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Genetic engineering boosts mouse intelligence
hurin wrote to us with the story about scientists raising the level of learning and memory in the subject mice. Of course, they get into the potential for human genetic manipulation as well, something which is sure to spark a conflagaration of right vs wrong genetic engineering debates.
I think this is some very intereting research that deserves to be pursued further (i.e. no just inserting genes into people just yet!). I interned at a bio lab that is doing a lot of learning & memory research on bot mice and fruit flies and it's interesting how much we really don't know about the genetic/molecular basis of behavior and learning. This is a field of biology that has a lot of potential for some major breakthroughs that will benefit both knowledge and humanity's fight against neurological disease.
Respectfully,
Kevin Christie
kwchri@maila.wm.edu
Some Hollywood executive is probably right now plotting to remake a movie based on this story, only this version would be crossbred with Forrest Gump. :-) Who would be a good choice for the role of Charlie Gordon...
now itll know when to double-click.. damnit
I loved that book as a child. Now I get to read it to my son and wonder about all fiction eventually becoming reality....
yeah....this genetically altering thing could be cool...I'd like it and not like it. For one, all those idiots that bug me for help in classes would be smarter and leave me alone to further MY knowledge, yet this could also pose a threat to MY intelligence....would there be a way to LIMIT the amount of SMART someone gets? Interesting... Damned scientists.....I've HAD my coffee....and yours...and yours....and yours....AAARRGGHH!!!!!
Well I think so Brain, but if they called them sad meals only those goth kids would buy them.
Its not clear that hyping up the connections between brain cells via genetic alteration is any different then applying a mild anphetamine. There's a difference between heightened intelligence and heightened responsiveness. Which is occuring here? More data needs to be gathered, such as what happens to these mice as they grow older? Do they "burn out?" Also, pointing something that doesn't always seem obvious enough in science, just because you get a result on an animal like a mouse's brain, doesn't translate directly to the human mind at all. I mean, unless your belief is that man is nothing more than another animal, and that intelligence and awareness are matters of mere chemical reactions and balances. My $00.02 worth.
Ok.. you start w/ a basic Mouse 1.0.. build a mousetrap, it catches the mouse. So then you build Mouse 1.1 (smarter mouse). Someone comes along and builds a better mousetrap, to catch said mouse. And so forth and so on it goes - until you release Mouse '95 where it just self destructs.
What we really need is genetically engineered jizz. For example. I live next door to a real hottie. I masturbate every night thinking of her. Wouldn't it be cool if my semen were intelligent enough to crawl across the floor, under her door, up her lag, and into her vagina? Clearly there are applications for this genetic engineering stuff that goes far beyond what close-minded scientists have dreamed up.
So the real question is, can these super genius mice run Linux? And if so, why not GE a colony of naked mole rats? Now that's what I'd call a Beowulf cluster!
I can't believe I'm the first person to mention "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes. That was the first thing I thought of when I read the story synopsis.
"As a whole" is the key here. The ethical objection is one of creating a new class of "haves" and "have nots." The procedure would likely be available only to the rich and powerful, leaving the lower class as...well...lower class.
Personally, I think the human race could use a collective IQ boost. But I'd want to see it as an option available to everyone...neither forced, nor only for the elite...nor with certain rights available only to the "smart class."
Has anyone claimed that the intelligence differences between the mice were greater than the differences between, say, an German Shorthaired Pointer and a border collie? The value of the research is not that it created mice with abilities that could not have been created through artificial selection. That would be much more surprising. By the way, have you ever wondered why selective breeding has never really been tried with humans? I think it has something to do with time scale.
A very good short story on this syndrome is Jorge Luis Borges' "Funes the Memorious". Very fascinating. Takes the idea and ramifications of a totally perfect memory in ways few would think.
I've often wondered, if intelligence is genetically determined, evolution would drive the average intelligence ever higher UNLESS there's a corresponding drive to lower intelligence. Maybe too much intelligence is counter-productive. I could imagine in the distant past that being too intelligent might make it harder to survive the cave man life, if survival favored the dull and repetitive. Perhaps in this age intelligence has more survival value, and so it will rise. As a matter of fact, I've read that the average IQ has unaccountably drifted upward since the IQ test was invented.
