Miniaturized DNA Sewing Machines

Roland Piquepaille writes "Japanese researchers have found a way to build long threads of DNA using miniaturized hooks and bobbins. In fact, they've demonstrated how to manipulate delicate DNA chains without breaking them. They've designed these laser-directed microdevices to pick up and manipulate individual molecules of DNA. The scientists have used optical tweezers to catch and move these microdevices, which could be used in the future to detect genetic disorders such as Down syndrome." Here's a link to the journal article.

Comments

Lasers

[Bovius]

Filed under the ever growing folder labeled "It works because of lasers".

Re:Lasers

[Anonymous Coward]

Filed under the ever growing folder labeled "It works because of lasers".

But where do I find miniaturized sharks to go with these miniaturized frickin' lasers?

Re:Lasers

[pushing-robot]

Agreed; the world is starting to sound entirely too much like Star Trek.
 
...Actually, scratch that: The real world can never be too much like Star Trek.

Re:Lasers

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Well, in that case, call me when the scientists will discover something that won't work without phasers. (And, uhm, no, cosplaying at a Star Trek con does not count.)

Re:Lasers

[Zekasu]

I disagree. I thoroughly think this one is more "It works because of magnets".

But then again, that's just me.

Re:Lasers

[GonzoPhysicist]

I though it was all ball bearings theses days

Re:Lasers

[Anonymous Coward]

Although this implementation seems quite robust compared to what I have used, I have some experience with these "optical tweezers", and in fact the operating principal is that laser light is refracted through infinitesimally small transparent beads, with the resulting change in momentum in the beads caused by the change in momentum of the light itself upon being refracted through the beads.

In other words, this tool changes the direction of laser light in order to impart momentum on tiny refractive particles, which in turn are attached to the objects one wishes to manipulate. It may seem foreign to use light to move things around, and with a great deal of precision at that, but that is the reality of the world we live in!

down syndrom, of all the possible examples

[quitte]

Down syndrome can be spotted under a microscope. Just count the chromosomes. If you find 3 of the 21. you spotted down syndrome.

If that is all this new technology can do it's hardly worth mentioning.

Re:down syndrom, of all the possible examples

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they mean treat as well as easily diagnose.

Re:down syndrom, of all the possible examples

[Futile Rhetoric]

As far as I know, Down syndrome can go beyond simple trisomy 21; bits of the 21st chromosome may be duplicated. I am not entirely sure in how far this is detectable with a microscope, and would be an (admittedly rare) possible implementation of the procedure. However, it is far more likely that the author used Down syndrome as a placeholder genetic disease, without giving it too much thought.

Re:down syndrom, of all the possible examples

[philspear]

It's not all it can do. I didn't do an in-depth read, but it seems like for one thing this technique could be an extremely handy way to test chromesomal stability as affected by nucleotide sequence, chromatin structure, histones and modifications, etc.

Chromesomal instability could be a major cause of cancer. Nearly all cancerous cells have an abnormal number of chromesomes. It's not too hard to imagine that if you break part of your chromesome corresponding to the centromere and that cell divides, one of the cells won't get that chromesome, which may or may not have a lot of oncogenes which would suppress cancer, and that cell might become cancerous.

So it seems to me that this technique could be used to figure out what might give you cancer and treatments which might improve chromatin stability and keep you healthy. Still think it's hardly worth mentioning?

(I need to point out I'm not a cancer biologist, haven't read the paper too closely, and this is almost completely untested speculation, so take everything with a grain of salt but do realize the possibilities are greater than "do you have Down's syndrome?)

I find it funny that every minute thing about computer hardware is a big deal here on slashdot, wheras almost anything involving biology gets a "who cares" or a "no big deal" and 9 times out of 10 gets a doomsday prediction.

Come to think of it, I'm suprised no one has tagged this with "whatcouldpossiblygowrong." It DOES involve DNA, which will inevitably lead to a "I am Legend" type scenario...

Anyway, we biologists realize the importance of computers, even though they're generally less efficient and more finnicky than almost anything mother nature has developed. How come computer people can't recognize the importance of the biological sciences?

