guide your thinking. Suddenly running down a maze the wrong way, eating the wrong bit of cheese, unexpectedly dropping dead of myxomatosis, - if it's finely calculated the cumulative effect is enormous."
He paused for effect.
"You see, Earthman, they really are particularly clever hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings. Your planet and people have formed the matrix of an organic computer running a ten-million-year research programme
"Let me tell you the whole story. It'll take a little time."
"Time," said Arthur weakly, "is not currently one of my problems."
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
Yes, now that we understand how to create chemical explosives like black powder, how to breed plants and animals to be our domesticated servants, and how to build pyramid structures that reach up to the very sky itself, we are treading dangerously close to that line! God of mercy indeed! Oh wait, all that happened millennia ago. My bad.
It's the same story, after all. And more /. readers are likely to recognize Lawnmower Man than Flowers for Algernon.
They're Pinky and the Brain
Pinky and the Brain:
One is a genuis,
The other's insane;
They'll overthrow the earth,
They'll rule with all their worth;
They're Pinky,
They're Pinky and the Brain
Brain Brain Brain Brain
Dun dun.
LOL. Ok, but seriously, this is interesting. More interesting than seeing if mice can play chess or learn to read, is if this same technique can be applied on humans pre-birth, and if genetic engineering via virus-vectors could be used to apply it to the already-living (not just the unborn).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
In my opinion, the book is vastly supirior to the movie of the same name.
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh
A dog smart enough to use a toilet would be a Good Thing.
Of course, it might then also be smart enough to be a real pain in the ass.
"IT IS NOT yet clear whether the mice are smarter -- they were all killed soon after birth when they started unlocking their cages and yelling obscenities at the scientists -- but the scientists..."
So long as it doesn't learn to read the newspaper, too. Then we'd never get the damn dogs outta the bathroom.
Science is the discovery of God's ways.
People who fear science becauase of their religion, are in fact showing their lack of faith. They are afraid that some day, some how, science will prove the non-existance of God. However, someone with strong faith will encourage science, as they know for fact, that it will prove God.
Example: Evolution. Most religious people fight evolution, because they think it may help prove the non-existance of God. However, those with true faith embrace the theories, as the Genesis is God's process. Most Christians believe that God is truth, light, and love. Then why would God want you to not seek the truth? God Doesn't. Who are we to say, "No, God did not use evolution to ensure the unwatched preservation of his creation. God did not use evolution to create man's body from those that already existed.
I don't want to turn this into an evolution discussion, because no matter how many of those I have had, no-one ever seems to change anyone's mind.
However, no where have I ever read in the Bible the part about how humans should not try to discover God's ways and use them to manipulate our environment. (If so, everything, including Calendars that track the seasons are sac-religious).
This isn't the sig you are looking for... Carry on...
Is it just me, or did the scientists spend too much time creating the fractals that they pawned off as so called 'mri cross-sections'? =P
Truly a shame that Douglas Adams didn't live to see this.
Huh, and I always thought it was exposure to Chemical X that caused brains to double in size.
Oh well, at least this way is safer. The Chemical X route always seems to produce mad geniuses intent on taking over Townsville (when applied to primates, at any rate).
Huh, and I always thought it was exposure to Chemical X that caused brains to double in size.
Chemical X is apparently Ecstasy. I wonder what 'X' really does to human foetuses.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Novel by Daniel Keyes.
Mice, intelligence, Charlie. Remember?
Mouse brains normally have a smooth surface. Human brains are all wrinkled and folded, because they are squashed into the skull.
Squashed... is that a medical term? (:
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Imagine a beowulf cluster or these!
Communicating solely via email from their fortified facility, the scientists responsible for this research have sent out numerous grant applications, along with purchase orders for large amounts of
shredded cedar cage-lining, cheese, and machine tools.
"from MSNBC: IT IS NOT yet clear whether the mice are smarter -- they were all killed soon after birth"
After taking a look around Sciene Magazine's Website, I found a quote on their Science Now which is worded a little bit differently:
"The mice died soon after birth, so the researchers do not know how the bigger brains would affect their behavior"
This seems to suggest that the mice weren't euthanized -- instead, the modification itself was lethal. However, I couldn't find any confirmation of this in the text of the paper itself (Also on Science's website, requires subscription, though). The gene studied here, B-catenin, is expressed in numerous tissues throughout the developmental process, so I'd be a little surprised if such a major change yielded a viable organism.
Or "The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents" by Terry Pratchett. I'm reading it now. Pratchett's rats get big brains by eating from the garbage pile behind the Unseen University, but, in typical Pratchett fashion, they not only get intelligence, but also get ethics and religion in the bargain.
Note that this isn't entirely off-topic. Although the book is a fantasy marketed toward teens and pre-teens, it actually addresses many issues in AI, animal rights, ethics, religion and bioengineering. Of course, if you've read other Discworld novels, you would know that already...
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
...'The Secret of NIMH? Remember your movie history, then go back and reread this article...and then consider whether or not you really want to bulldoze that rosebush in your front yard...
"Courage is being afraid to do the Right Thing, and doing it anyway."
Who are we to say,[...] God did not use evolution to create man's body from those that already existed.
Well, there's that bit in the bible (genesis) about how god made man from dirt in one day. So all the talk about man evolving over millions of years from "lesser" animals kinda contradicts that part.
Prayer has no place in the public schools, just like facts have no place in organized religion. - Superintendent Chalmers
"An upstart astrologer...This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." - Martin Luther on Copernicus
So anyways, back to the mice...
Big brains, eh?
You can't take the sky from me...
LED Binary Clock
Check out this desktop binary timepiece. After a few minutes, you'll be able to read it right away while your friends and family stare in awe at your massive craniums...