Slashdot Mirror
Mice Created With Human Brain Cells
pin_gween writes "Scientists have added 100,000 human brain cells to mice in an effort to create realistic models of disorders like Parkinson's Disease. Although mice are 97.5 percent genetically identical to humans and it sounds like a large number, 100,000 only represents 0.1% of the number of cells in mice brains. FTA: 'It's true that there is a huge amount of similarity, but the differences are huge,' Snyder said. 'You will never ever have a little human trapped inside a mouse or monkey's body. [...] Researchers are nevertheless beginning to bump up against what bioethicists call the "yuck factor." 'The worry is if you humanize them too much you cross certain boundaries,' said David Magnus, director of the Stanford Medical Center for Biomedical Ethics. 'But I don't think this research comes even close to that.'"
I for one welcome our new Pinky and the Brain overlords. NARF!
The mice were furious.
" 'The worry is if you humanize them too much you cross certain boundaries,' said David Magnus, director of the Stanford Medical Center for Biomedical Ethics. 'But I don't think this research comes even close to that.'"
it's the thin end of the wedge. maybe this wasn't human enough...and nor will the next infinitessimally small step...but one day it will be too far and we won't have even realised
I thought mice - being pan dimensional beings - were far more advanced than humans (ranked 3, just after dolphins).
This is like modding an xbox 360/ps3/whatever with a Z80 - why whould you want to do that?
'The worry is if you humanize them too much you cross certain boundaries,'
Translation: The worry is that the mice will sue for cruel & unusual punishment and civil rights violations if humanized too much.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
"Why Brain, what are we gonna to do tomorrow night?"
"Guess... "
"Oh yeah, try to take over the world, right... "
Outsourcing programming becomes even cheaper once you have mice with human brain cells. Pay attention, Bill.
Yay, human-brained mice. This means that once they escape and start rampaging, scientists will have no choice but to create a race of catpeople to counter them. Of course, this will lead to revolts creating a need for dogpeople, but for a short time, I shall have my catboy! Vengance shall be mine!
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
get experimented on barberously!
They gave you a bad haircut? The bastards!
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
so is all this 97.5% like generic organ, dna stuff?
You're about 50% banana.
i dont see the similarities between humans and mice
You obviously haven't even looked at a banana very closely, let alone a mouse. About the only difference a lifeform from the proverbial Mars would see between a human and a mouse would be scale. We are virtually identical to mice in every detail but stature.
If you want learn human anatomy, disect a chicken, and a chicken isn't even a mammal.
KFG
Researchers are nevertheless beginning to bump up against what bioethicists call the "yuck factor."
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Remind me what's so unique about human neurons that cause people to fear that mice will somehow become conscious, thinking organisms?
So far we have super-strong, long-lived, regenerating mice with human brain cells. We're getting pretty close to "the mice of NIMH".
If 100.000 brain cells is 0.1% then a mouse has 100.000.000 brain cells. How many bytes does it take to describe a brain cell? How many connections are there from a single brain cell to other brain cells? Say it takes 4 bytes to address the connections. Then 10 connections per cell make 4GByte in total. Who is going to write the software to simulate a mouse?
They are mammals. Most of their bodies work the same as ours although they are on different scales. They have muscle tissue, brain tissue, eyes, a skeleton etc. that work the same way ours do. They are similar enough to us that many/most of the same drugs that work on us work on them. Apart from size and shape there are no major differences.
A brick house is virtually identical to a pile of sand in every detail but stature.
Good to hear that NIMH is still up and running after that last scandal. They do good work.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
Scientists have added 100,000 human brain cells to mice
Now I don't even want to touch my mouse! I guess it's back to the command line for me.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
The worry is if you humanize them too much you cross certain boundaries
How about if we cross a different barrier and drop the anthropocentric bullshit.
Compare a brick house to a brick factory building.
Mice and men are made of the same bricks, assembled in the same manner, ending with much the same results, which is why they can use mice for medical research in the first place. Above poster has it right, God is in the details, but the details are really very, very tiny. Sometimes those tiny differences are critical, but it doesn't make them any less tiny.
I'm sorry if it insults your sense of humanity to be compared to a mouse, but I don't exactly see the point of gaining your "stature" by denigrating mice either.