Re:down syndrom, of all the possible examples

[philspear]

Well... no, I'm pretty sure they don't. The technique doesn't sound at all suited to remove the extra 21st chromesome from even one cell, let alone all the cells in a patient's body.

A treatment that could do that would still not be able to undo the developmental damage.

Re:down syndrom, of all the possible examples

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even need a microscope, just look at the person. Down's is easy to spot.

Determining if a sequence is present is simply a PCR reaction.

Knowing where the sequence is either standard FISH, FISH on stretched chromatin fibers, or using a PNA padlock probe as an anchor for a rolling circle amplification.

The tools could be cool, but how they are selling it tells me they developed it in vacuum of a need for it.

Re:down syndrom, of all the possible examples

[Anonymous Coward]

Being Slashdot, of course you didn't RTFA ...

Slippery Slope

[negRo_slim]

which could be used in the future to detect genetic disorders such as Down's syndrome.

But doesn't that in turn just open up a whole 'nother can of worms? There are people out there opposed to such screening, especially parents of children with downs syndrome... This article seems to put it in a good perspective.

I'm all for using the tools we have created to better our lot but at some point we might be screening for gentic markers that effect personality and help to create the individual. Just as no one is wise enough (IMHO) to take another's life for any reason, I don't think we are wise enough to be scanning our dna for anything but the most flagrant of errors. The kind of problems that wouldn't allow such a person to live a normal and fufilling life... Instead we move one step closer to designer children.

Today it's Downs Syndrome free, tomarrow it's, "Can I get a medium #1 with blond hair blue eyes, here's 1 egg and a table spoon of semen" "Thank you, your order number is 42".

Re:Slippery Slope

[Anonymous Coward]

Technology doesn't force you to use it. If you don't think you are wise enough to do so, don't.

On the other hand, other people may want to do this, even if it is probably a mistake. Of course, that's their decision. They probably don't care what you have to say about it.

Re:Slippery Slope

[negRo_slim]

No one is forced to use it, but things like genetic screening will be used by parents who must protect their little snowflakes at all costs. Which is sad because what may cause you to abort today might be easily treatable tomorrow. Just check out the strides we're making with autism.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Anonymous Coward]

And what is it about "asking for a medium #1 with blond hair blue eyes" that makes it "wrong"?

Re:Slippery Slope

[jd]

I'll agree. Many mutations have advantages as well as disadvantages, including the mutation known as "the average joe" - who is probably more disadvantaged than anyone else. In the same way that coders often use the maxim of "speed, size and simplicity - pick any two", the same is likely true of many of the variants found in human DNA. I would be extremely wary of allowing insurance agencies, jobs, or "social norms" to decide which variants were acceptable and which needed to be fixed.

(Many aspies hate and revile organizations who consider them to be lesser beings who should be "cured", whether we want it or not. Yes, some do advocate cures against the will of the one being "cured". I think such organizations and such attitudes are an abomination and far more in need of "curing" than Asperger's or Autism.)

Do we want human evolution - which has actually been accelerating over the past 10,000 years - to come to a complete stop? Are we willing to face the only possible consequence of such an event (extinction)? Are the fragile egos of a few corporate executives worth that much to us, as a species? The variation in human DNA is very close to the difference between the reference DNA of humans and the reference DNA of chimps. (The absolute percentage is of no consequence, if the variation means there is a potential of overlap, and I'm not interested here in whether such overlap exists or is merely approached.) If we start "fixing" DNA, how much of that variation do we condemn to oblivion? And can we be oh so amazingly certain that the variants we so condemn aren't exactly the variants we need?

(Think Black Death. The mutation that increased resistance to Bubonic Plague decreased resistance to other diseases that are now proving fatal today, such as Ebola and Marburg. Those most likely to survive the modern killers are least likely to survive those diseases we can now cure by other means. The "reference" DNA is now the broken copy, the unpatched version has better survival odds. But those obsessed with "fixing" those of us who are "broken" would have it the other way round. You MUST apply the patch, or suffer serious social consequences, even if it means you are at greater risk of dying or being a contributor to the death of many. Conformism is bloody dangerous and should be outlawed.)

Re:Slippery Slope

[wild_quinine]

There are people out there opposed to such screening, especially parents of children with downs syndrome...