It is estimated that a quarter of human/mamalian genome controls brain development and intelligence. Whether changing a couple of them will help a lot will be a stroke of luck.
"have you ever wondered why selective breeding has never really been tried with humans?"
It has been. Just look at the Royal families of Europe to see the results.
Basically some mice and rats were given experimental drugs to enhance their learning in a maze. They were taught how to read. Eventually they could read the instructions on the cage, and figured out how to escape.
when the rats went back to their homes, they felt ostracized by the other rats, who detected that they weren't normal rats now, so they formed their own little society in the rosebush in the farmer's garden. Well, okay, the mice/rats weren't specifically forming evil gangs, but they did escape and make their own smartrat civilization.
Great smarter mice, does this mean I have to buy a better mousetrap? -the mouse takes the cheese
Well said.
Flowers for Algernon anyone?
Bruce Sterling's short story (actually, a review of a mythical book) "Our Neural Chernobyl" is a great spin on this idea. In it, a dorky "gene hacker" makes a virus that causes a great increase in formation of neural connections. It drives humans crazy, but dogs, coyotes, and raccoons become very smart.
If the idiots were to become smarter, then you'd be considered dumber in the process. For example, if you were surrounded by rocket scientists, you'd be considered an idiot, while around idiots you'd be considered a rocket scientist.
Chill, cuz the dude probably posted right before the other post appeared. There was a mention of this slight delay somewhere on slashdot.org.
... and the other geniuses that were basically self-taught. People don't necessarily need a teacher to teach, just good sources of information. Libraries are a good start (depending on what kind they are and run by whom). The Internet can be one but there's too much shit clogging up all the bandwidth.
In the human race, natural selection can be considered non-existent, suspended by medical science. You have a defect that will kill you before you're mature? No problem, medicine will keep you alive and let you have children that will inherit that defect. You have trouble reproducing? No problem, medicine fixes that, too, and you can have offspring anyway. My cynical conclusion, therefore, is that genetic engineering will be the _only_ way we can enhance our race, as survival of the fittest no longer applies to us.
Reminds me of the cartoon I saw as I child. Personally, I believe that we (as humans) are quite stupid. You can find evidence of it everywhere you go. I think increasing our intelligence through genetic manipulation (they call it "engineering") isn't such a bad way to go. My two cents...
Right on. We've barely tapped our potential. To tap it takes some actual work, some confront, some responsibility. No gene hack or magic little pill can subsitute that. Alas, tell that to the drug manufacturers. They stand to lose billions when people wake up and realize their problems and limitations don't need to be handled by a drug that "makes it all seem better."
Likely this will not make people that much 'better'. ... just lazier.:).
right next to the OEM of the swidish penis enlarger.......
Read the book, too! It's totally fascinating!
Actually, Dr. Adams final conclusion was that white mice were the smartest beings on Earth. He surmized that Marvin was probably the smartest being in the universe, although the evidence was not 100% conclusive.
So combining GA with reinforcement learning (RL) and other tools kicks up their abilities, but for any problem with a nontrivial solution they are usually much too slow.
For example, CMU's DarwinUnited RoboCup soccer simulator league entry was evolved using what was nearly a supercomputer, but never managed to beat CMU's hand-coded team made for the same purpose.
It was once said that Nueral Nets are the second best way to do everything, and that GAs are the third. They have their uses, but beware of the hype.
in the near future.. we will have master splinter in real form :) cowabunga dudes!!!!!
Not neccessarily... possibly the relevant gene
could be inserted in a retrovirus, which would
then randomly write the gene into your brain
cells, if you allowed it to infect you.
Who knows, Flowers for Algernon may well turn out to be the most prophetic book of the 20th Century.
Paranoia seems to consist of a tendency to form associations that don't reflect real-world actualities and/or to fail to reject associations, once formed, in the face of conflicting data.
I wonder if these mice will be more paranoid than normal mice?
(I do note that the mice were also reported to be able to reject mental associations more quickly than normal mice once the real-world association on which their mental model was based is ended.)
Try reading "Flowers for Algernon" a SF short.
The author escapes me at the moment.
