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Gene Therapy Creates Strong Super-Rats

Posted by timothy on from the pizza-with-nietzsche-cheese-please dept.

srstoneb writes "The AP is reporting about a gene therapy study in which muscle tissue in rats is modified to grow at an accelerated rate. The researchers are mainly interested in combating muscular dystrophy, but obviously there are other potential applications, both good and bad, for a treatment which makes you stronger. Athletic ethics are addressed in the article (it's in the sports section, after all), and rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe regular Tom Galloway -- who posted the link there, where I saw it -- made a comparison to the 'super-soldier serum' that created Captain America. Based on the article, a vaguely Wolverine-like healing factor is another benefit as the therapy allows faster recovery from injury. We already had a non-powered superhero reported last year. Who knows what the future may hold? ^_^" (And that's not the only natural-born superhero.)

47 of 414 comments (clear)

  1. Great, thats all we need... by myowntrueself · · Score: 5, Funny

    Rats with "vaguely Wolverine-like healing factor".

    Wonderful.

    I can see the pest control guys kitting up with miniguns and RPGs.

    --
    In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    1. Re:Great, thats all we need... by originalTMAN · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, most of us have been training for this day for quite a while. I think the world will be safe.

    2. Re:Great, thats all we need... by Borg453b · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes - I knew my l337 skillz would come to good use eventually. 'I frag purely to save the world and impress the chicks'

      --

      - Mad, ingenous - they've both left you puzzled -
  2. Almost too embarrassed to say but.... by nano2nd · · Score: 4, Funny

    I for one welcome our new mutant rat overlords.

    --
    G4 Hackintosh
    1. Re:Almost too embarrassed to say but.... by alien_blueprint · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is an old /. "joke."

      At this point I'll re-use another tired old catch-phrase, which is described on the very same Wikipedia page - "you must be new here" ;)

    2. Re:Almost too embarrassed to say but.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Sorry, I wasn't clear enough in my original post. It should have been more like "in light of all the overuse of this joke, why was it..."

      It is official; Netcraft confirms: Welcoming our new Overlords is dying

      One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Overlord Welcoming community when IDC confirmed that Overlord Welcoming market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all +5 funny moderations. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that welcoming our new overlords has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Welcoming our new overlords is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Slashdot comprehensive moderation test.

      You don't need to be a Soviet Russian to predict Welcoming our new Overlords' future. The hand writing is on the wall: Welcoming our new Overlords faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Welcoming our new Overlords because Welcoming our new Overlords is dying. Things are looking very bad for Welcoming our new Overlords. As many of us are already aware, Welcoming our new Overlords continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

      Welcoming our new Giant Rat Overlords is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core trolls. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time New Overlord trolls Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Welcoming our new Overlords is dying. All major surveys show that Welcoming our new Overlords has steadily declined in market share. Welcoming our new Overlords is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Welcoming our new Overlords is to survive at all it will be among trolls rated at -1. Welcoming our new Overlords continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Welcoming our new Overlords is dead.

      Fact: Welcoming our New Overlords is dying

    3. Re:Almost too embarrassed to say but.... by MP3Chuck · · Score: 4, Funny

      "You don't need to be a Soviet Russian to predict Welcoming our new Overlords' future."

      You mean to say that in Soviet Russia, new Overlords welcome me? I'm flattered...

      --
      Who doesn't like free music?
  3. Splinter first, turtles later by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Progis Riport 1.

    Algernon kickd me in th nuts! It is sawr.

  4. Dateline 2020... by heironymouscoward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Superrat "Mitee Mus" runs for governor of the Democratic Republic of California, winning 63% of the votes. Standing 7'3" tall, weighing 120kg and gifted with an IQ of 192, Mitee Mus told reporters "Now I can get to the real business of building nice warm nests for every Californian". He is married to the cousin of a Kennedy.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une signature
  5. I'm all for it... by Arcanix · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is the only way we'll be able to compete in hand to hand combat with the robots that we'll assuredly create and be forced to fight against in the near future.

  6. How long before this gets into the food chain? by mapnjd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With the rise-and-rise of agribusiness and the permanent pressure they place on our governments, how long before such genetic modifications are made to cows, pigs, etc.?

    --
    Bus error in your favour. Collect 200kB
    1. Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? by fruey · · Score: 4, Insightful
      This could already be happening. Growth hormones, vitamin supplements, antibiotics in food all the time, to reduce infection.

