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Researchers Create "Mighty Mouse" With Gene Tweak
cylonlover writes "He can't fly just yet, but a team of scientists have made a big step towards creating a real-life Mighty Mouse. By tweaking a gene that normally inhibits muscle growth the researchers created a batch of super-strong mice and worms. The scientists acted on a genome regulator — known as NCOR1 — and were able to change the activity of certain genes. In simpler English, the scientists shut off the thyroid hormone that keeps most mammals from turning into the Incredible Hulk. The result was a strain of mice with muscles that were twice as strong as normal."
I have this sneaking suspicion that if genome 'brakes' are present in most animals, they're probably there for a reason.
I wonder what sort of long term side effects you'd be looking at with vastly increased muscle growth.
Seems to me that a whole lot of biological processes follow the "use it or lose it" paradigm. From muscle growth, to brain function and even living itself (get fat and lazy, you die sooner).
So what I'd like to see is research to counter-act that. Instead of a new gene-therapy replacement for steroids, how about something prevents muscle loss even for people who are sedentary? Something to counter-act the "maintenance" requirement to staying fit. That would be really nice.
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I reject the notion that mice were "designed" or that a mouses body is the way it is due to any reasoning.
You give these mice that growth of musculature, something's going to take a beating
Yeah, any unaltered mice are going to take a beating for sure.
"reason" wasn't the problematic term, "designed" was, as in "... the body's designed to ...".
It is not designed to do anything, because it isn't designed in the first place.
However, even the reason part is crap. "There must be a reason, a LONG TERM REASON" is just plain wrong.
Evolution makes no claims of optimal outcomes in the first place.
Maybe said mutation just never happened in the wild? Maybe the disadvantages it also produced are no longer disadvantages due to environmental changes or other genome changes? Maybe it doesn't actually give an advantage to survival or reproduction? Maybe is requires more energy input which is bad in the short term? Maybe there's one of a million other short term disadvantages that don't apply in a lab setting.
Assuming it must be bad is the antithesis of evolution - a theory in which the core concept is that such a change might be beneficial.
Natural selection results in 'good enough' genetics. There isn't any reason why people couldn't have eyesight as good as predatory birds (though some diet changes would be needed), or hearing as good as bats, or olfactory senses as good as canines, etc. but the conditions under which we evolved did not include pressures that selected for senses beyond our current state. Our sense were not maximized, simply good enough for most to survive, and that is natural selection's ultimate standard.
Speciation is not about some 'ultimate lifeform' so much as it is about lifeforms that are best adapted to their niche and environment. Predatory birds need top eyesight to catch quick small prey on the ground. We don't need it because our prey was usually bigger, or stationary (being omnivores). By the same token mice might just not have needed more strength to survive. Furthermore, and more importantly, if environmental pressures were such that only stronger mice were surviving, you could damn near bet money that these sorts of genetic changes would occur naturally. In a model of punctuated equilibrium, you'll find that changes usually occur when they have to, not simply because they are 'objectively better' in some abstract sense that doesn't significantly impact survival rate in a given environmental condition.
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