... who it is likely cannot seperate their love of their own children from the fact that Downs Syndrome is bloody undesirable.

Nobody is advocating killing their twelve year old kid with lasers.

I don't think that the right of an unborn fetus to life trumps the rights of a parent to have a life.

I have a great deal of respect for parents who have brought up children with Downs Syndrome, because it is hard, and thankless, and the amount of patience, time, energy and love that you have to put in is a burden many folks simply could not bear.

If science can give me a choice, that cross will not be mine to carry.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have a view that I don't agree with. It is the "Mother's love is greater than anything" view and means that no matter how crippled, twisted or hard to take care of a child is, parents will always love them just as much. In real life, that doesn't always hold true.

There are parents that would be perfectly capable of taking care of a child but when child hs genetic disorders, becomes crippled at birth, might never be able to play basketball with his dad or even talk with his parents, it changes things. Someoneone could say "If you aren't ready to have any kind of crippled and retarded child who is nothing like what you expected when carrying him for 9 months and you don't want to take care of such untill your death, you should not have a child at all!". Yes, some could say that and I completely disagree there.

Not only that but there are many situations where this could help. Imagine a teen is raped (or just comes bregnant by accident). It is hard enought for a teen to take care of a child as it is but might be impossible if the child requires full time special care as some genetic disorders do. In these cases, it is a LOT better to find these out beforehand.

Deciding not to support new technologies just because someone could potentially use them in wrong ways if taking them too far is just... Idiotic, if I may say.

And what comes to parents wanting to engineer their children... Well, I don't think most would want to. However, I have no moral problems with the idea of parents being able to get a blue eyed and blonde haired child if they wish so. I don't think it hurts the child in any way and parents get to live their fantasy.

(Captcha is "Atheism" which is kind appropriate as a lot of people with views opposing those stated here get them from religion...)

Re:Slippery Slope

[Joe Tie.]

The slippery slope argument is listed as a logical fallacy for a reason.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Anonymous Coward]

Today it's Downs Syndrome free, tomarrow it's, "Can I get a medium #1 with blond hair blue eyes, here's 1 egg and a table spoon of semen" "Thank you, your order number is 42".

JEROME wheels EUGENE out of their housing project. He takes in the neighborhood for the last time. We focus on a POOR COUPLE cradling an INFANT.

JEROME (VO)
Those parents who, for moral or, more likely economic reasons, refrain from tampering with their offspring's genetic makeup or who fail to abort a deprived fetus condemn their children to a life of routine discrimination.

We glimpse other PEOPLE in the neighborhood. They appear poor but, for the most part, physically normal. However a pall of gloom hangs over them.

JEROME (VO)
Officially they are called "In-Valids"*. Also known as "godchildren", "men-of-god", "faith births", "blackjack births", "deficients", "defectives", "genojunk", "ge-gnomes", "the fucked-up people".

JEROME (VO)
They are the "healthy ill". They don't actually have anything yet - they may never. But since few of the pre-conditions can be cured or reversed, it is easier to treat them as if they were already sick.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Devout_IPUite]

Designer children WILL happen. There's a lot of countries and at least one of them will be willing to allow people to perform the procedure and some people will come (back) to the US after getting their designer babies from [Brazil, China, Japan, Russia, Norway, wherever] implanted into their womb. When it happens it's going to further the divide between the haves and the have nots by another step (past education, nurture, resources, social networks, and natural gene advantages).

So we have a choice: We can either try and block designer babies in whatever country we live in and put it a step behind the rest of the world who will embrace the technology, or we can learn to deal with the idea. Personally, I'll be picking up a designer baby if the technology is where it needs to be when I have kids.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Klowner]

That reminds me, I haven't seen Gattaca in quite some time. I'd definitely recommend it.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Free the Cowards]

What is it about total random chance that makes it a superior mechanism for choosing the genetic component of a baby's personality, intelligence, or what have you?

Re:Slippery Slope

[nfk]

Isn't it convenient though, to title your argument with the name of the fallacy you are defending? It would be great if politicians did the same; "Now I'm going to beg the question. Blah blah blah blah. Then I shall engage in shameless ad hominem attacks. Blah blah blah. And now listen as I deliver this delightful non sequitur to destroy the straw man I previously created. Blah blah."