      Just where do you draw the line?

      --
      Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
    2. Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? by sql*kitten · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just where do you draw the line?

      When customers stop buying it, corporations will stop selling it. The anti-GM camp is vocal, but small. The majority of consumers just want vast amounts of cheap food and aren't too bothered how or where it comes from. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but it is just how it is.

    3. Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? by mongbot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Cattle and poultry are given vital human antibiotics by agribusiness, just in order to allow animals to grow slightly faster. This means that bacteria have a far greater chance to grow resistant to the antibiotics. There have been many reported cases of people becoming infected with antibiotic resistant bacteria after they have eaten meat raised with antibiotics, (in particular, VRE).

      Antibiotics are our only tools against the bacterial infections that killed untold millions before the 20th century. People forget that before the invention of antibiotics, a simple cut or scratch could lead to infection and death. And now we want to throw all that away, simply for cheaper meat?

      Can you be sure that the cost savings of agricultural antibiotics are passed onto consumers, anyway? Let us not forget that agriculture in the US is massively subsidised by the government (albeit to a lesser extent than in EU or Japan). And I don't know about you, but looking at current epidemic of obesity, I would say that we get enough meat already.

    4. Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? by sql*kitten · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes the anti-GM at all costs people are small and vocal but the "please label what I'm about to eat crowd" are pretty mainstream.

      The SAY they want food labelled, but they still BUY unlabelled food. A corporation only cares (or even knows) what you DO, not what you SAY.

      I challenge everyone who says they're anti-GM to reflect that in their buying behaviour. 'Cos if they won't, then that demonstrates what they really believe.

    5. Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? by jarran · · Score: 5, Informative

      the anti-GM camp is vocal, but small.

      That rather depends where you live.

      The UK goverments own research done last year shows that the public mood in the UK "[...] ranged from caution and doubt, through suspicion and scepticism, to hostility and rejection." (Quote lifted directly from the report.)

      They also found, interestingly, that people who came into the debate undecided about GM and not knowing much about the issues became more anti-GM the more they found out, which you could interpret as meaning that a significant number of people are not anti-GM out of ignorance, rather than choice.

      When customers stop buying it, corporations will stop selling it.

      Which is why every major supermarket in the UK has removed GM from their products, and biotech companies are withdrawing from the UK because they don't believe there is a market for GM food.

      And attitudes amongst retailers are becoming more anti-GM rather than less, e.g. supermarkets are now starting to even remove products from animals fed on GM.

    6. Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? by debrain · · Score: 4, Informative

      When customers stop buying it, corporations will stop selling it.

      If that were the case, Monsanto would have stopped selling Posilac long ago. On the other hand, when your executives are appointed to the EPA, and you can prevent the news from airing the truth, who cares about the puss content of 1/3rd of America's childrens' milk?

      Customers have all kinds of choice. It is awareness and influence that are starkly lacking in the modern America.

    7. Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 4, Informative
      Judging by the success of the Atkins and South Beach diets...

      What, the success of damaging the health of millions of people? High protein diets increase the risk of heart disease, cancer, kidney damage, and osteoporosis. And weight loss on high-protein diets comes from water loss (as your body tries to urinate out the toxic byproducts of ketosis) and reduced caloric intake, not any magical property of protein.

      These diets get one thing right, in that they encourage avoiding foods that spike blood sugar. Everything else about them is dangerously wrong.

      Want to know the long-term consequences of using protein and fat to fuel your metabolism rather than clean-burning carbohydrates? Ask a diabetic about the wonderful effects they get to experience.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
  7. rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You mean the usenet is still used for things besides spam, porn, and warez??? I can't believe it.

  8. Why are Athletic Orginizations so concerned? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought that the concern with steroids was that they posed long-term health risks... not that they made people stronger. The concept of limiting strength to those with naturally good genes is quite elitist.

    That's like saying that someone with bad eyesight shouldn't get glasses. If this therapy is as side-effect free as claimed, then why shouldn't people be allowed to use it?

    After all, implants and other non-essential plastic surgery is legal...

    1. Re:Why are Athletic Orginizations so concerned? by kinnell · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Personally, I think they should have two seperate athletic leagues - the normal one, and an indy league in which steroids, gene-therapy and performance enhancing drugs are allowed. It would make for an interesting competition. Give the scientists an arena.

