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15 Mutations Resulted In Increased Brain Size
naoursla writes "Researchers at the University of Chicago think they have identified 15 mutations in a gene responsible for brain development that gave humans abilities of abstract thought and planning. The article is at Discover.
They plan to insert the gene into mice to 'to see what affect it has on brain development.'"
It doesnt seem too far fetched now does it? How long until global mouse domination?
The result of the experiment? 42.
Hammer of Truth
I don't think we have to worry, so long as we don't make rubber pants their size.
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
Big brains in small skulls might not be such a good idea...
"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 pandimensional beings. The whole business with the cheese and the squeaking is just a front."
-- Slartibartfast, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Here I am, with the brain the size of human, trapped in the body of a rodent.
I'm sure it would be quite depressing.
(Apologies to DNA.)
a beowulf cluster of uber mice
Karma: It's not just a good idea. It's the law.
"Lahn found that the ASPM gene in humans has undergone 15 important mutations since we last shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees, about 5 million years ago."
One would think that the asymmetric laterality associated with language would be one of the important "human" mutations. It's not. Chimps have the same sort of asymmetry as humans in the "language" area of the brain: 'Demonstration of a human-like asymmetry of Wernicke's brain language area homolog in chimpanzee planum temporale.' (Gannon, et al., 1998). I suspect there's going to be far more than 15 mutations required to explain things, going back much, much farther than 5 million years.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
root# diff gwbush_genome.map jdoe_genome.map
..what happens then? Mices learn to think and you kill'em as soon as you get the results?
Let's just hope the experimental subjects don't look at the writing on their cages and comprehend.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
They plan to insert the gene into mice to 'to see what affect it has on brain development.
Pinky: What are we going to do tonight?
The Brain: Same thing we do every night... try to take over the world!
NO CARRIER
They may want to look at the genetic mutations of dolphins and find out what made them have such a large brain, and be so intelligent that all that they do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around, whereas we build cars and buildings, and start wars.
Or why human midgets can have a brain size smaller than a chimpanzee and still have a genius IQ.
I think brain size is probably the least important determiner of human intelligence.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Bruce Sterling wrote a very funny story along these lines, called "Our Neural Chernobyl". In his story, the virus used to transport the genes escapes (naturally!), but doesn't actually turn out to be much of a problem for people, except for creating a few navel-gazers. (This goes with a constant theme of Sterling's, that raw intelligence is an overrated commodity.) But the fun begins when the virus jumps to other species. So you get racoons that learn to pick locks, coyotes that organize protection rackets against ranchers, etc. Collected here.
Technically, I think that would make you God's Advocate, which could be an important distinction, for billing purposes.
But yeah, race of hyper-intellegent rodents, not really getting my vote for the Bright Idea 2004 Sweepstakes.
I imagine walking out of the house one day into a giant springloaded trapped baited with porn and the latest ATI card.
What were you expecting?
... given the record of "scientists" and their truly vile and obscene pursuits throughout the ages ...
Please be specific. Names, dates, places. With an explanation of what makes these incidents vile and obscene. Also please include a short, well-written essay on why you are willing to use the products of such a vile, obscene pursuit in your daily life rather than living in the woods and living on roots and berries.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Frankly, I don't think this is funny in the least.
The purposeful attempt to induce human-like intelligence in a lower species strikes me as one of the more vile and obscene pursuits a man of "science" [whatever that is] could possibly undertake. And, given the record of "scientists" and their truly vile and obscene pursuits throughout the ages, that's saying something.
Frankly, it strikes me as an affront against God.
"Affront against God" is one of those meaningless, yet highly emotionally charged, statements that can apply to almost anything.
First: I presume by "God" you are referring to the Christian God. Not everyone is Christian. Chances are that you would be offended if a Hindu person tried to shut down our scientific pursuits by declaring them "an affront against Vishnu", or tried to stop you from eating beef owing to the cow's status as a sacred animal. Why should a non-Christian care whether or not the Christian God is affronted?
Second: How do you know that the Christian God would be affronted in the first place? The Bible, to the best of my knowledge, does not tell us (even indirectly) not to tinker with mouse genes in an attempt to make them smarter. Even if the Bible does contain passages that might be interpreted in this fashion, A) it's a matter of interpretation, and B) modern-day Christians already ignore huge passages of the Bible, so what's one more?
Third: What makes this "vile and obscene"? A statement like that requires some exposition.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
"If God wanted mice to be smart, He'd allow us mess with their DNA." - me
"What God wants, God gets. God help us all." - Roger Waters
Frankly.You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
I think it'd make life pretty interesting if humans had some competition once again. Maybe give species other than humans a fighting chance for controlling their own survival. I think certain corporations might think twice about razing that forest for development if they knew they'd be running into a pack of intelligent wolves. Of course, knowing humans they won't react well.
