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New 'Mighty Mouse' Formula Found
mystyc writes to tell us that scientists at Johns Hopkins have improved upon their original "mighty mice" discovery. Teamed with the biotech firm MetaMorphix and pharmaceutical company Wyeth, they have found a new agent that interacts with the muscle-limiting protein myostatin that was able to trigger a 60% increase in muscle size after just two weekly injections.
Please move this to the Apple section :P
think I'll wait 'til they work the bugs out before I go for my injections.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Here I Come to Save the Day!!
Congress better look into this. If baseball players can't do this, mice shouldn't be able to either.
"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson
it has two buttons.
Writerati
%Take me out to the ball game%
Wonder how many baseball players read slashdot?
So will this only be used for already sick people, or are we going to have to test for it in sports in the next decade?
Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
What are the effects on the heart?
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
Barry Bonds is not as big as Dante Culpepper.
Hell, Mark McGwire isn't as big as Dante Culpepper.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
So, for the obligatory recap, we're looking forward to: Mice that are really strong, don't age (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/ 18/2133229&tid=214&tid=14), can regrow damaged limbs (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/ 01/0035245&tid=99&tid=14), and have no fear (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/ 18/0644240&tid=191&tid=14).
I, for one, am investing in explosive mousetraps.
is this the beginning of Super Soldier Serum?
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Score:1, Rodentant
Talking of developing it for humans, a similar story was reported earlier on slashdot - http://science.slashdot.org/science/04/06/24/12342 50.shtml?tid=134&tid=191
It is a very good case to study effects of no myostatin on humans.
sarchasm
IMHO this sounds exactly like farcry...
I wish they would come up with a formula for fixing that POS right click ( which occasionally reads as a left click...errhh), and those lame squeeze buttons that defy ergonomics.
One of the worse mice I've EVER used... second only to the Apple hockey puck.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I for one welcome our new fearless, super strong, immortal mice overlords.
Full journal article (PDF)
are we going to have to test for it in sports in the next decade?
Decade? I give it months.
You can't take the sky from me...
They want their joke back.
Steroids have long been banned in sports because they can have catastrauphic side-effects, and pro atheletes are often seen as role models. however, if a product came out that could dramatically strengthen humans, without nasty side-effects, for what reason shouldn't the average person be able to go out and in two weeks have significantly larger muscles? should it be regulated? and if so, why?
there are ethical implications here... the haves vs. the have-nots... those who can afford to increase their muscle mass using the products would perhaps become a superior segment of the human race. imagine a scenario where western countries and their super-citizens gain a distinct physical advantage over the less wealthy countries.
yet think of the productivity gains that would be possible in manufacturing, construction, or other physically intensive occupations. strengthening your workers could bring huge advantages.
it's a very interesting issue, i'm sure one that we'll see popping up again in the future.
Now about that "love muscle"...
I wonder how Fatmouse feels about this? This technology must be kept out of the paws of Baron Von Bloatenkat!
Well the number one through three issues I can think of is whether or not it increases tendon and ligament strength. I'm pretty sure if all it does is block myostatin that it doesn't do either. If not, then you run the risk of having muscles way too strong for your joints.
Of course you run this same risk if you leap right into weight lifting with low-rep, heavy-weight work without spending the time to strengthen these joints with high-rep, low-weight work first.
On the other hand, since this almost certainly does nothing for neuromuscular response, you'll also end up with a lot of large but mostly useless muscle mass that's untappable for you.
In other words, don't expect this to substitute for working out for anyone who's not trying to stave off the decay of their existing muscles.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Pretty soon, running over rodents on the street will just make them mad enough to chase you down and fight back. Better invest in a Hummer.
It's a joke guys. Wake up!
Does this mean the next Arnold Schwarzenegger-like "star" will start filming his first action blockbuster three weeks from the day human test trials of this discovery begins?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Does it work on that all important muscle....the 3rd leg?
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I, for one, hope that they can use this to great effect to feed us cow-eating folk. Mmm, ultra-large spare ribs.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6065
Seeing that the source for the main article is currently ./'d, you should have time to have a gander :-)
I'm not fat, just big boned...
lol, now sports players wont have to take steroids...