Re:Slippery Slope

[Xzzy]

As someone who's had to live with a bum set of genes for all of his life, I fully support genetic screening if the parents desire it.

Way I see it, the "we shouldn't play god!" argument breaks down really fast when the end result is a child who has to suffer a diminished quality of life. I couldn't imagine a more cruel thing to do than let myself reproduce and force a child to live with a disease that I was fully aware they could inherit.

Give me a test to filter out embryos that have asthma, down's, diabetes, migraines, or whatever defect you can name, and I'd do it in a second.

Re:Slippery Slope

[megaditto]

Survival of the fittest.

Sometimes humans tend to make the dumbest decisions. What we don't want is cultural fads being imprinted in the genes we leave for posterity. After all, do you really want all these fads translated into messing with genes: obsession with small feet/footbinding in ancient China, clitoral and labial mutilation in some African countries, popularity of anaemic women in Victorian England, preference for physical appearance over intelligence in most modern day contries (esp. for women), obsession with redheads/gingers in Israel (skin cancer central), lip and earlobe stretching among some natives, and so on.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Original Replica]

Just as no one is wise enough (IMHO) to take another's life for any reason, I don't think we are wise enough to be scanning our dna for anything but the most flagrant of errors.

Institutionalized health care will disagree with you on that. If we stay with private health insurance or if we switch to nationalized health care, it doesn't matter. As the ability to "optimize" a zygote becomes a reality, that tool will at first be only used in extreme cases, then later by request, and eventually it will be required in order to keep that child covered under whatever health care system is in place. Designer babies will be more efficient and cost effective. We all know that very large industries prize efficiency and cost effectiveness over just about everything else. Health Care is a HUGE industry. All children will be pre-screened and optimized, just give it time.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Anonymous Coward]

far more in need of "curing" than Asperger's or Autism.

I agree with the rest of your post, but I've always found it a bit strange that people compare Asperger's and Autism. I have a severely autistic cousin, so I've seen firsthand the differences between thinking different and hardly thinking. I wouldn't wish that upon anyone, and I see no reason whatsoever why people like that should not be cured, if such a cure was found.

Look at it this way: if a mental problem were caused by taking a brick to the forehead, would repairing the damage be bad? If not, why is curing autism (ie giving them control over their lives) bad?

Re:Slippery Slope

[yomegaman]

Natural selection in humans is pretty much out the window already. I don't see any correlation between how successful someone is in our society and how widely their genes are propagated, if anything there could well be an inverse relationship between success (in terms of education, money, etc) and number of children produced.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Anonymous Coward]

But doesn't that in turn just open up a whole 'nother can of worms?

Yes. Go fishing.

There are people out there opposed to such screening

There are people opposed to saving life with blood transfusion. There are people opposed to teaching women to read. There are people opposed to your continued existence because you do not worship their god.

a normal and fufilling life

Do you have any idea what passes for a "normal" life for much of the 6.7 billion people existing right now this moment? Please do not use that cliche. It is a substitute for clear thinking. It is lazy, and it is untrue.

Instead we move one step closer to designer children.

Yes. Just like people do now with nutrition and education.

Re:Slippery Slope

[mazarin5]

And what is it about "asking for a medium #1 with blond hair blue eyes" that makes it "wrong"?

ZOMG Aryans!

I notice that nobody ever suggests that parents may want redheads. This is just an example of "Hitler would have used it, therefore it is wrong."

Re:Slippery Slope

[ErikZ]

Today it's Downs Syndrome free, tomarrow it's, "Can I get a medium #1 with blond hair blue eyes, here's 1 egg and a table spoon of semen" "Thank you, your order number is 42".

What's wrong with that? Are we on the slippery slope to...healthy, good looking children? Oh noes! The horror!

