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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
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...:-( )
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.
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
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...
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.
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.
Does it work on that all important muscle....the 3rd leg?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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...
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.
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$"
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
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...
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."
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...
In response to your posting, bodybuilders have NOT been found to have less myostatin than non-weightlifters. Not ONE scientific report will back up your statement. In fact, in most bodybuilders, myostatin has been working just fine at keeping them from becoming absolutely huge. No bodybuilder just looks at weights and becomes muscular. Unlike these mice, bodybuilders train on a daily basis. These mice gained muscle mass (and muscle cells!) without any additional exercise! As for your inference that the child in Germany will have heart problems, the doctors do NOT know this. In fact, they do know that the parents don't have problems so their warning about the child is unfounded.