>: You gonna eat all that cheese? ...Pip...squeek
//reassumes the fetal position
This whole crazy nazi racism shit's starting to get annoying. It's increasing more and more over the last few weeks. Isn't there some mechanism that can be put in place to make it go away?
I for one welcome our fearless, near-immortal, super-strong rodent overlords.
Most importantly, does it come a cream?
"This whole crazy nazi racism shit's starting to get annoying."
Yeah, and just think how annoying it was to Jews living in Germany back in the 1930s.
Heart muscle is also striated. However, the cardiac myocytes are not multi-nucleated and the pattern is more zig-zaggy. Nevertheless, if the cardiac myocytes were not striated, the muscle just wouldn't have enough force to contract and propel blood through the chambers and the peripheral vasculature.
I'm still waiting on the published research...
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
Have you forgotten that mice can pilot airplanes, too? What we need, is transgenic cats! :P
Forced sterilization, preventing drinking durring pregnancy, learning to read, take your pick.....
Everyone knows that Batman it better.
My new blog
Removing myostatin from the body may cause more profund effects like having an enlarged heart; I dont know if any of you recall this, but there was an article on a 'super baby', a child that has no mystatin production (both his parents were freakishly strong as well). He's about 4x as strong as children his size, but doctors warned that he may have serious problems with his heart also growing uncontrollably.
Barry Bonds find out.
Oh, wait, too late. He's shooting up even as we speak.
101 homers next year.
Sigh
How does this effect the love muscle?
About the "useless muscle mass", do you realize that muscle building in general (thru normal workout or induced by myostatin) does not increase the number of muscle cells in your organism? Now explain to me why should hypertrophied muscle cells would become suddenly unavailable to their respective nerve terminals.
Aside from the obvious jokes that can be made of this news and the military applications of a super soldier or sports being taken to a new (and unnecesary level) it's stories like this that give some hope to families like mine that have a loved one diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. My nephew, only 2 years old, has already been diagnosed with this dibilitating disorder. People with MD usually don't live far past their 20s or 30s. So I for one am anxious to see what human testing would yeild and the side effects. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't laugh at some more superficial suggestions for its application....
org 0x100
mov dx, SIG
mov ah, 9
int 0x21
int 0x20
SIG: db "UnclePow$"
forget old school steroids
... because of sports. Hooray.
the other implication is that we might yet see Stephen Hawkins get rid of his wheelchair and attend conferences and speak with his own voice, wouldn't it be wonderful?
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The effects are naturally occuring - albeit in a very small population of humans. Usually we suppress muscle growth - probably because too much is hard on the circulatory system. Not only that, but you only need so much muscle to hunt and all that jazz to stay alive. When we were evolving, we probably got this gene so we didn't overproduce muscle and raise our energy costs.
0 429-4116r.htm
You may recall the german superbaby who was born with two defective copies of the inhibiting gene - he has twice the muscle mass and half the body fat of other kids his age - link:
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040626-06
...next to the mouse's name in the record book.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Imagine. You've spent most of your life working to perfect your body. You've suffered boredom, pain and injuries. For this, you get all the good girls, and the admiration of your peers. Then some pencil-neck geek injects himself with myostatin blocker, and in a month he's beating you at arm-wrestling. The dungeons and dragons club actually do look like steel-thewed barbarians, if barbarians had acne.
Oh, the dilution of kudos! How the mighty are fallen...
Everybody's missing the obvious here. Yes, body builders, steroids, baseball, side-effects, etc., but what I'm more interested in is.... how does it make them tase?
Cows. Chicken (maybe). Buffalo. Not mouse.
Tasty critters, now with 60% more meat! Yeah!
