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Human DNA Enlarges Mouse Brains
sciencehabit writes Researchers have increased the size of mouse brains by giving the rodents a piece of human DNA that controls gene activity. The work provides some of the strongest genetic evidence yet for how the human intellect surpassed those of all other apes. The human gene causes cells that are destined to become nerve cells to divide more frequently, thereby providing a larger of pool of cells that become part of the cortex. As a result, the embryos carrying human HARE5 have brains that are 12% larger than the brains of mice carrying the chimp version of the enhancer. The team is currently testing these mice to see if the bigger brains made them any smarter.
I for one welcome our new rodent overlords.
Cue jokes in 3...2...
I for one, welcome our cheese loving overlords.
Same thing as every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!!
Does anything ever sound like a bad idea to scientists?
Prophecy. Pure prophecy.
I'm not going to complain about "playing god" but this definitely approaches immoral conduct. Change this gene in something with a larger brain and you could create animals smart enough to deserve human rights. At that point the only ethical course of action is to give them said rights. The problem is the lack of a proper legal framework for such. Our science is in the 21st century but our laws are 19th to 20th. It's practically a very small step from this to sheep or monkeys.
We need to start defining legal rights for intelligent, non-human entities immediately.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
I'm waiting for some spider genes and a bit of radiation....
The Pinky and the Brain jokes.
Seriously, if we enlarge their brains, are they enlarging their skulls at the same time? Will we soon have butt head mice like the little aliens in Star Trek's "The Cage"? Will they be telepathic???
In the scientific race to recreate Don Bluth movies, will The Secret of Nimh beat out The Land Before Time?
I think I can predict what would happen to the mice.
It's like when you upgrade a Commodore 64 to a Core I7 and try to run CPM on it. They'll crash and die.
Dogs are genetically disposed to imprint on their owners. Imagine a dog that really does understand human language... complete with grammar. Lassie, sort my mail then bring me bills and magazines.
Consider a horse that isn't stupid. Able to know when it is needed, what it is to do, and when it is to leave. And possibly the damn things could be taught to take care of themselves a bit better so that the owners don't have to spend as much time fussing over them.
Imagine cats that are not only bred by instinct to depopulate the rat population in the area but that understand that is why you keep them there. Possibly useful as lookouts etc in ways that they're not today.
And then... people... perhaps this can be stimulated further in a human embryo. They've said our brains won't work much better if made larger but no one has put that little theory to the test. It is possible that a modified human could enjoy a qualitative advantage over normal humans comparable to the advantage normal humans have over chimps. And that sort of advantage is worth the swelled head and sore neck.
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It is possible that a modified human could enjoy a qualitative advantage over normal humans comparable to the advantage normal humans have over chimps. And that sort of advantage is worth the swelled head and sore neck.
Didn't they do a study that showed women would give up IQ for breast size? That sort of advantage, to them, being worth a swelled chest and a sore back?
I'd settle for just training most things not to poop in my yard. Whatever that takes.
Channelling Might Mouse via Andy Kaufman...
This reminds me of the novel by Daniel Keyes, who BTW died last year.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Ok, this stuff is just too creepy and fucked up. Frankenstienish. Definitely worthy of the whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag. Its just too dangerous for this kind of meddling to be legal.
...what I'm pondering?
enlarge human ears ? If so, Disney would sue!
Dogs are genetically disposed to imprint on their owners. Imagine a dog that really does understand human language... complete with grammar. Lassie, sort my mail then bring me bills and magazines.
*wag*.... aroo?... grrrrrr....
Translation: Yaay, I can help! Wait. Nooo! Dammit, I can't sort mail, I have no opposable thumbs! That thoughtless bastard, giving me physically impossible orders! I'm gonna crap in his slippers!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Far from a fear of genetic tampering, bigger boobs and blonde hair will quickly devolve into less important things like health, lifespan, and more intelligence. But don't worry my non-augmented friends, while you won't be able to vote, hold a job, or hold any preferred life form rights, our kind masters still allow us to serve them. Isn't that enough?
