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Researchers Enable Mice To Exhale Fat
destinyland writes "UCLA researchers made a startling discovery: genetic alterations enable mice to convert fat into carbon dioxide.
Mammals digest fats differently than bacteria — so researchers introduced bacteria genes into mouse livers, and 'the excess fat was literally released into thin air.' (One researcher calls it 'an unconventional idea which we borrowed from plants and bacteria.') The research potentially could help treat serious medical conditions including diabetes, heart disease — and of course, obesity."
So what happens when you're thin enough? How do you avoid going down to dangerously low amounts of stored fat?
Do genetic modifications go away on their own over time, or do they propagate as the affected cells divide?
You know, I see this a lot when news that could help the obese comes along. I think it's a bit ignorant. First, would you have the same reaction if it similiar news (possible breakthrough) about compulsive gamblers, smokers, alcohilcs, hard drugs, or any other addiction? What about the debilitating OCD like Howard Hughs suffered or any mental disease really? I mean, buck it up and have some will power!
I know many fat people who go days on in eating less than a 120lb person, maybe even losing the weight, only to be broken by one binge and rapidly going back to their old ways. I don't think it's just a lack of willpower, a lot of it is unnatural. Domesticated animals also get fat when there's always food in the bowl. Maybe it's in our nature: for so many generation, the next meal was uncertain, grab it while you still can.
And then there are things like HFCS which adds to the problem. 100 years ago, regular chocolate was a real WEEKLY treat for an average kid, if at all, 300 years ago, sugar was kept in silver lockboxes due to expensive nature, now we have this crap swamping the area.
Imagine in 100 years VR really gets there. I mean really, they bypass your eyeballs, wired right into the brain, touch, feel, smell, everything. Instant orgasm. Imagine how many people will be addicted. Not just because they lack the will power, but the human animal gets exposed to stimuli that in turn rewards its basest and most powerful areas of the brain and we act holier-than-thou when people actually get hooked.
Food, for some people, is the overriding addiction that make other addictions fail. Any help they get is good. And Dr. House would know that.
The purpost of fat is to ensure an organism survives when there is not enough food, and in worst case, during famine.
During most of the history of the human species, famine has been inevitable and greatly lethal.
Those humans who can best gain the most fat in the shortest amount of time, are most likely to survive - they are superior than the naturally thin people who are the first to die during famine.
'Curing' people of the ability to gain fat would be severely detremental to the species ability to survive as a whole, outside of specific cases as stated in the article, such as disease or specific genetic conditions.
I just don't believe in that whole "victim-of-the-modern-diet" argument so many fat people like to use as an excuse. I live in the same society, shop in the same stores, and I'm not fat. It's called self-control.
My mother has been at least 100 lbs overweight for many years. She insists she "hardly eats anything at all and just can't lose weight", but having been raised by her, I know better -- life with her is a non-stop cavalcade of food. Like all addicts, fat people lie.
Caveat Utilitor
I just don't believe in that whole "victim-of-the-modern-diet" argument so many fat people like to use as an excuse. I live in the same society, shop in the same stores, and I'm not fat. It's called self-control.
Anecdotal evidence. I know people that smoke 3 packs a day and don't get cancer therefore smoking doesn't cause cancer. I may be fat but at least I didn't fail logic.
I inhale cheeseburgers, I guess it would only be right to exhale them too.
One of the fundamental principles of the fast food industry is that the "food" shouldn't require any chewing. Obvious, but only after some careful thought, but wildly successful.
The generic cheeseburger you inhale is constructed from greasy patties of frozen ground meat, a bun that lightly resembles bread, a thick viscous layer of an edible oil product colored to resemble cheese, and copious amounts of additional vegetable oil mixtures (using various combinations of egg products, corn syrup, and flavourings, colour, and gum) that keeps everything soft and wet.
Substitute one or more of the ingredients with the real or fresh versions, and I suspect you won't be able to inhale. Whether chewing is a feature, I'll leave to you to decide.
Back when there was significantly more CO2 in the atmosphere different forms of life predominated, and we have evolved during the relatively oxygen-rich period which followed the lengthy period of sequestration of CO2 in trees and underground petroleum.
The CO2 we have been increasingly releasing for the last century and a half is not counterbalanced at all because the number of woody trees which absorb CO2 is being significantly cut back at the same time.
The combination of these factors causes more heat energy to remain in the atmosphere, which means more kinetic energy. Thus we should see an increase in extreme weather, plus an increase in the amount of heat flowing to the polar regions.
As CO2 and heat increase there will be a corresponding increase in the amount of gaseous H2O in the atmosphere, which is also a heat-trapping molecule. Thus we should expect to see an increase in the number of hurricanes and large-scale storms.
What is most feared is a runaway greenhouse effect, in which there simply isn't enough re-uptake of CO2 to counterbalance the domino effect, thus heat and kinetic energy keep going up and up. Ocean levels will most certainly rise, and at an increasing rate, which will lead to the increasing loss of coastal regions, large-scale loss of property, displacement of millions of people throughout the world, and various related crises.
Certainly no one needs to be alarmist, but it is clear that we need to find some solution to regain a reasonable balance, and to do what we can right now. And the most effective thing we can do to slow this trend is alter our behavior and encourage others to do the same.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Altering the genetic make up of an organism is now a form of teaching? :-)
Yeah. That'll be the f*cked-up NewSpeak they'll use on the 24-hour news drone, as they splice our children with 'obedience training'.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
When you cheat nature, your prize is civilization.
Markets don't lie.
but they are frequently mistaken.
We need a "+1 -- nice sig" moderation.
It is due to very few people knowing how to cook healthy food for themselves.
Certainly in Britain home cooking is a hobby for the "effete middle classes", not the "authentic, salt-of-the-earth real people".
No one has a clue how to cook, and as far as I know no one learns cooking in school any more. I certainly didn't.