This is what the story is all about.
Planet of the Apes
Lanwnmower Man
Pinky and the Brain
Geez, does anybody read real books any more ?
build a beowulf cluster.
No!!!! Not scary! Exciting! Fear not that which offers change, unless that change be unfavorable. Certainly humanity would benefit from being smarter.
You forget the hyperintelligent shades of the color blue.
Pinky and the Brain, yes Pinky and the Brain, their twilight campaign is easy to explain they're laboratory mice their genes have been spiced yes Pinky, they're Pinky and the Brain Brain Brain Brain Brain! Before night is done, their plan will be unfurled Before dawning of the sun they'll take over the world
Time to build yet a better mouse trap then, sigh.
time to move on to sharks! Just like in that movie... AC
The problem with Eugenics is that it's associated ;)
with things like this. Forced Eugenics are not a
good thing, it needs to be voluntary. Get people
to volunteer though inducements such as tax
breaks (if it is a government program) and then
filter out those that are not elligable. All
people are _not_ created equal under the law, then.
But then it isn't that way anyways, both in
de-facto law and actual US law.
One of the first clues scientists received to the super-intelligence of the mouse is that it erased Windows from a nearby computer and installed Linux.
A flood of protests will soon arive from those claiming to act in the name of God. Some of those will be from people who merely object to science meddling with things that a 4000 year old book says that God did. Most however will be reacting for logical reasons despite what they may claim. To say that it is risky to court the unknowable is a *vast* understatment. Even with unmodified intelligence the future is unknowable. Science fiction that doesn't include modified intelligence still portrays almost incomprehensible possibilities. And sometimes reality is stranger. Human intelligence in it's present form has been around for a long time. Although we have no clue what it's going to do next we still have some level of comfort with it -- we've seen a lot of what it's done. When we change human intelligence it will be something we're not as familiar with. People say things like "if there are no side-effects", but that's wrong because side-effects are inherent in what we're talking about. Not to say that we shouldn't do this. We have no choice. The opportunity to transcend is before us, and we must take it irregardless of risks. And this is not the only feild were transcendance is near at hand... at the current rate of improvements in semiconductor manufacturing we will be able to produce single microchips with the same complexity as the human brain by the year 2050... If we aren't smarter than our computers then why shouldn't they rule the Earth? Illuminatus! - conservatism vs. neoism Snow Crash - intelligence / perception Flowers for Algernon - increasing intelligence Neon Genesis Evangelion - enhanced evolution / technilogical heresy Babel 17 - intelligence / perception
Ok, so two neurons are connected if the axon from one contacts the dendrite from another. Axons are the part of the neuron that do the signaling (transmit a 1 or 0, if you want to think of it computationally, a 1 being an action potential, a 0 being inactivity). The dendrites receive this signal and are excited. When the excitation of the neuron reaches a critical value (due to the activity of many axons), that neuron will transmit its own action potential. Now the axons and dendrites don't actually contact, there is a tiny gap between them where chemicals are transmitted.
The chemicals (neurotransmitters) come out of little things called synaptic vesicles, and are picked up on the other side by receptors, which are usually connected to ion channels. So there are a bunch of different kinds of receptors, some that respond to glucose, some to dopamine, there are a lot of different chemicals involved.
So here's the deal with the NMDA receptors. Usually they are blocked off by a little bit of magnesium, which has a positive charge. So they are usually inactive. However, if the neuron is excited a lot, it depolarizes (gets more positive) and the magnesium floats away, allowing chemicals (probably calcium) to come into the neuron. When that happens the synapse (the connection between the two neurons) is strengthened (meaning next time round the same signal will elicit a larger response). So the NMDA receptors don't create connections, they strengthen existing connections.
Memories are stored in large networks of neurons, with information distributed throughout it. There is no information in any neuron sitting on its own. Only in its interactions with the rest of the network does it contain any useful information.
I've simplified a lot, but one thing I'd like to say is this. Just because the rats have enhanced NMDA receptors, doesn't mean they are smarter. Ability to solve problems and ability to remember that you've been shocked in a particular room are different things. The rats can remember things longer, but in the real world (outside the lab environment) the rats would probably be at a disadvantage. Otherwise rats would have evolved this increased set of NMDA receptors a long time ago (if it had any survival value)
That's all I have to say.