And I'm sure a baboon would give up some intelligence for a bright blue ass.
Greater intelligence could mean greater capability which could mean wealth and power. And nothing is sexier then wealth and power. Young women will happily jump into bed with a diseased old man if he's rich and powerful enough.
Beyond which, the day is coming when you might just gestate your young in an artificial womb rendering the need to woo or romance or court your mate irrelevant.
Strange days are coming, friend.
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I'm not anywhere near knowledgable about medicine, but if the brain is larger, does the cranial cavity grow increase to the same level?
I wonder if there a round hole, square peg kind (big brain, small cranial cavity) of issue coming. The brains might be smarter, but they may suffer from decreased mental abilities from intracranial pressure.
Men without arms can do it with their nose. Food for thought.
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So, basically, a new form of slavery, enforced by genetic programming that makes the slaves happy in their roles, and excused by the simple speciesist "Well, they're not human anyway."? What a monstrous suggestion.
Obviously not a completely original concept, but the first book I thought of was Orson Scott Card's Ruins and Visitors (books 2 and 3 of the Pathfinder series), probably being the most recent I've read. He took the concept quite a bit further with thousands of years of evolution after the initial DNA blending.
I think it was called the Secret of NIHM.
Imagine cats that are not only bred by instinct to depopulate the rat population in the area but that understand that is why you keep them there.
Massive analogy breakdown here. Cats are only out for themselves. If you could wave a wand and make them smart enough to have that level of self-awareness, it would not change the fact that they don't really care what we want. It would just give them the mental tools to be more effective manipulators of their humans. I for one don't find that an appealing idea.
"It's Pink and the Brain!"
What would be the results?
Why is science not allowed to answer this question?
Is political correctness more important than facts?
Why do you press -1 just because my question makes you uncomfortable?
Battery technology has improved. First it was The Secret of NiMH, then The Li-ion King, and then The Matrix.
Just another harebrained scheme.
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
I would be much happier with pets if you could convince them to puke on the tile instead of the carpet. That does not a slave make.
When given the hypothetical 'magic option' to 'be good at math, but have a fatter ass.' a tiny percentage of women said 'yes', Likely those who already had a fat ass and would not lose the ability to get what they want from men.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Men without arms can do it with their nose. Food for thought.
Must resist ... urge ... to FTFY.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Do not ask for the videos of how they 'injected' human DNA into mice. Rule 34 and all...
Silence is a state of mime.
as smart as you are take orders/be penned up/allow itself to be slaughtered en masse for food/etc? A different but familiar Orwellian outcome ;)
Dogs understand more than you think. They have been bred over a thousand years to better grasp human communication; they pay more attention than other canines to certain parts of the face, and pick up nonverbal cues that humans sometimes miss or ignore. They tend to be interested only in certain things, though, which some people mistake for lack of intelligence.
... what I'm pondering?
That is all.
Once people can plug in and escape via totally immersive VR, only tax payers and some religious people will still bother with the real world.
Hopefully, there's a lot of overlap between that group and the group that's fun to hang out with.
Now we really will need a smarter mouse trap!
Just what we need...a mouse smart enough to get that cheese without getting caught in the trap. What's next? Mice making Mousevilles and, ultimately, mouse nukes to shower upon us? I, for one, do not welcome the day of welcoming furry underlords.
I for one welcome our new rodent overlords.
Yup, I saw this movie, doesn't end well for the humans.
The human race should just get it over with and a third of us will work on building terminator like machines, another third giving animals super human intelligence and the last third photocopying our butts and sending those photos out electronically to the stars!
To see if donkey DNA will increase the size of mouse penises.
Nope. I guess not.
Oh... I thought you were going to say nothing is sexier than a bright blue ass. :(
The mice given the human genes turned into alcoholics as they were forced to ponder their existence every night.
Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
I don't know ... there are so many people that act like they've been injected with extract of Mickey Mouse ...
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Well humans are larger than mice so.....
