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'Rogue Scientists' Could Exploit Gene Editing Technology, Experts Warn (theguardian.com)
A senior geneticist and a bioethicist warned on Friday that they fear "rogue scientists" operating outside the bounds of law, and agreed with a US intelligence chief's assertion this week that gene editing technology could have huge, and potentially dangerous, consequences. Recent advances in genetics allow scientists to edit DNA quickly and accurately, making research into diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and cancer, easier than ever before. But researchers increasingly caution that they have to work with extreme care, for fear that gene editing could be deployed as bioterrorism or, in a more likely scenario, result in an accident that could make humans more susceptible to disease rather than less.
result in an accident that could make humans more susceptible to disease rather than less.
Zombies? Where is my shotgun when I need it?
Will be easy to whip up now!!!
These scientists did awful things with DNA
Whenever did ethics get in the way of doing stuff, mad-scientist style?
It seems reasonable to assume that those with money and goals have been able to proceed down paths that are ethically and lawfully beyond the pale.
There are plenty of infectious agents that we don't have treatments against, so why would anybody go through the trouble of modifying bubonic plague, instead of just picking one of those? Why bubonic plague, an organism that is transmitted by fleas? And why haven't terrorists used biological weapons successfully before if there is such a risk from them?
Furthermore, for the kinds of changes a terrorist would want to make to bacteria or viruses, they wouldn't need CRISPR; CRISPR is mostly useful for targeted modifications in higher organisms.
The whole thing is just homeland security and bioethicists trying to get attention and funding; it's bullshit.
Why did they save that?
I saw that movie too.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The cat will get out of the bag eventually. What matters is whether it happens sooner than later.
Super regeneration or super strength would be nice, but I will settle for selective enlargement or super pheromone production.
does Beau come in SD and ultra HD?
c'mon, man.
Fortunately, we know from gun controllers what all the arguments are for regulating something during a moral panic:
- We must regulate this assault science.
- No more than 7 strands of DNA -- why would anyone ever need more than that?
- Scientists must register and be fingerprinted by their local sherrif.
- They must keep all their test tubes in a regulation safe when not in use.
- Scientists shouldn't have access to automatic equipment. No military-style scientific equipment either.
- One equipment purchase per scientist per month.
- Buying scientific equipment for another scientist will be a felony.
- Convicted felons won't be allowed to possess scientific equipment.
- Scientific equipment will only be allowed to be sold through a licensed dealer, with Federal background checks.
These and other common-sense controls will help keep us safe from these rogue scientists. We must enact them now, before it's too late!
"Some of these labs might alter particular genes to create so-called “designer babies”, with tailored features that range from height and eye color to disease immunity." Who came up with the term designer babies? Sounds so inhuman. Babies are not accessories like designer handbags or designer shoes.
The splicing and editing - that mechanical stuff - really is quite easy with CRISPR. What we don't know is how to do useful stuff with DNA. But if we're trying to do something destructive instead of useful, I think that doesn't take many deep insights. We just have to find some sexually reproducing organism with quick life cycle that plays a key role in ecosystems, attach some self-destructive genes to a gene drive, and let them loose. The release itself would completely escape notice, and irreparable harm could happen in weeks.
Once we learn more about how to safely do useful stuff with CRISPR, we might have tools to reverse this kind of terrorism before its harm is irreversible. But right now, we're basically helpless. So maybe we will never be more vulnerable to destructive uses of gene editing than we are now. You think there aren't some millenialist nuts in the world who are trying to figure out how to CRISPR together a red heifer and a plague of locusts? I'd be shocked if there weren't parallel efforts to make various end-of-the-world prophecies come true.
A couple of years ago that statement was correct. CRISPR has really changed the game.
Now, they often don't know what a given stretch of DNA does, so they can't predict what the change will do, but they can now say, "I want to change this sequence right here to this exact sequence of bases," and do it quickly and accurately.
We've got the assembler / disassembler, but are clueless as to how 99.9% of the code works and thus can't even begin to make a meaningful compiler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.the-scientist.com/?...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Yes, CRISPR/Cas9 is easy to use in the lab -- we use it in my lab quite a bit. You express a guide RNA and the Cas9 enzyme together inside of a cell to make a precise cut, and co-transform a repair DNA template to make a (more or less) precise insertion.