      --
      If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
    2. Re:Why are Athletic Orginizations so concerned? by TGK · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It frightens me that the fundamental rational for the Eugenics Laws of the industrial revolution is met with a "+3 Insightful" modifier here.

      Human kind has, for the most part, long since stopped selecting for any survival based trait. You want to talk about things that fuck with national selection? Talk birth control, talk college tuition. The upper classes have fewer children because these children cost money and cost time. The lower classes have more children because they tend to be less educated about birth control and ways to avoid this as well as somewhat more deluded as to the roll a child will play in their lives.

      What you're doing is taking something many people have an aversion to (intrusive gene therapy etc) and using it as a rational for why bloody wars that clean out the working classes are good. You're basically making the argument that rich beautiful people (most of whom got beautiful primarily by virtue of being rich) are actually better in a vague "scientific evolutionary" sense than the rest of us.

      The corollary is that the poor and ugly people are worse. The same logic was used to justify the sterilization movements in the United States and the extermination of the Jews in Nazi Germany.

      Yea.... real insightful.

      --
      Killfile(TGK)
      No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
    3. Re:Why are Athletic Orginizations so concerned? by Gulthek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh. My. God. Is it evil or ignorance, ladies and gentlemen? Surely, surely we hope that it is the latter, but unfortunately there are those of us (like Mister Moron here) that would argue that it doesn't matter! Ha! Sit down sir, class is in session. Setting aside your silly preoccupationi with IQ, your odd view of taxes as an investment, and your laughable racial beliefs; let's examine evolution and genetics.

      Evolution is a reaction, not a progression.

      We cannot selectively breed ourselves, picking the best traits for survival, because we don't know what traits are best for survival!

      To ensure the survival of the species (humanity) we need a large and diverse gene pool from which to draw from should there ever be a significant environmental change (and by environmental, I'm talking about either the real environment or our social environment), we'll have the resources to combat it!

      It's like this: wheat. Most of the wheat now grown in the US and other countries is from one genetic strain. If its environment deviates significantly from what is now standard, that wheat is dead. If a disease breaks out that affects that strand, the wheat is dead. If a predator develops that voraciously feeds on that wheat, it is dead. It has nothing left. It has no more genetic tricks up its sleeve. If there were multiple strains of wheat, some would die, some would live, and those that live would have reacted well to the environment. But that doesn't mean that the strains that live are better than those before it! It just means that they were able to cope with a particular stress in a viable manner.

      As it stands now, thanks to millions of years of change and mutation, we as a species are incredibly diverse, and very healthy for it. If we were to start to remove parts of that diversity, even if we think that it is for our own good, then we start to mess with things that we simply can't predict because we don't know what the future stresses will be.

      You're like someone on a sailboat with a prevailing wind going right where you want to go who says, "These oars are just slowing us down. They weigh a lot and they aren't very good at catching the wind and they're proud of it! Let's throw them overboard!" It can make a stupid kind of sense, until the wind dies down.

  9. MOD PARENT "FUNNY" by GiveMeLinux · · Score: 4, Informative

    Reference is to "Flowers for Algernon."

  10. Careful... by The+Tyro · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It sounds great in theory, but there are all kinds of potential problems with rapidly and artificially increasing strength that way.

    If you increase strength very rapidly without allowing for the corresponding tendons and bone to adapt to the greater muscle mass, you can cause tendon ruptures and stress fractures (already well-known phenomenon in athletes). The body can adapt to all kinds of derangements if you give it enough time, but too much too fast? Bad news. I've seen people come in to the hospital with a hemoglobin level of 5, still walking (slowly) and talking. Now, that's theoretically too low to survive on, but if it happens over a long enough period of time, your body can adapt. If you take a normal person and immediatly bleed them down to a hemoglobin of 5, they'll die.

    Plus, if you are turning over too much muscle tissue too fast and don't stay adequately hydrated, you can clog your kidneys and end up in renal failure. This happens periodically when some untrained amateur athelete tries an Ironman without adequate conditioning.

    The human body is an amazing machine, but you have to be careful monkeying around with it... athletes may be after performance, but anyone who volunteers to be a guinea pig for this stuff needs his head examined.