I wouldn't worry about that. The only way VR is going to get that good is if we have full neural interlinks. And if we have that then the flow can go both ways. You can't have real VR without cyborgs. And cyborgs will be more then just VR users... they'll be drone commanders, neural programmers, and possibly mentally augmented with subordinate AIs.
Till then... VR won't be an issue.
A more credible problem might be people that get a wire put into their brains to stimulate the pleasure centers of their brain. Why by drugs when you can just tickle the part of your brain that makes you happy? That's all the drugs do anyway. It isn't the drugs that get you high but how they interact with the brain. Just force the brain electrically to do what you wanted anyway... Now that would be a problem. Imagine a drug that was cheap after the initial operation... and could put you in a state of complete bliss for days.
The only real issue is that the glands that provide that kind of high aren't designed to operate continuously. So they could burn out and doubtless there would be other issues. But I'd worry about that before I worried about VR.
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I knew the mice in my house seemed smarter than usual.......
You pretty much just described an electrical version of MDMA (taken in unsafe doses). I agree, it's probably more of an immediate risk than believable VR. But even visuals plus rudimentary tactile feedback plus the pleasure stimulator you describe could pretty much be "close enough" to immersive VR to put many in a state of permanent incapacity outside the system.
I'm reminded of the Logan's Run episode with the "joy" headsets.
Have you SEEN "Avatar"?
Humans likewise are opportunists... with intelligence they learn to cooperate for mutual gain.
A cat smart enough to know why it is kept around is one that can be bargained with... deliver this many rats and you get this amount of whatever it is you want.
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I knew some PETA fool would show up to whine about my comment.
As to slavery, you could make the same claim now with or without enhanced intelligence. And of course, that is what the PETA twits do... no one cares.
Beyond that, I suggested pushing human intelligence further as well. Which if effective could make normal humans no more intelligent relative to the enhanced then animals are to normal humans.
At which point going by your definition... would it be reasonable for an enhanced human to enslave regular humans if his intelligence were that far beyond them?
And more to the point... if he were that intelligent... how could they stop him.
Which is really what all this boils down to in the end.
Further elaborating on your point, if the animals were capable of taking care of themselves within a civilized society, then I'd have no problem with liberating them. They could own property, have jobs, pay taxes, run for high office... I don't really care so long as they can hack it.
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Had to post it.
Didna du nuthn ta mee.
Sure it wasn't a poll of their husbands?
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
potentially.
Gorillas have a bigger brain (than humans)...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
By Daniel Keyes comes to mind.
Yes let's give people genes that increase their neuron count, so they can get even more hopelessly confused about things. Or increase the branching factor and give them all autism!
Teehee.
Humans already have as big a skull at birth as is possible. Any larger and it simply wouldn't fit through the pelvis. If you want to try a larger-brained human, you'll have to get it out by caesarian.
Easy to regulate. Neurosurgeons are rare enough that the government could easily track them and watch for some under-the-table surgery, and the implant procedure would be prohibitively expensive. Now, a TMS rig might work. It's non-intrusive. Aiming would be tricky.
A large number of births happen by caesarian already and we quite near to have effective artificial wombs. So... it doesn't especially matter.
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I'm reminded of quite a different story from my youth. As they say, if you give a mouse a gene, he'll ask for gamete too.
They already have some very impressive abilities for their small brain size, and many are already natural mimics for sound. Some crow species even have tool use - and one step beyond, tool creation. Just a little bit of a boost and you might get a parrot that can understand what it's saying. The potential is there - Alex showed that, but Alex was a fluke, no other has come close.
Cite it.
You say that but you haven't considered remote surgery. The US army is experimenting with drone surgeons. A soldier carries a backpack, a fellow soldier is wounded, he takes the backpack off and places it on the wound. He then switches it on. It links to a doctor somewhere in the world that controls the drone. With the assistance of the other soldier to act as an onsite nurse, the surgeon can remove bullets, stitch major arteries back together, and close wounds. Instead of a soldier having to wait possibly hours before he can be seen to at a field hospital he can get treatment NOW.