But I'll bet doubling your muscle mass in two weeks time has a number of negative side effects. Cost won't be an issue. Some foreign nation, China perchance, will see this as a 'National Security' thing and walk all over the 'Intellectual Property' rights of anyone who discovers a super soldier serum, mass producing it cheaply and efficiently. And of course, it only works for half of the population. Women don't want huge muscles. They want weight loss and big tits in pill form. Insecure men will be the primary market, where sadly they'll take the serum hoping to become an adonis... just like ever one else. Men who are satisfied with the way they are will probably just have to carry .45's in order to drop the pricks if the new bulges go to their heads.
"Give me all your damned cheese NOW, you scrawny human!"
Table-ized A.I.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the ugly truth is that most girls think profesional level boduilders are freaks of nature. If you are thinking bodybuilder = arnold, stallone or van damme then do a google check to do a visual actualization of how a bodybuilder looks nowadays.
So they know what it does now, but not in 50 years? HA! I'm not gonna touch it. Look like a body builder now, 20 years later my heart has my circulatory system running at 120/80... psi. Not gonna do much good when I try to shake my boss' hand and render it down to coal.
So does it work if you inject it into your lower regions!! Sounds like the new Viagra!!
Ventricular Hypertrophy - in a sedentary person - is an indication of the (usually left) vetricle working too hard to overcome narrowed atreries, and increasing its mass for that reason only.
Many athletes have "enlarged" hearts - simply because the heart is working harder for the right reasons. For years world class athletes were being denied decent health insurance rates, because a chest x-ray would show a larger than normal heart, and MDs knew of only one reason for it - the bad one. It was in large part Kenneth Cooper's study of aerobic exercises for the Air Force that started the large school of info on the actual effects of exercise on the cardiovascular system.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
... on steroids! :-)
Currently hooked on AMP
Damn, that explains why the mouse trap looks like a pretzel. Time to break out the bear traps and a wheel of cheese.
I have a friend with two children doomed to die of muscular dystrophy, so I have to wonder if this might be a relevant breakthrough in that area...
I went to see Jose Canseco speak. He can read, but he certainly can't write. Of course Jocks aren't the only people who easily find themselves in a nice career without working, but they are the most profound. Especially with the new trend of looking for foreigners before domestic players on the count of "potential" we are facing a real problem. These people suddenly have power and influence without any knowlege, which means they can mess things up without even trying. Of course increasing academic standards might help, while we are keeping high school kids from playing in the NFL we might as well start testing incoming athletes against stupidity (or any other sport for that matter).
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Since your muscles are the one thing that are going to boost and in a really short period of time, you are going to put tremendous strain on other parts of your body (ligaments, tendons, and most of your organs) since they have to support all that muscle. There may be other things that we can not yet anticipate, but for sure if you put a person in this situation, you will suddenly discover any number of surprise problems that occur after 5 to 10 years of using this stuff.
If a person wants to get bigger and stronger, they just have to train. I've seen some twiggy people totally change there bodies after 5 years of diligent effort, and they remained healthy and strong with no bizarre side effects and very few injuries. Pills are not a substitute for effort.
It is spelled hampster with a p. /. yesterday so it must be true.
Read it on
We now have fearless mice, mice that are stronger, mice brain cells that are able to control plane simulators, and mice that we can remote control. What ever happened to the normal mice that my cats ate?? Im not saying it's a bad thing but it's odd how every month there is a mouse that is doing something new.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Don't worry about it, GP! You can likely plug him 6 or 8 times while he's distractd gnawing on your ears...
-- AC
Gee, Brain, I don't know. What would your mother say about the peanut butter?
In soviet Russia rodents eat you.
.. COME ON! I need better Karma!
Defining Statistics and Social Research
In other words, I think Frank Zane is a very different situation than selecting random individuals from the population that "want to get big" and giving them an effective myostatin deficiency without the corresponding evolutionary path that Frank Zane had to also receive the genetic changes necessary to balance it.
It is all hypothetical anyway. Can just wait for it to hit the market and see if people die. Of course, I am being cavalier. What I mean is that our superb FDA will very thoroughly test the drug in limited clinical doses for extended periods of time and they will absolutely not compromise in any way whatsoever for financial gain that might be had by way of the amazingly lucrative sports industry.
No, sir. Nothing to worry about there.