How exactly would you express the guide RNA and Cas9 in somebody's body as a weapon? Keep in mind that our bodies come into contact with LOTS of DNA every single day, and our cells do NOT magically incorporate that DNA and express it. No, the tricks that are used to transform cells and express DNA can be performed inside of a lab, but not in the field en mass.
The applications of CRISPR/Cas9 in biotech and medicine will definitely have profound social and economic effects. But a weapon? A national security concern? Nope.
Gene splicing autonomous killer robots brought to Earth by aliens find Jesus.... riding on Bigfoot's shoulders.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Procedurally-generated and perma-death.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Four arms would create symmetry. But add some mods for stronger body as well - great candidates for olympics.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Too many are creationists. That's the largest US problem today. Science is dying in the US.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Because our recusing from genetic engineering will have effect on the ability of bad actors to exploit the tech. All it would do is prevent us from fighting back.
I for only welcome our the new hallucinogenic flu season.
The US Intelligence chief is just afraid that the scientists will find the backdoor they left in the human genome, and edit it out.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
"No, no, noooooo!" says the father, "I meant the green jeans you wore when we first went out!"
*facepalm*
The compilers are the ribosomes, and they are in every cell in your body (not to mention every living thing on the planet).
Gene editing is not the future. Every day thousands of scientists across the globe splice antibiotic resistance genes attached to targeted genes into template bacteria. The bacteria is grown on antibiotic media which kills all the bacteria which do not have antibiotic resistance. Those with the antibiotic resistance also have the target gene, since it was attached to the resistance gene. An enemy does not need to know 99.9% of the code works. They just need to identify the code which "compiles" into antibiotic resistance, and this has already been done in many cases.
I don't see why viruses couldn't be modified to target different races.
I don't see why a computer program cannot be made sentient. Or why we don't have flying cars with warp drive. Oh wait...
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Remember the rogue economists and bankers (actually we accept their ideas as normal and good for humanity so they are not really rogue by some definitions) who created the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent transfer of even more wealth to the rich and powerful?
Rogue.. who is to say what rogue is?
Waiting For The Barbarians
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.
Constantine P. Cavafy
1863 – 1933
Translated from Greek
Out with the old and in with the old?
Seriously this is some pretty hefty garbage.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
> We've got the assembler / disassembler, but are clueless as to how 99.9% of the code works
Maybe this is a significant component of the risks then?
So why not just use a retrovirus (inactivated versions of herpes or even HIV have been used in gene therapy I think) to insert the DNA into the host, I mean person.
Then, using a "gene drive" (a technique for making the host transmit its genes to the next generation much higher than the 50% from Mendelian genetics, usually 95-99%. It does this by putting the gene on both chromosomes) you can effectively wipe out the entire (human) population in a span of 2^n generations where 2^n = human population (or about 33 generations assuming no inbreeding and only two kids per family). That is a long time (close to a millennia).
Of course that's assuming you only infect ONE individual, it would be easy (using mosquitos for example) to infect potentially millions in a short period of time. Or better yet, put it in a flu virus that's been engineered as a retrovirus. In that case you could "sterilize" a good portion of humanity in just a few generations I think.
I think we've solved the Fermi paradox! :)
On second thought :(
...what you'll REALLY be worried about though is where you'll get your next job.
Science is good for us, it keeps the ideas fresh, spreads the wealth instead of a selected few, it even helps contribute to natural selection (however harsh that might sound), but there's something MUCH worse you SHOULD worry about - and that's the coming civil unrest, mass lay-offs, the new working class vs the non working class.
Technically I think the future is bright, but that's only AFTER 20+ years or so...when we're past that rough transition we're just currently seeing the beginning stages of. The automation is actually good for us, then we can concentrate on things that matter instead of one big Who's got a job and who's not game we're so used to from the industrial revolution. Our 50's factory work ethics and school systems are long outdated and needs to change with the times. We're no longer an assembly line population. Our main concerns in the future will be improving our health, inventions and innovations, media and entertainment will be MASSIVE. But we won't have the same kind of jobs we used to have, we'll have some kind of society where the money as we know it - has been totally abolished, but everyone will be able to pursue their own happiness (if we succeed as a society) and we will look into improving life on our planet rather than see who dies with the most stuff or have the highest pile of money.