You're "smarter" than a mouse, of course, but being "smarter" isn't even of any particular value if you don't act smarter, and the mouse can do something you likely can't. . .
Take care of itself.
KFG
The company I work for http://www.jax.org/ maintains over 2,000 straings of laboratory mice for sale to other research institutions (we do genetics research and are designated a national cancer center, the 69 million dollar a year mouse business all started by selling surplus mice to other researchers, now it's a large part of the company and there has been discussion about spinning it off as a for-profit subsidiary. Right now, since all the surplus funds from the mouse business go directly towards supporting the research, we enjoy a tax-free status). We have models for diabetes, glaucoma, aids, certain cancers, adult onset obesity, etc. In experiments that involve drug testing, the only real difference (after you factor in mass differences) between mice and humans is how fast the mice metabolize the drugs.
They are similar enough to us that many/most of the same drugs that work on us work on them. It's true..I came home last night to find that some mice had gotten into my stash and were sat around giggling and eating nachos.
To err is human. To forgive is not company policy.
Anybody reckon they can tell the difference between a human brain and a mouse brain? Check out the Mouse Brain Library and the Human Brain Library. There are a couple of obvious difference in shape, but the individual structures are remarkably similar.
so just for the record, we can make super strong fearless immortal mice that can sing, regenerate body parts, sniff out landmines, and have partial human brains. scientists don't mod their computer cases, they mod their mice!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
"But the brain poses an additional level of concern because some envision nightmare scenarios in which a human mind might be trapped in an animal head."
Someone kindly explain to President Bush why this is impossible. And don't laugh. He doesn't like being laughed at.
Mice and Rats in research are supposed to be pitied, by the usual pathetic ways that humans impart everything around them with the feelings or emotions which we possess. Actually, you should look at some facts.
FACT: Mice in the wild live about a year, in the most stressful, difficult and inhumane conditions you wouldn't like to imagine. Should they be unfortunate to gain access to one of the animal rights protestors habitat, middle class suburbia, the self same protestor, full of indignation at experimental killing, will of course call in someone to rid them of their little problem, or condemn them to freeze to death in wooded areas with humane capture traps. In the lab, mus musculus live on average about 2 years in controlled, warm conditions with regular feeding and exercise.
FACT: Rats in the wild live about 2 years max, again in stressful, disease ridden cramped conditions. In the lab, Rats can survive double that, again in nicely ordered, well controlled and comfortable conditions.
So don't bring up that ignorant rubbish about how animal experiments somehow harm rats and mice: unlike Joe Public taking potshots at rats and mice in his backyard, everything WE do is sanctioned, pored over and refined each and every step of the way to minimise suffering. Hell, our animals are no use for experimentation if they're unhappy or agitated: they get difficult to handle. We go to see them and handle them a couple of weeks before expts even start to get them used to our presence, smell, voices etc.
Rats and mice are far better treated in our labs than in the wild or in your homes, and they are also better treated than the conveyor belt of cattle fattened and slaughtered for your own diet. I get angered by the hypocrisy of people opposed to experimentation while conveniently overlooking the animal suffering inherent in large scale production of meat in all the developed world, with cattle stunned with bolt guns wandering into saws. It's so much easier to criticise someone else than look at your won behaviour, isn't it?
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
We are virtually identical to mice in every detail but stature.
We also have some extra bits in our brain that seem to make a lot of difference.
In fact, those differences in our brains are probably the reason why they need to put human brain cells in mice in order to study Parkinson.
I think it is fine to kill or hurt animals to provide clothing, food, to test medications, and to advance science in general. I also think we should keep the suffering of the animals in question to a minimum, and that our use of animals should stop when there are good alternatives. (No, vegan diets and human test subjects are not viable alternatives)
In this case, there is no good alternative to tinkering with mice, and the knowledge gained is valuable enough. Let them continue, I say.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Mice don't exist so that we can use them as disposable commodities.
...a mighty mouse that will cy "Here I come to save the day!!!".
Abby Normal - Mice tap dancing around bellowing "Puttin on da witz!"
or maybe
Samuel L Jackson - "Who the fuck moved my goddamn cheese, motherfucker?!"
