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Cloning Yields Human-Rabbit Hybrid Embryo
ralphb writes "Here is the story of scientists in China who have, for the first time, used cloning techniques to create hybrid embryos that contain a mix of DNA from both humans and rabbits. Hop on over for a look!"
This is just the sort of thing that will catch the attention of do-gooder congressmen and get things like cloning research completely banned...If they do things like this, they should keep it quiet, not get it out into the mainstream of public opinion where people can jump (or maybe hop-hop-hop) to conclusions and phone their congressman.
Judgeing from the artical they might have found a better way to get stem cells for research. However, now instead of having to deal with just people that are anti-cloning or anti-stem cell research, you would also have to deal with the animal rights activists because of the retrevial of the eggs, and the undertermined status of the cells after they are created.
So in the short run it is posibly a better way to get stem cells, in the long run it will raise alot of ethical concerns, as well as the undermined nature of the cell - in short we don't know if they are "true" stem cells in their ablity to grow into any organ. Also, if they do have the potenital to become any organ, we don't know how the human body would react to the foegin DNA (the rabit mitocadria)
I don't claim to be a DNA expert but I'll bet the people opposing these kinds of exparaments know even less about DNA than I do.
Somewhere I've read that we share most of our DNA with all the other members of the animal kingdom and indeed we share a lot of DNA with every living thing.
Some of these exparaments are "pure research" and others are "applied research." In pure research you do the exparament and then look to see where it took you. In applied research you have a pretty good idea of where you are going and are pretty much conducting the exparament to verify your theory. In either case, there really is a goal to the research and I'll submit that the goal is usually good for humanity.
Without this kind of research we would miss out on opportunities to cure disease, treat birth defects and, all sorts of other good things. But, there is something even better that comes from this research. We gain a greater understanding of the world we live in. We add to humankinds knowlege base. Without doing this we will fail to advance and the next century will look like the last. When that happens there is little doubt that we will have started to slide down the road to extinction becuase we will exhaust vital resources.
In other words, this IS important research, that has the potential of providing important material for research projects that might take medical science huge leaps forwards.
This kind of knee-jerk 'this is bad/immoral/whatever' comment, even though you clearly didn't finish (start?) reading the article is exactly the kind of piss-poor commentary that prevents science doing good.
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
For example, if a human embryo with three of a given chromosome is formed, depending on which chromosome it forms on, the embryo may either fail to develop past the 8 cell stage, or develop into a 10 week fetus and die, or develop longer and die, but never become viable outside the womb. Down's syndrome is unique in that it and sex chromosome triploidies are the only triploidies that are compatible with life. Other triploidies result in miscarriage or failure to implant.
Unfortunately, I had to learn about this the hard way.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Ok, I was almost down to the bottom of the page moderating, and had to back out to respond to this point.
You have come close to hitting on the quintessential question behind all of the debate.
What makes a human a human?
Arguably, the most important criteria for being human is awareness... consciousness.
Here's a rather graphic gedanken:
Shave off all your hair... are you still human? What if you amputate your arms and legs? How about body organs? Artificial heart, kidney dialysis, iron lung, etc... Take this beyond what is possible with modern day science... brain in a vat. Quality of life has certainly decreased dramatically! However, the brain is still thinking, the software of mind is still running. What if it were possible to run the software on other hardware? Sure, cyberpunk has beat this topic to death... but I certainly don't consider my brain to be me! To quote Rene Descartes: "cogito ergo sum". Nothing else is relevant... software is everything (yeah, I'm a programmer ;-) )
Unfortunately, science has not been able to answer the question of when during development the spark of consciousness begins.
Can we agree that awareness requires a brain? Can we agree that this brain needs to be working... ie. the synapses are firing, neural potentials exist?
If so, then consciousness must begin sometime between 4 and 6 months of development.
This experiment was limited to 14 days of development. This is the point when cells begin to differentiate. Clearly this is long before a brain and the potential for consciousness arises.
Really, this is an ideal stop-gap measure. If by mixing mitochondrial DNA of another species with human nuclear DNA you achieve a development term necessary for medicinal purposes, and at the same time insure development self-aborts prior to brain development, then you end up with a self regulating procedure that prevents the accidental creation of a human consciousness.
It appears Ockham lost his razor and grew a beard.
They define clinical human death as the absense of brainwave activity, so why don't they define clinical human life as the presence of brainwave activity?
Oh, right, it's hard to attach emotions to a EEG.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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