    --
    Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
  11. Medical Applications by Bones3D_mac · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder if this would also help stop or reduce the breakdown of muscle tissue, when used to combat the effects of genetic conditions like Marfans Syndrome.

    Another application might be to solve certain heart related issues. There isn't exactly a huge replacement supply right now.

    --


    8==8 Bones 8==8
  12. Turtles? by SJ · · Score: 5, Funny

    Great, we have the rat... now we just need some turtles.

  13. This is not news by broothal · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why do you think an american tenderloin beef is larger than a european one? Correct - the US beef is gene modificated. That's why there's a ban on importing beef from the US to Europe. Now, this has been going on for more than a decade. Altering muscles genetically is not news! But using the enlarged muscles for something other than to make larger beefs is. Of course, this has been explored in countless action movies already like Soldier and Drive

    1. Re:This is not news by dnnrly · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm afraid I have to disagree with you there - US beef is banned in the EU because US beef growers use steroids to boost muscle mass in their stock. This (allegedly) remains in meat consumed by humans and has been deemed unsafe on this side of the pond. There is the whole thing about market protectionism, but that's a whole other story.

      PS. it's "genetically modified" not "gene modificated".

    2. Re:This is not news by Muhammar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      US beef producers use Trenbolone synthetic steroid anabolic to muscle-up calves. It is applied as a thin tube stuck into ear of cattle. (Anabolics work best when injected, frequent injections are not practical - hence the slow-release modified formulation of steroid stuck into ear). Bodybuilders get trenbolone from farmers (they can't buy anabolics legit in US). Since they do not want to walk around with a tube in the ear, they extract trenbolone from the tube formulation and inject themselves daily with the stuff in form of extremely painful subcutaneous injections. They call it "making their own gear"

      --
      I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
  14. Comedy Rats aside . . . by Tetsugaku-San · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I actually have muscular dystrophy, and although it doesn't affect me, it affects my mum, and potentially my children - I'm damn glad that someone has taken the time to research this oft (relatively) overlooked genetic disease.

    --

    My Portfolio
  15. Rats with "vaguely Wolverine-like healing factor" by CAIMLAS · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder how 'vaguely Wolverine" these healing abilities are.

    It's be interesting to see precisely what applications these advancements are seeing in military use. Sure, it's unlikely that any serious or controversal issue gets used right away by mainstream military, but surely there are special military groups that get "advanced tech" quite, in, er, advance of the main military force.

    I heard/read somewhere once that the US military's "high end" technology is 12 years more advanced than anything that is actually available for the mainstream military force, and only used by Special Ops.

    Consider how un-advanced things were during the first desert storm compared to how they are now - and jump ahead another years, and think of an equal amount of differential, if not an exponential differential. Wow.

    --
    ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
  16. Bad side effects by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I see the potentional for bad side effects. If you increase the immune system, you get allergies and arthritis. If you increase the cellular regenation, you have cancer.


    Look at TNG, the advance imune system also kills.

    --
    Fight Spammers!
  17. Probably not what you want by The+Tyro · · Score: 5, Informative

    For someone with Marfan's syndrome.

    Marfan's syndrome is a genetic defect in the gene that codes for Fibrillin, a major component of microfibrils in the body's connective tissues. Much of the pathologic consequences are noted in the eye and the aorta... the former location gets dislocations of the lens, and the latter location develops large (fatal if undiagnosed) aortic aneurysms. Marfanoid patients also tend to be tall, and have a lot of laxity in their joints, primarily because of their weakened connective tissues.

    If you have weaker connective tissue than normal, it would probably be counterproductive to have greatly increased muscle mass.

    I'm not picking on you, just pointing out that it might not be exactly what a Marfan's patient really needs... It might be useful in some kinds of muscular dystrophies, but the most common kinds have defective myofibrils... creating more non-functional muscle wouldn't appear to help them very much.

    --
    Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
  18. Re:Hrmm by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Funny

    " ... Eugenics war ... "

    That is the least of our worries!!! PRAY that your grandchildren will NOT have a neat little inscription behind their right ear that reads.

    "DNA Encoded by Microsoft (c)."

    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow
  19. Ultimate Super Hero International Team! by SoupIsGood+Food · · Score: 4, Funny

    I will assmeble the ultimate real-life superhero team to Save the Universe! It will be called the Ultimate Super Hero International Team! The roster is carefully chosen to represent the most gifted and talented real-life adventurers from across the globe!