Re:Slippery Slope

[Iamthecheese]

You, sir, are being extremely short-sighted. Diversity will hardly register as a concern when we get good at it. In the short term, many people will want the "perfect" baby. In the long run, why not eyes that can see at night? Why not muscles that are strong even without much exercise? How about a retractable third arm? Mock if you will, but we are going down that road. If we can understand what each part of the DNA does(getting there), and if we can make DNA (we can) then we can make improvements.I'm not judging whether its a good or bad thing. Don't discount this because it seems far-fetched. Its coming and we had best be ready.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Opportunist]

Take out the explanations and you're actually at a rather normal political speech.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Free the Cowards]

How about the decision to make 8% of the male population color blind, give 0.1% of all babies Down syndrome, make 1 in 4000 babies partially or fully deaf at birth, and give 4% of west Africans sickle-cell anemia?

Natural selection is a dreadful way to choose genetic traits. It is slow, inexact, error-prone, and uncaring. Natural selection will condemn a significant proportion of a population to a short, miserable existence due to a genetic accident which gives other people resistance to a curable disease which may not even exist in the area where this person lives. Natural selection will give you terrible diseases to help you avoid problems which no longer exist, or due to historical accident, or simply because a cellular mechanism in your parents screwed up.

Your comment about humans preferring beauty over intelligence in their mates is particularly amusing. You know what that is, when you prefer a certain trait in your mate, right? You guessed it: that's natural selection! If people prefer beauty to brains then beauty is going to be the result of the survival of the fittest. You can't go and say that survival of the fittest is the reason to avoid genetic tampering, and then use a human preference for certain attributes in their mates as evidence that humans make bad decisions and natural selection should be preferred.

And lastly, natural selection doesn't stop just because you say "boo". If genetic tinkering ends up being poor for your long-term survival, guess what, survival of the fittest means that it won't last too long. It's not like every single person on the planet is going to start ordering designer children the moment it becomes available.

Re:Slippery Slope

[ksd1337]

Godwin would be pleased.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Eli Gottlieb]

Decreases the genetic diversity of our species. Genetic diversity is the thing that allows us to survive things like the Black Death and AIDS. Without it, the chances of vast swaths of humanity dying from one little thing go up. A lot.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Eli Gottlieb]

obsession with redheads/gingers in Israel (skin cancer central)

That is completely and utterly retarded. I would dare call it the stupidest thing I've ever seen my people collectively do.

I mean, seriously? Gingerism? In a hot-desert country?! We don't even have the genes for gingerism; you need Scottish or Irish blood for that!

God damn it.

Re:Slippery Slope

[couchslug]

"The kind of problems that wouldn't allow such a person to live a normal and fufilling life... Instead we move one step closer to designer children."

Custom humans are an eventuality. The choices we make will vary, but given the results of normal breeding I'd be hard pressed to say designer offspring are necessarily a bad idea. We "design" offspring by our choice of mates. but more granular control is not an unreasonable goal.

Re:Slippery Slope

[LifesABeach]

Imagine; MS, (Multiple Sclerosis), treated as an Out Patient Therapy? Diabetes, and Obesity treated like a scratch. All because DNA/RNA problems are mechanically curable. I do not know of any form of Death more hideous than that of Malignant Melanoma, but if a device could created that would create a therapy using the victims own Immune System to cure itself of problems like Cancer, that would be an invention worthy of mass producing.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Luke_22]

Today it's Downs Syndrome free, tomarrow it's, "Can I get a medium #1 with blond hair blue eyes, here's 1 egg and a table spoon of semen" "Thank you, your order number is 42".

I think we're confusing tech with politic/ethic here...
I mean... all it takes is a law that says "use only to prevent physical illness" or similar...
ok, other countries won't have it, but waiting will make them come up with the tech sooner or later.
so... isn't this kind of pointless? yeah, it will require much more control and things, but i can't understand why you're washing your hands out of this.

Re:Slippery Slope

[Anonymous Coward]

People told me in 2001, that I was full of shit and was using a slipper slope argument about what the Bush administration would do.

Today we need to show papers to travel,
have no fourth ammendment rights,
have designated free speech zones,
have floating torture rooms,
have failing economy where large banks are collapsing,
  . . .

slippery slope fallacy indeed. Some people are more insightful that others, to the point of seeing the logical outcome of the events taking place. Others call it a fallacy and slippery slope.