Now this scenario is as scary for the small elite who owns the largest amount of property and capital in the world as it is for the little man in the street who's just worried about losing his nickel and dime income. Why? Because the rich elite is just happy with the way things used to be, they had it - you don't and the politicians lobbied to make you perfectly content with what you got - and be that happy little worker bee that you should be, collect your salary, support your family and die like the rest. But the future won't be like that at all, in fact - it will even out the classes because when money vanishes - everyone becomes equal in status...so the status will take a different form, like in innovation and science instead of how much money you managed to collect.
This means a lot of people will live better lives, but the way things have worked so far...I can promise you there will be a huge fight, the elite will NOT give up their wealth so easily, and the average Joe will become pretty desperate as we slowly but surely move into total automation, and they will fight with beak and claws for the few jobs that are left. Politicians will pretty much try to save their own hind because they're exactly like you...humans too...so they'll tell YOU what YOU want to hear to become elected, if not...YOU will just vote for those that do, yep...that's humans for ya.
So yep, we're in for a TOUGH ride, but it will get better, rest assured. Or...don't rest! Do your best!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
More like established and wealthy governments, in the name of democracy, national security and the usual world domination. It wasn't rogue scientists who have developed chemical weapons, the atom bomb etc.
They saved Hitler's cock, They hid it under a rock.
I discovered it, last night. I couldn't even, believe my eyes.
If Hitler's cock could start to talk, it would say: To kill today.
If Hitler's cock could choose it's mate, it would ask, for Sharon Tate!
They saved Hitler's cock. They stuffed it in Mengele's sock.
They saved Hitler's cock, and now it wants to talk.
Now it's starting to get hard, I found it in my backyard.
Every night it kills a dog, and now it wants, some night and fog
Hitler's cock is on the move, and now I'm scared of what it's gonna do!
-- The Angry Samoans
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
OMG! | grep [confirmed threats]
The world is going to be hit by an asteroid unless we spend trillions on an asteroid defense shield!
For all that other stuff the real risk hinges on issues of personal, political and economic RESTRAINT
Everyone will be trying to sell you their favorite answers to those other 'threats' 'till Judgement Day.
They'll also be pushing answers (eg DNA splicing pathogen research for 'defense') that carry extreme risk.
The asteroid danger is the only real confirmed existential threat here.
It will require unanimous effort and the 'weaponization of space' but until it is done we're just waiting to die suddenly.
Even the US population being luddites and sheep is not a problem, if you come up with a low-tech solution and manage to enough of convince them.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
What I meant was it wasn't "accurate" in the sense that they knew what replacing the sequence does.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Just saying.
Want something sinister? manipulate the common flu to mutate rapidly and spreads easier. Imagine catching the flu that never ever goes away, you can cripple a country's workforce rapidly. If you never get away from the Flu symptoms your work output drops dramatically, productivity drops dramatically, etc...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Four arms would create symmetry.
Better increase funding for deodorant research then.
I know I am acting as a one-note musician of late, so feel free to skip this if you've heard it (from me) before but this is not just the shape things to come, it is one example of a force which will dictate every aspect of your life, every aspect of how governments are (re)structured, every one of our childrens' lives will be grounded in and determined in large part by this force. The force is simply the fact that technology is rapidly bestowing the power to cause very great destruction to very large number of people into the hands of smaller and smaller groups of people, tending towards one. In fact the level of destruction is tending towards "death" and the number of victims is tending towards "everyone". That is a world changing event sneaking up on us and no one is taking it all that seriously, at least, no one I have granola and lattes with.
It's not just genetics, it's all forms of DIYBio and eventually nanotechnology; it makes viruses ransomware and even city-closing SCADA attacks look like the good old days. If what happened in cyber happens in the real world it will look like this: hackers will toy with genetics and bio-based "stuff" under the hacker ethos of free exploration for everyone. Most of it will just come to nothing, but someone will find a way to turn all the algae in public fountains neon blue and everyone will think it's cool. Then the blackhats will start to get involved and create malicious wetware. Then the DIYBio hackers will try to step in and write wetware to protect us against wetware. We know where this goes. We know who has the upper hand and who is always playing catch-up in this cat and mouse game.