Well, I'm off to go campaign for a constitutional amendment giving all sentient beings the vote.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
BTW: Great book. Covers what happened to his brain post autopsy. Full of neuro knowledge and witticisms.
opposable thumbs are pointless if there are no fingers.
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
In the early days (and some today), people saw vaccines as tools of the devil because they were not natural or God-given. But vaccines have proven themselves as a strong tool against deadly diseases. And it's due to the doctors who persevered in the face of stronger religious ideals then today. This is another step in medicine, and the benefits that can result from it cannot be overlooked. But if most God-fearing Christians (I assume you're refering to the Christian God) would like to have work like this stopped, because it's an "affront against God". It's not an affront against God. It's science. It's research. It's tinkering with this, seeing the result, and wondering if it can be applied to that. It's trying to benefit that human race. The only thing that can interfere with that is people saying "You shouldn't do that because you might piss off the invisible man in the sky!" Sorry, I don't mean to offend anyone. But that argument has been used too many times to prevent legitimate research. It's being used now to prevent stem-cell research. And that's something that I and many other people are really looking towards, because of certain genetic risks that I and my family are exposed to right now. I'd like to know that, in the event that these risks become reality, someone has worked out all the problems and can treat me. Because as it stands now...if I am ever diagnosed with the same illness as my mother, I would suffer the same fate as her. And that's something I would NEVER want to put my kids through...
Don't fear what the invisible man in the sky *MIGHT* think. If he is up there, chances are you will probably misinterpret his meaning anyways. Just look at the "My God can beat up your God" BS happening in the world right now to see evidence of that. Instead...fear the things you know for sure exist in the world...
as in the rats of?
I Don't Work Here
Why doesn't some of the more contraversial scientists (human-cloning, clone-of-clone cloners, Clone-Aid wackos) take some other mammals (dogs or chimpanzees) and re-create these dozen or so mutations?!
The implication are staggering. Now that people are buying glow-in-the-dark fish I would really think there would be a market for these mutants. I just hope they don't start with mice, rats, or squirrels.
As a Christian who believes in the sanctity of human life while not necessarily the sanctity of mouse life (please understand, I'm not trolling here), this raises concerns for me.
Let me start off by saying that I feel that there is something spiritually unique that comes with our human mind in terms of persistent experience through a long term memory, inter-generational passing of memes through language, and a higher-order basis for desire and suffering.
Once we pass this experience, some may call it a curse or a blessing, (I prefer the latter), on to animals, we are entering a new role of responsibility as a Creator. I think this sort of science is as inevitable as the nuclear bomb, and don't get me wrong -- I'd rather see it in the hands first of (aproaching-)democractic states, but we have to tread cautiously in my opinion.
Consider, where will this take us? Slave animals to fight our wars, clean our toilets, and tickle our fancy? Or a "brotherhood" (sisterhood if you prefer) of species working towards a better world? Probably both, but most likely, in my opinion, the former. As silly as it was, Planet of the Apes did raise some important concerns, as have many other works of science fiction. (Cue Charleton Heston shouting "it's a madhouse!")
I'm not saying that splicing those genes into a mouse is going to produce "human-mice" that we need to hire lawyers for to defend themselves against medical treatment, (although lawyers once again seem poised to score big bucks), but at what threshold do we create something which deserves fundamental human rights? (Cue Picard and Data in that STNG episode.)
Science is moving so fast that our understanding of the larger ethical questions is struggling to keep up. I urge you as you feel excitement about developments like this to look inside your own moral compass, whatever faith or wisdom molded your clay, and look for answers and new questions.
May the Creator guide our hands wisely, and may we please his aesthetic sense.
Only a Scandanavian scientist would come up with the theory that melancholy gloom and existential despair are what makes humans great.
What if we give ourselves hooves? Wings? Erase the capacity for language? At what point do "human rights" cease to apply?
If we splice the genes of a human into an animal, would we call the result a human?
What if we give it human-like limbs, a human heart, or a human mind? At what point do "human rights" begin to apply?
Interesting times are ahead of us my friends, and that can be considered a curse.
(By animal, I'm thinking non-human, and I realize that is a rather debatable definition.)
Word is, they've spliced human brain capacity into snakes, 800-pound gorillas, and dinosaurs.
I'm surprised noone's made any comments how this resembles the background of David Brin's "Uplift" saga... that humankind cracks the secret of intelligence through genetics, and passes the gift on to his fellow species.
What gets me is, once we realize that we *can* make our fellow creatures intelligent (or should I say, self-aware), then what? It is ethically immoral (to me) to then kill them, yet it is unfair to the self-aware critter to say "we were only doing this to see if we could, you're the last, sorry".
Oh well, I gotta get back to work.
Can't wait till I start seeing this in my inbox: Enlarge your brain! 100% natural. Safe and effective!