Re:Slippery Slope

[felix_stegerman]

I'll agree. Many mutations have advantages as well as disadvantages,
including the mutation known as "the average joe" - who is probably
more disadvantaged than anyone else. In the same way that coders often
use the maxim of "speed, size and simplicity - pick any two", the same
is likely true of many of the variants found in human DNA. I would be
extremely wary of allowing insurance agencies, jobs, or "social norms"
to decide which variants were acceptable and which needed to be fixed.

(Many aspies hate and revile organizations who consider them to be
lesser beings who should be "cured", whether we want it or not. Yes,
some do advocate cures against the will of the one being "cured". I
think such organizations and such attitudes are an abomination and far
more in need of "curing" than Asperger's or Autism.)

I agree.

When it comes to "curing" autism, we need to be very careful. Just
because autistic behaviour is different from that of the majority
doesn't make it "wrong" or undesirable. Just because someone doesn't
make eye contact, or flaps his/her hands in an "odd" way, doesn't mean
he/she needs to be "fixed". Of course, those on the autism spectrum
with impaired mental ability will probably have a difficult time
achieving a high quality of life, but especially those with (above)
average intelligence, can live productive lives in a supportive
environment.

Take communication for instance: people with autism have trouble
dealing with ambiguity, implications etc. This is perceived as
"impaired communication" because most people communicate differently.
But there is nothing inherently wrong about the way autistic people
communicate. It's just different -- maybe even better.

We need to be very careful not to impose our own standards of what's
"normal" on other people. If say 50% of the world's population was
autistic, there might not even be a perceived problem. If it was 90%,
they might even pity those who are now considered "normal" for their
inability to communicate "properly", attributing hidden meaning and
intent where there is none.

Thus we need to make sure we don't try to "fix" something just because
it's different from what we know.

I do applaud advanced in biology -- including genetic testing. But we
need to put safeguards in place to make sure these kinds of tests are
not misused to weed out those with traits that do not conform to the
"social norms", otherwise it's a slippery slope indeed.

All that aside, I wouldn't mind that second pair of eyes, so I can
work and read /. at the same time.

- Felix

This is really exciting stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

The a great frontier seems to be biological engineering in this manner. Tools like this seem to be putting the ground work down for the ability to program biology like a computer.

A recent interesting talk on the new field can be viewed here:
http://norfolk.cs.washington.edu/htbin-post/unrestricted/colloq/details.cgi?id=677

Exciting stuff! I can't wait for the api.

Re:This is really exciting stuff

[zappepcs]

That was funny.... just wait till there is a PERL mod for that API. Freakenstein, here we come.

Re:This is really exciting stuff

[negRo_slim]

Check Scientific American, May 2006 page 45. More To Explore: www.weizmann.ac.il/udi/press

Re:This is really exciting stuff

[nospam007]

Wait until grandma can sow the new family member on the DNA Singer machine according to the latest fashion.

Re:This is really exciting stuff

[thewiz]

There won't be a Perl mod; when you use hooks and bobbins, it's sewing.
You only use Perl when knitting.

Re:This is really exciting stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be "purl"

Re:This is really exciting stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

when you use hooks and bobbins, it's sewing.

Only a crochet-y old bat would care about the difference.

Re:This is really exciting stuff

[Eli Gottlieb]

Yeah, and the Lisp Nazis will finally be able to EX-TER-MIN-ATE everyone else with their "superior" programming language.

Re:This is really exciting stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had mod points. This whole thread has me in stitches.

Laser-directed micro devices...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shark-directed laser micro devices.

Here it is, fixed for you.

great

[larry bagina]

I just donated some DNA with the help of my slutty neighbor that likes to walk around her apartment topless.

Finally we can really do it......

[Anonymous Coward]

Stitch together a Frankenstein's Monster!

Goodbye human race

[Anonymous Coward]

hello...? what to you even label a species that uses real time gene therapy bots to manipulate its own genes at will?

Slashvertisement

[Anonymous Coward]

Use http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/5735 and be free of Roland's crap for good.

T-Rex?

[Derling Whirvish]

Ahh, but do they have a T-Rex?

multipass

[Anonymous Coward]

So can we create the girl from 5th element now!