The problem, the real problem is we're a failed species. Because of the way we evolved, owing to evolutionary pressures where winning is strictly defined as making babies (DNA passing itself on through the device of making brains and bodies that want to pass it on.. any other type of DNA eventually gets shut out of existence), very many people are completely governed by genetically mediated impulses which serve fish, lions and apes well enough but spell doom for humans. Those impulses just keep driving people to *more* of certain behaviors, without limit. More money, more power, more land, more resources, more control over other people and what they do and think and of course who they fuck (religious zealots) . It's all about gathering to yourself and monopolizing as much as possible all money and power and therefore, women and thereby offspring. You have countless examples of exactly this behavior in medieval times where the local Lord would avail himself of any peasant bride the night before she was married or in with polygamous cultures like modern day Saudi Arabia or just being a NBA star or a corporate executive or a rock star.. it's the drive to control resources and be the alpha male in order to maximize your genetic fitness, and of course, it has to be pointed out that women overwhelming prefer such males.
Those are extreme examples all, but they go to the heart to of the issue with our species- it's why there's social inequities at all. It's why there's war and totalitarian dictatorships and income inequities and why a small group of people will band together to fuck over millions and billions of other people just to preserve their privileged status. It's about status which is about controlling resources which is about copulation and genetic success whether the bearers of those impulses are aware of it or not.
We *could* be a species whose members, as soon as they are assured they will always have enough immediately and determinedly set about to provide and lift up their fellow humans. We *could* be a species whose strongest desire is to make sure everyone in our community has the basics necessary for a decent living. Are we that species? Have you ever wondered why not? Why do billionaires offshore their wealth to tax havens and give less of their net income to charity than "average" people? Why do dictators dictate anything other than fairness and ec
Possibly not. But the vast majority of people are not remotely reasonable.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
is a potential terrorist. Every man is a potential rapist, some would say. And now, every scientist is a potential super-villain. "It's a matter of national security." The age-old cries of wolf and danger from the oppressive U.S are as loud as ever.
So you are arguing for the death of all males in the name of safety for women? Women rape men in the courtroom during a divorce; it is state-sponsored terrorism against male humans.
For me, a compiler would be a higher level language where you edit one character of code and change the number of digits per hand from 5 to 6, or 4, as desired.
"bioethicist" sounds fancy but strikes me as a load of codswallop. Much like 'philosopher' anyone can claim to be one, and be right.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
I keep seeing this in the news, so I'm assuming that the feds are setting the groundwork to introduce legislation to "fix" this problem (because laws are magical and can stop bad guys from doing bad things). I actually don't know *why* they want to stifle research in this area - I mean the actual, real reason, not the scary bullshit - but someone apparently wants a monopoly on it or something.
Do you have ESP?
Facts are not welcome in this "discussion". Most people that feel they can contribute do not even understand the basics.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You guys are crazy. We aren't any closer to anything they mentioned in this article than we were 50 years ago. And more people die of choking on hot dogs than terrorism. And the world won't end if it is 1-2 degrees warmer. You are more likely to die of local smog. Give me a break.
and design new critters on your i-phone
I agree that biotech advancements have made the unthinkable very thinkable in a really short period of time.
As for the fears stated in the article - it's really not enough to be able to easily edit genes. You have to know which genes to edit. So while the technology is now extremely cheap and easy, the knowledge is what we're lacking -- which, as you say, for the short term, means the danger's a bit overblown.
Long term, we have a problem on our hands. This is awesome technology, for good or ill.
Kythe
Someone who uses knowledge in some way not approved by the establishment? By that definition, I can think of no greater shame than to be a non-rogue scientist.
How do we know that rouge scientists (*cough* Government agencies *cough*) arnt already exploiting this technology?
Seriously? The technology required to do this stuff will only get easier to use and cheaper. Rolling your own equipment will become simple (if it's not already simple). In short order, any whack-job will be able to do this. Maybe it's time to call Bruce Willis?
linquendum tondere
Stated as if petty nation/state laws could solve all problems. Childish!
If not, then how exactly are "rogue" scientists supposed to cause trouble? Are they working at a rogue University? Sure, they could be working at a facility run by a rogue nation, but that really just makes them military researchers, not "rogue geneticists".
A humanity's capabilities advance, the good guys can get gooder but the bad guys can get badder!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Four arms would create symmetry. But add some mods for stronger body as well - great candidates for olympics.
Three arms work for Moties. Why not him?