    On it will be the daring leader and Weapons Expert, Angle Grinder Man! (Linked to above.) Also...

    Aerospace Expert: Lawn Chair Larry!

    Science and Technology Expert: Troy Hurtubise, inventor of the famous Bear Proof Suit! (Tested by real bikers! And bears! It's bear and biker proof!)

    Matter Eating Expert: Sonya Thomas, the Black Widow!

    Sneaking Across the Country Naked Expert: Steven Gough!

    With these mighty heroes, the Ultimate Super Hero International Team, the Universe shall be Saved!

    SoupIsGood Food

  20. Drugs in sport by Zog+The+Undeniable · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Two days after Marco Pantani's death was announced, this is not a good thing for sport. The exact cause of Pantani's death has not yet been determined, but what is known is that he was depressed and being treated for drug addiction after being hounded for years over doping allegations. Unfortunately new "treatments" appear all the time and techniques to detect them are usually slow to catch up or ineffective (the EPO test involves measuring haemocrit levels in the blood, which can easily give false positives). Most professional cyclists are probably on something or other, and there are many who will leap at the chance to use another, as yet undetectable, performance boosting substance.

    The stupid thing is that if they were just in it for the prize money, they could have taken up golf and got paid far more for the onerous duty of wearing a particular brand of patterned sweater.

    --
    When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
  21. Long-Term Low Gravity by clickety6 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just wondering if this would be useful for building up muscle mass to combat long periods in low-gravity - such as a manned trip to Mars?

    --
    ----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
  22. Exactly... fine balance required by The+Tyro · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There exist entire categories of diseases based entirely on immune system problems.

    Rheumatoid arthritis, mixed connective tissue disease, Lupus, etc... all are autoimmune, and are a result of the body's immune system attacking itself. These diseases can be devilishly difficult to diagnose and treat... there's a reason why Rheumatology is its own medical specialty. Some of the drugs the rheumatologists use are potentially nasty, and include transplant drugs, and chemotheraputic agents... not stuff for the faint of heart.

    By the same token, when you start monkeying around with DNA, you need to be careful what genes you activate or deactivate... Cancer is fundamentally a genetic disease, and a real possibility if you get an unregulated growth gene (or you inadvertantly turn off a suppressor gene). Cancers are funny things; they can even respond to simple hormones... precisely why women with a breast cancer history aren't advised to receive hormone replacement therapy.

    Gene therapy has had some successes, but it's really in its infancy... I'd be awfully leery about using it just to bulk up at the gym. On the other hand, if you have a lethal genetic defect, and you're going to die without it, have at it. Forget Hans and Franz... you can find quite a few patients with potentially lethal genetic diseases (Cystic Fibrosis, etc) who'd be much better candidates for gene therapy than some weight-lifter.

    It bears repeating... using it for simple body-building is absolutely foolhardy... instead of growing big pectoral muscles, you might inadvertently be growing yourself a big fat tumor... that'll look great at the beach.

    --
    Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
  23. Re:This is going to be a trip! by Penguinshit · · Score: 4, Funny


    Darl McBride is a Russian boxer?

    --

    I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...

  24. Re:Hrmm by radja · · Score: 4, Funny

    at least they'll have blue eyes then.. or at least occasionally..

    --

    No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
    --Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
  25. Re:Simple answer: by DragoonAK · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's funny, because I guarantee you, no matter how hard I tried I could not become professionally competitive in likely any athletic event. I don't have the natural genes for it. So it's just luck that the top people got the superior genes (for this task), but it's cheating if I engineer my children so they have them?

    The real complaint (and the one I'd support for now) is that any gene therapy that will come around soon will be dangerous. Others have mentioned potential downsides of massively increased muscle production, and most potentially enhancing gene therapies would be best expressed through geneline engineering, where a developing embryo is genetically modified. The ethics of that aren't pretty, and its first uses are going to be therapeutic in nature. When it's safe to actually enhance though, there's going to have to be a new look at the old rulebooks banning genetically altered atheletes.

  26. Steroid Psychosis by The+Tyro · · Score: 4, Insightful

    is a real phenomenon... I've seen people go truly bonkers from high-dose steroids.

    It seems to be dose-dependent, and your chance of developing it is independent of whether you've had it in the past (ie. just because you went nuts one time, doesn't mean you'll do it again). Your odds also seem to vary depending on why you're receiving the steroids, suggesting that the initial disease process plays a role.