The Many Forms of Autism

[jd]

Some - but not all - forms of autism have nothing to do with "not thinking". Rather, it has to do with thinking too much. There's an excellent autobiographical series, of which the second is "Somebody, Somewhere", which illustrates that certain forms of autism are caused by a collapse in the internal divisions in the brain, that by reducing sensory input to manageable levels, these people are perfectly fine. (And, yes, the example I'm thinking of would be what is commonly diagnosed as Low Functioning Autism.) If the data inputs are at "normal" background level, such minds are swamped and shut down from overload.

This would obviously not be good, if we expected everyone to be 100% independent, rather than interdependent. If you're interdependent, a highly specialized brain that is perfectly tuned to a narrow range of things will work. In these cases, such people will be able to excel at those things their brain is tuned for, much as a games machine and a supercomputer excel at their specialties but would fail totally at trying to do the other's tasks.

This is NOT the same as "idiot savant"-style gifts, where there is no real processing involved. but it is connected in that these are minds capable of greater attention to detail and greater precision than any "normal" person. And because the walls in the mind have collapsed, they should be capable of connecting data together well beyond what you or I could do.

But there are other forms. Autism from Fragile X will be different from autism from other causes, for example. Some of these forms of autism may very will shut down thinking totally, rather than just when there's too much data. These forms of autism would not offer any obvious advantage to the person as far as I can tell, but I am willing to accept that there is a possibility that they do, somehow, and will not allow my personal belief in the supremacy of the intellect to overrule the rather obvious fact that I can logically invalidate other people's just-as-strong beliefs in the supremacy of their ideals. If they can be wrong, then so can I, and I have no more right to inflict my values on others than they have to inflict their values on me.

Does that mean that if you can demonstrate - beyond any shadow of a doubt - that a person is suffering, that they would/do not want to suffer, and that they gain no benefit whatsoever from their condition, that I would insist that they continue to suffer? No. That would be stupid, malicious or both. That may well be the case for your cousin, and if so, I hope that that specific instance can be cured. The problem is, from just the vastly overused label of autism, I cannot possibly tell that.

Life Goes On...

[saintjohnny]

Sorry I have a corky sense of humor

Phaser pedal

[tepples]

call me when the scientists will discover something that won't work without phasers.

Guitar effects, for one.

DNA sequencing and molecular electronics

[chaoticgeek]

The technology will also be useful for a number of other applications including DNA sequencing and molecular electronics, he adds.

So I'll get a PC eventually that I feed some bawls to so it runs for a day, and when I wanna upgrade it I just run some little laser program to tweak the graphics chips on it to the latest and greatest DNA available. Please say it is true. Only downside, it would probably eat all my CDs and DVDs...

mmm, DNA

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I were DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes...

Am I the only person...

[Syrente]

...who thought up as many "genes made like jeans" jokes as possible when they saw sewing mentioned?

Re:In the future

[religious freak]

Cure? The gay gene? That's why despite the fact that I think freedom of choice should be a general principle (including this kind of genetic choice), this kind of stuff makes me nervous.

What other things do you want to cure? How about the things you think the government should require to be "cured"?

Save for later

[Joebert]

I'm soo bookmarking this thread for the day they say they have DNA evidence against me.

Designer bodies, anyone?

[mi]

Whatever is determined by genes (rather than upbringing) may become changeable — if not with the ease, with which we change clothes today, but, rather, more like we go about custom-tailored suits.

For example, our epidermis is replaced fully every several weeks. With a small gene-change we'll be able to change the skin color to match the "vogue" of the season, an occasion (black skin will contrast sooo nicely with my wedding dress!), or a personal style. Same goes for hair-color...

Deeper bodily-changes (like breast size) may require a longer wait, but will not be impossible...

Think of the dentists, man!!

[Medievalist]

Once we have that level of control, we will eliminate tooth decay and put nearly all the dentists out of work. Apparently susceptibility to dental caries is a genetic defect!

Coroners occasionally find elderly corpses have incongruously perfect teeth. Supposedly, in a very small percentage of humans, the tiny tubes in the tooth continually transfer dentin to the surface to prevent enamel wear. Additionally (and more commonly) some persons have antibodies in their saliva that destroy tooth decay organisms.

I'm not a coroner, so I haven't any independent confirmation of this. But my dentist believes it. ;)

Almost as cool as...

[Anonymous Coward]

...my Hello Kitty sewing machine. *Almost*