A similar system is being tried in rural Alaska for much the same reason. Little towns in rural alaska and many places around the world can't sustain their own hospital. The population is just too low. They often have a nurse that can set broken bones and prepare people with more serious injuries for a trip to Anchorage etc where there are proper hospitals. But what if instead of doing that you have a surgical robot there that links to either the hospital in Anchorage or anywhere else in the world. Specialists from all over the world could look at the patient and treat him on site without having to fly him all over the world by plane.
Now... consider that value of that on the black market?
Criminal gets in a shootout with the police... he can't go to the hospital. The police are waiting for him there and the doctors report gunshot wounds to the police. Grab one of these things and all you need is some doctor somewhere in the world willing to pilot the thing for a price. No way that isn't going to happen.
And if the doctor is patching up cop killers then he's probably not going to mind putting a wire in a junky's head either.
You can't stop it. Don't even try.
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If we manage to tweak the human genome and modify our offspring with different generations that affect brain capacity we have no idea what the effects could be. The humans with larger brains could attain a higher state of thought or not. The brain is also very complex, so changing the brain mass could yield entirely new types of thought, emotions and behavior never before seen.
Experimenting with this type of evolutionary behavior is not ethical. We change humans by design. Will our offspring be "humans"? What rights do they get compared to normal humans? I think this research should be scrapped immediately and banned by the UN. This sounds very like the making of the atomic bomb.
Gorillas do NOT have bigger brains then humans. Their bodies can grow (typically) to 3x that of the average human, but their brains are smaller.
""This cost a lot," she said, extending her right hand as
though it held an invisible fruit. The five blades slid out, then
retracted smoothly. "Costs to go to Chiba, costs to get the
surgery, costs to have them jack your nervous system up so
you'll have the reflexes to go with the gear..."
The USA isn't the only place with surgeons.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The interesting thing to me about the link is the mice were tested with the human gene against the corresponding chimp gene in a mouse brain as a control.
We have at least one allele for brain development identified in three species. Don't you just know experiments with the human gene inserted in the monkey is the next logical step? Hail Caesar...
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Consider a horse that isn't stupid.
This kills the self-driving car. Seriously. A sapient horse could learn the city like a London cabbie, and at your command, take you where ever you want to go.
humankind's demise. they breed human with animals.
It would also be very green... running on apples and cuddles.
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Consider how fast the military, the organized crime and all the nasties out there will put those animals to god use.
Consider what those animals will think and feel when eventually they have to return to normal society, institutionalized and maybe put down, trying to figure out what they did wrong
Imagine the elite taking advantage of the extra brain power making sure its put to good use to keep them in power and keeping the rest of us from even having a chance to compete with them
Happy times
Would it make the mice any smarter? Not if the humans I interact with on a regular basis are anything to go by. If anything, I'd expect it to make the mice dumber.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
That is all.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
How do you know that isn't what they did in this case?
I thought you head would be bigga.
Seastead this.
Sounds like a HARE5 brained scheme to me.
As Robin might say, "Holy Mrs. Frisby [and the Rats of NIMH] !!!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Why is all the good stuff already modded 5, when I have mod points?
My dogs are so stupid they don't know how to open a door that's left ajar.
My little dog will bark his ass off at me, then stare at me through the opening in the door because he's too stupid to put his paw in there and pull it open.
Dogs are genetically disposed to imprint on their owners. Imagine a dog that really does understand human language... complete with grammar. Lassie, sort my mail then bring me bills and magazines.
Consider a horse that isn't stupid. Able to know when it is needed, what it is to do, and when it is to leave. And possibly the damn things could be taught to take care of themselves a bit better so that the owners don't have to spend as much time fussing over them.
Imagine cats that are not only bred by instinct to depopulate the rat population in the area but that understand that is why you keep them there. Possibly useful as lookouts etc in ways that they're not today.
You mean, imagine having slaves?
And?
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More peta people...
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Humans likewise are opportunists... with intelligence they learn to cooperate for mutual gain.
People will do that, but it isn't all about sociopathic cooperation with us, as this implies. We are innately social creatures, and naturally seek to form groups together, even when there is no (non-emotional) personal gain. We have a word for people who cooperate with others only when it gains them something: "sociopaths".