    It's also more common in women than men (no joke intended or implied).

    Some people don't like steroids, but I do (having been prescribed them in the past)... they give you lots of energy, all your little aches and pains go away, and you feel good. (there is a certain amount of euphoria with steroids). But there's a downside... a big downside. Check any medical text (or the PDR) for the long-term side effects of steroid use. Go ahead, I'll wait.

    Ok, you looking at it? Yeah... that's the list I'm talking about... the one that goes on for several pages (and includes "roid rage")... you don't want to get on the long-term steroid train unless you absolutely have NO alternatives. That said, properly applied in the proper dose and for the proper duration, they're great, helpful, and lifesaving drugs... one of the most useful drug classes in modern medicine's arsenal.

    --
    Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
  27. Obligatory SNL transcript... by Cyno01 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Dennis Miller: In response to what its sponsors claim is an idea whose time has come, the first All-Drug Olympics opened today in Bogota, Columbia. Athletes are allowed to take any substance whatsoever before, after, and even during the competition. So far, 115 world records have been shattered! We go now to correspondent Kevin Nealon, live in Bogota for the Weightlifting Finals. Kevin?

    Kevin Nealon: Dennis, getting ready to lift now is Sergei Akmudov of the Soviet Union. His trainer has told me that he's taken antibolic steroids, Novacaine, Nyquil, Darvon, and some sort of fish paralyzer. Also, I believe he's had a few cocktails within the last hour or so. All of this is, of course, perfectly legal at the All-Drug Olympics, in fact it's encouraged. Akmudov is getting set now, he's going for a cleaning jerk of over 1500 pounds, which would triple the existing world record. That's an awful lot of weight, Dennis, and here he goes.

    [ Kevin steps aside to reveal the steroid-bulked athlete bent over to lift the 1500 lbs. weight. Sergei tightens his grip on the barbells and pulls up, but instead of lifting the weights, his arms are pulled off and blood squirts ferociously out of his pulpy stubs. ]

    Kevin Nealon: Oh! He pulled his arms off! He's pulled his arms off, that's gotta be disappointing to the big Russian! [ Sergei's trainer wraps a towel around him ] You know, you hate to see something like this happen, Dennis! He probably doesn't have that much pain right now, but I think tomorrow he's really gonna feel that, Dennis! Back to you!

    Dennis Miller: Thank you, Kevin. Very nice form on the Russian. Canada, of course, is leading that competition.

    credit

    --
    "Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
  28. Cue new series.. X-Animaniacs? by Channard · · Score: 5, Funny

    'What do we do tonight, Brain?'

    'That's Magneto, damn you! And we do the same thing we do ever night, Pinky.. try to take over the world with our rodent superpowers! And how many times do I have to tell you? Stop licking off that blue body paint!'

  29. Mad Cow, supersized by SolemnDragon · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It costs, but it's worth it to me.

    Some of us already vote with our wallets, and i'd second the notion that it's how to get the idea out there that we might want to know what's in our food. I hate to bring up the same old song again, but the truth is that there are a lot of reasons for GMO food to be labelled, and some of it has to do with current, known allergies, intolerances, and illnesses. Obviously, this won't matter if a GM rat makes it into the food market- anyone who's eating rat probably isn't watching their diet for such things too closely. But when it comes to cows? It's hard enough to find cows that aren't being fed other cows (mad cow disease, anyone?) Do we know what a prion disease would do in a supercow? would they be more immune, or would they just survive longer as incubators, becoming more infectious once they got turned into feed? (I don't know if they're 100% sure that that's how it spreads, but i think that's what they've decided to go with here in the US.)

    What if they just show fewer symptoms?

    Granted, the non-organic but anti-growth-hormone folks might like this path (except for me, but i'm a treehugging crazy white chick who has immune and food allergy problems; i have to be careful what i buy in the first place) but i'd like folks to have a lot more time to think about it before it hits the market.

    --
    "I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
  30. Natural born? by superdan2k · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How about this guy? Freaky-low lactic acid production, high lactic-acid clearing, huge heart, VO2 Max (oxygen uptake to blood) more than twice the average person... And he beat cancer when he had about a 20% chance of living through it. Then he went and won the toughest race in the world. Five times. In a row.

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    blog |