Sean
smp2e@virginia.edu
polyn.com comics and such.
WE MUST MOVE THE HOUSE TO THE LEE SIDE OF THE STONE!!!!
whee -Me
This'd apply to other organs, as appears to have happened in kansas, namely the brain
(ooh, wasnt that vicious)
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
The report I saw on the BBC News, said that the intelligence (ability to form memories) was increased by changing the activities of ion channels in the brain.
:) I'll leave that to nicer people
Normally when two nerve cells feel like joining (forming a memory, according to the news) they brush together, and one sends chemicals to the other. If an ion channel is open at the correct point a connection is made, but otherwise its not.
The GE'd mice have permanently open ion channels. This is supposed to improve memory formation. The quesions I ask are:
If a memory is recorded for EVERYTHING wont you run out of neurons to interlink?
Will the reliability of the memory suffer, like happens with some memory enhancing drugs, which increase recall, but decrease accuracy.
How many of these mice are epileptic, would it be possible with all these ion channels open for 'wires to get crossed' or something?
There are of course the moral and ethical arguements too
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
That's relatively easy to do. You just have to make sure everyone is well fed and gets a good education. You know, if someone grows up undernourished and with bad education, you can't expect them to end up geniuses.
The point being, of course, that if the current productive capacity of the planet is more than sufficient to feed and educate everyone on it, we already have the capacity to "augment the intelligence of the human race as a whole", without resorting to such trickery as genetic engineering.
Just remember: no excess of nature will make up for a lack of nurture... No gene will make up for malnourishment.
And, just one more final point. We are nowhere near being able to "increase intelligence" of the human species by means of genetic engineering, while we do have the productive capacity for feeding and educating everyone today.
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Of course, the classic case is eyeless fish :-)
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I don't think humans are evolving anymore. The Darwin evolution theory does not apply to humans in this age because we have outgrown nature. If a child is born disabled, diseased, dumb as a doorknob etc. they continue to live and have other childred and spread their poor DNA further into the genepool. This is all because of the great and wonderful world of science and medicine.
Humans have not stopped evolving. By definition, a population evolves when there is differential reproduction, which leads to some genes increasing their frequency in the gene pool (and the diminishing of the frequency of their alleles). I don't expect you to be able to prove that there is no differential reproduction between human specimens, but rather the opposite to be true. Therefore, humans are evolving.
If we were to abandon medicine, these "unfit" individuals would not survive long enough to reproduce.
Your mistake is based on thinking that evolution is based on "unfit" individuals not reproducing. This is true of most species, but not a necessary thing for evolution. As I said above, evolution is just alleles changing frequency in the gene pool.
But being such a warm hearted race, we humans nurture the weak and by doing so we break the evolutionary system.
As regarding the survival of "unfit" human beings, I think you are looking at the whole situation in a manner that glosses over human nature. Remember humans are a social species; specifically, we are descended from hunter-gatherer bands, which practiced collective hunting of big game. The survival of one human being depends on that of his mates. It is in the genetic interest of each human to see that they survive and be as healthy aand strong as they can be (weighed against his/her personal fitness). If the overall contribution of the survival of "weaker" individual (including even those "disabled, diseased, dumb as a doorknob") to the fitness of each individual in a group is more than what each individual spends on nurturing them, then it is not surprising that such behavior could be evolutionarily enforceable.
Do you really believe that in 200 years humans will have more intellectual ability than the humans today? I don't.
I'm not to confident that people will be in a good shape 200 years from now. So I'll qualify my answer with a "supposing we don't blow the environment or each other to bits in the meantime".
I don't know what you intend to be understood when you mention "intellectual ability". Your previous comments leave the impression that your are a biological determinist with regards to intelligence, so I take you believe that how intelligent people are depends on their genes; then the question becomes whether one believes people will be more "genetically intelligent" 200 years from now.
However, how intelligent people are depends not only in their genes; in fact, you should think of genes as setting up the neurological framework in which their intelligence develops as they grow. This means as follows: how people are brought up has at least as much to do with their intelligence as genes. And I would say it is actually more important.