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
At least, they wont be too "human" and so, they will not destroy and kill other species only for fun. This right, we cannot give to any other animal, because we can easily lost our "superiority".
You have never owned a cat, have you? You could have the fattest and most well fed cat on the earth, and that vicious creature will still merrily kill anything smaller then it just for shits and giggles. In fact, not only do they kill the poor critter, but if they can, they will terrorize it before they kill it. You have never seen sadism until you have seen a cat corner a creature smaller then it.
If anything, the poor critters of the earth should be thankful that they got smart monkeys with some level of empathy towards each other and other critters rather then a race of smart cats.
Claims that humans are any different in their destructive impulses from other animals are down right silly. If any base emotion separates humanity from other animals, it is empathy. No other animal I know of keeps pets simply because we enjoy the company of other non-human species. No animal I know of tries to feed and help those outside of its social group. No animal I know of shows any sort of restraint or preservationist feeling when dealing with the environment.
If there is a difference between humanity and the rest of the animal kingdom, it isn't in aggression or joy in killing. Many other animals merrily murder anything outside of its immediate social circle. Hell, many other animals merrily murder anything INSIDE its social circle. If there is some base desire that humanity holds that other animals appear to lack, it is the empathy to RESTRAIN from giving into base desires for aggression and destruction of those that are outside of our social circle.
Actually, there is great potential in this research. In parts of the world where calcium is scarce, something like 1 in 5 people develop Parkinson's or Lou Gehrig's disease. Over the generations, some of these people have developed immunities (or atleast, high tolerances), and now suffer little to no brain damage even while being "carriers". If I had Parkinson's disease I sure as hell wouldn't think twice over a few hundred / thousand rats dying for me.
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News .asp?NewsNum=475
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News .asp?NewsNum=342
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News .asp?NewsNum=361
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News .asp?NewsNum=445
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News .asp?NewsNum=333
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News .asp?NewsNum=275
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
Well I don't know about you, but speaking for myself, I find significant differences:
Of course, there are also similarities:
You're about 50% banana.
I like to think of myself as mostly fruitcake.
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
I can't actually access that web site at work. However all that piece you have quoted tells us is that non invasive techniques can yield information as can implanted electrodes.
How you manage to extrapolate this to accusations of needless torture is interesting but has no basis in any of the facts you have quoted.
It is probable that the scientists know what information they are wishing to gather from this experiment and have decided that it cannot be gained through non invasive techniques but can be gained through using implants, this is a perfectly rational decision and does not make the scientists involved "monsters", or "torturers" or "evil people".
Your entire justifcation for saying that the monkeys have been needlessly tortured is that firstly you have no idea what the scientists are actually studying and secondly you believe experimenting on animals equates to torture.
The vast majority of people believe that experimenting on animals is an acceptable practice and does not consitute torture.
If from reading the text you have quoted you have arrived at the conclusion that needless torture is being carried out then you are basing your opinion on prejudicial belief alone which makes you a fundamentalist.
Personally I don't enjoy torturing or killing animals for fun but I can't see any reason why I shouldn't do that if I wanted to and you haven't given me any good reason why I shouldn't.
DNA is composed largely of bulky templates for how to make specific proteins. It also contains very detailed and elegant instructions on the expression of those proteins. The minor changes in those instructions make major differences in the end product.
A battleship and a toaster contain pretty much 95% of the same materials list - metals, plastics and such. But the instructions how much and how to assemble those materials make the difference.
The 97.5% number, as it reads in the newspaper article, is wrong. If you compare the complete DNA sequence of mouse to human, the correct number is around 70%.
Even if you restrict yourself to the genes shared between mouse and human, the DNA sequences are not 97.5% identical. I don't remember the number off the top of my head, but it's somewhere closer to 90%.
Note that this 97.5% number is not in the scientific article -- I double checked on the website. It looks like a number that the newspaper guy pulled out of a hat, probably from some other book or study he'd read.
My guess is that 97.5% refers to some other, much more specialized calculation, e.g. the percent identity at the protein level of genes that have clear counterparts in mouse or human, or perhaps to the fraction of known genes in human that have a counterpart in mouse.
In any case, the newspaper writer screwed up. As it's written, the 97.5% identity statement is very misleading.