Dogs are that way too. Evolution crafted them to live and hunt in groups, and co-evolution with humans has further crafted them to watch and understand humans and want to please them.
Cats simply are not innately social creatures. They are designed for solitude. That doesn't make them evil, just the creatures evolution has crafted them into. But this means that making them smarter would just make them smarter sociopaths.
they were required to be come bigger and fatter basically they mutated into a more intelligent 'murrican' joe six pack!
If we can force genetics to make bigger brained people, we can force more of the growth to occur after birth. Think outside the box.
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Now imagine Manhattan, with 2 million horses producing a total of 60 million pounds of manure a day, 22 billion pounds of manure a year. Think of walking across the East River on the sludge thus accumulated. And Oh, the lovely odor. London would be far worse, the Thames hardly flows in comparison.
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Dogs are pack hunters and social animals. They submit to the leader of the pack. For domestic dogs, their owner is an ersatz pack leader. Saying that "Dogs are genetically disposed to imprint on their owners" is subtly inaccurate.
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evolution. So many think that evolution occurred through random changes in our base pairs. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Basically, retro-virus can cross many species, phylums, and even kingdoms. These days we only know the actively nasty ones. But, there are plenty of retro-virus that simply carry genes which mosquitos carry around.
So, when I see Gates saying that he wants to kill off hurricanes or entire mosquito species, I have to wonder what the long term ramnifications are. Hurricanes bring loads of nutrients up from the depths that feed all sorts of life. And it is very likely that by gates killing off 1 mosquito species, he will slow down evolution, esp. human evolution. That means that we can not adapt easily to changes.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You want to hang around with big bottomed girls and do math together? I'd rather 'sink her with my pink torpedo.'
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
A horse smart enough to memorize a city, is smart enough to learn to use restrooms built specifically for them. The only issue would be expanding the existing sewage infrastructure to handle the extra load.
... the point is that even amongst sociopaths, they cooperate. So your point that cats if made intelligent wouldn't cooperate is incorrect. They'd simply need a beneficial relationship.
And the problem with calling people sociopaths is that it has a moral stigma attached to it that is not entirely justified and certainly not relevant to this discussion. A different species isn't a sociopath simply for acting as it instinctually evolved to act. The moral stigma you're attempting to attach to this situation is misplaced.
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A distinction without meaning.
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Fievel Mousekewitz is not a Disney character. Nor is Jerry. Or were you referring to the trademark flap between Disney and Deadmau5?
if the brain is larger, does the cranial cavity grow increase to the same level?
It does in humans
So are Precious Moments body proportions likely in humanity's future?
They will learn to open their cages and take up residence in your rosebush while stealing your electricity.
Dogs are pack hunters and social animals. They submit to the leader of the pack. For domestic dogs, their owner is an ersatz pack leader.
This is Cesar Milan dog whisperer bullshit. Dogs are family creatures. Humans who try to assume the role a pack leader may cow dogs into doing what the humans want, but they end up damaged. This is an unethical way to treat dogs, and I hate that morons like you promulgate this nonsense.
Like most people, I expect that fully half of what you "know" is just plain wrong.
Consider a horse that isn't stupid.
Trust me, the only reason anyone can ride an animal that weighs more than 1,000 pounds and can kill us with a single kick is because they are stupid.
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
Your dog would let you ride him. Big dogs are happy enough with small children on their backs.
What is more, most of the problem with horses is that they are so stupid. A smarter horse could be better trained. You might want to do some instinctual programming if you're that much of a genetics master... ideally make them imprint the way dogs do... but the intelligence alone would be interesting.
Dolphins would be another fun one... Fisherman could use them. Some sort of symbiosis could be established. Or just raise the young in captivity so they don't know how to be wild.
Could be useful.
Really, I just like the idea of smarter animals. I value intelligence in everything. I like animals that are more clever and generally dislike animals that are stupid. I'd prefer for most animals to be smarter. Obviously not cows, pigs, chickens and other animals we eat. They if anything could have their intelligence toned down.
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