Therefore, to answer your question we would have to ask: how will kids grow up 200 years from now? Wil there be a grossly unequal distribution of wealth and nourishment as now, where huge numbers of children don't get a chance to develop fully?
I end warning you of the dangers of evolutionary reasoning. The subtlety needed for good arguments of this kind is huge-- frankly, more than you show in your post. And their conclusions can still be shaky; especially in a cultural species like ours.
---
I first saw this story last night, on a Yahoo headline that read "Scientists boost mouse IQ". (I'm reproducing it from memory; the important bit is "mouse IQ"). Yeah right, as if someone gave a mouse an IQ test. I am aware that one may quantify increased performance on some kind of exercises that mice do (e.g., running mazes), but to call this "IQ" and compare it to human intelligence is at best silly, and at worst ideological doublespeak.
Simply, what we call "intelligence" both in people and in mice are qualitatively different things. And we know that human intelligence has a lot to do with upbringing; i.e., no matter what their genes are, if humans don't develop in an environment conducive to the development of their intelligence, they will turn out to be sub-optimal relative to their potential.
When I say above that equating mice "IQ" with human IQ (which, BTW, is a dubious idea anyway) is "at worst ideological doublespeak", what I have in mind is the fact that establishment is interested in propagating a certain view of the state of science and of human intelligence, one that downplays precisely what I stated above, the decisive role of upbringing in the development of human intelligence. Understandable when millions go hungry and uneducated on a planet that produces enough to feed and educate everyone well, and only a minority gets good conditions under which to develop.
---
hehe
If only "common" sense was actually that common...
we can rebuild them...
smarter
faster
better...
scary...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
MIGHTY MOUSE!
Defender of truth and justice of the rodent sort...
(not that this has anything to do with anything...)
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Well, we better figure out how to deal with it, because it's GOING to be done.
.
How often do we keep hearing about atheletes who use medical technology to "get an edge"? Steroids, blood doping, how long is it going to be before somebody invents something that can't be tested for?
People are GOING to use this, on people.
What scares me is, kids today already know everything (ask any grown-up!). So how we gonna make them any smarter?
But really folks, if we do create a generation of genetically smarter kids, who's going to teach them? Who are they going to want to learn from? Not their stupid progenitors. We'll have a whole generation of kids with big heads, great intellectual capacity, but they'll be just as dumb as every other generation. .
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Researchers who lack the creativity to come up with tests that don't involve the intentional and unnecessary application of pain and suffering are probably deficient in many other ways as well. I hope the paper won't pass peer review and these assholes won't get tenure.
--
--
It was also made into what's arguably the greatest American animated film...
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Nah... The book has too many bloody unlikely coincidences (an abandoned library? An abandoned tinkerer cart? Yeah right), and Mrs. Frisby is too, well, mousey, sitting around waiting to be rescued.
The movie has got the questionable magic stuff, but Brisby kicks more ass in there than in the book.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Yeah. that was it. Also made into a movie called "Charly". Charly was the name of the retarded man they worked on. Algernon was the mouse.
"Dammit, they've gotten past the laser trip wire, the floor sensing dart guns, the motion detector AND the teddy bear with the fishing wire and bell around it's neck!" .. Look out, Cheese.
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
I find it strange that people are interested in trying to artificially increase our intellegence and capabilities, when we as humans are nowhere near our limit. There are so many things that keep us from achieving great things (government, institutionalised education, parents, religion, republicans). Why not work on moving forward naturally before we resort to this aspect of science?
Case in point: If you've ever watched a martial arts master, it's really amazing. Human beings are capable of throwing a punch in less than 1/10 of a second. No genetic engineering is necessary.
We need to focus on breaking down those institutions and barriers to our progress, and then increasing our capabilities naturally. If, at that point, we find that we have met some restrictive limiting point, then playing God might be justifiable. But I don't think we'll meet that point for a *long* time.
It wasn't that bad...
Well, okay, whenever the movie delved into "plot" or "character developement" in kinda sucked, but it's hard to beat as far as "sharks ripping people apart".
The book Rules, end of story.
There's nothing to see here, people. Move along. That's it. Carry on!
**>>BELCH
Genetic engineering will not be truly Innovative(tm) until they can figure out a way to splice Microsoft Active IntelliDNA (tm) into a lab mouse ... resulting in a mouse with a little thumbwheel in its anterior.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
This proves it. The poor unwitting fools making those semi annual pilgrimages to Mauschwitz and Duckau have already been assimilated, as have those who raise their children on disney videos.
I fear it's simply too late for the rest of us, even those who've (I can only assume) wasted our lives as agitprops for a Free world.
I have seen the future. In the future we aren't all wearing Mickey Mouse ears. We're the mice. The only thing left is fear itself.
support gun control: take guns from cops
The "Uplift" books from David Brin have an interesting perspective on the "smarter animal" idea. I encourage anyone who wants to pursue a line of speculation like this to pick them up and read them.
Nothing worth doing is worth doing today.
Am I the only one that was thinking of Pinky and the Brain after reading this? :)
--
Okay, I think it's obvious who hasn't had their morning coffee yet... I'll leave /. alone for awhile now. :)
--
Following these research findings the Council of Ministers has decided, on the advice of the vetinary subcommittee, and the subcommittee in charge of outlawing things that might scare some people, to ban mice from all EU member states.
Dr Klaus van Hoopklinger, chairman of the investigative subcommitee for researching spurious reasons to outlaw foreign products announced "Given the possibility that some mice will undoubtedly be genetically engineered for nefarious commercial reasons by our American allies, and given that European member states are currently carrying out a 10 year extensive yet innevitably inconclusive effort on the effects of superintelligent mice on the ecosystem and dietray health of EU citizens, we see no alternative but to ban all mice".
The decision is expected to be ratified by the European Parliament and made law by the governments of the member states with little opposition. A massive, Europe wide, mouse extermination program, using orgnically grown poisons, is expected to begin early in 2001, and customs barriers, including specially trained, selectively bred, sniffer cats, should be in place by early next year.
Folks, intelligence is not a zero-sum game. Spending more on your kid's intelligence is not like spending more on your kid's Ferrari. Intelligence has huge positive externalities. Spending money to make your kid smarter is a social good; it benefits everybody, not just your kid.
If rich people can make their kids smarter, I want them to do it. Because we will all reap the benefits. Smart people create better bridges, more efficient automobiles, faster computers, better laws, better court judgements and better operating systems than dumb people do. Intelligence matters. Think of _any_ problem we face today whether it be political, social or technological, and if you have more smart people thinking about that problem, it'll get solved faster.
So when and if a legitimate "smart drug" shows up on the market, we should let the early adopters - those who are highly risk-tolerant and have the bucks - try it first, and the rest of us will join in as the cost comes down and the technology acquires a decent track record. Same as with any other technology, there'll be some sort of adoption curve and that's okay.
(Can people tell I just re-read Atlas Shrugged? :-) )
I play Nerd-Folk!
3.Are there any bad side effects ??? Increased intelligence may be a wonderful thing, but in ANY system, you can't change just one thing. And if it results in, say, a higher chance of mental illness or cancer or something, chances are that it won't be used. . .
The article I read mentioned that the protein in question is associated with an increased risk of stroke.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
Perhaps humans already have the "smart mouse" variant of this gene.
Your choice -
Like Dr. Bliss said, ha, there may be other unexpected consequences. Actually, I consider human intervention as a kind of 'semi-intelligent mutation' that has yet to be sifted out by natural selection; 'semi' in that the consequences are not completely known.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Yep, by Daniel Keyes if I remember right (and I probably don't). One of the very best short stories ever, IMHO (well, novella actually, from memory). That was the first thought that sprung to my mind too when I saw this story.
Cheers,
Duane.
- "I never could learn to drink that blood and call it wine" - Bob Dylan (Tight Connection to my Heart)
ACTGTTCAATMINDPHASRWUZH3R3!!@#!AACTCTGTAAAATCGA
We as a society of _people_ are already quite sensitive to change in people. But even more so than this, we are sensitive to faults we see in ourselves.
Do we realise the price we may have to pay for the hope of intellect? Are we prepared to pay it with full knowledge of the cost.
I'm not talking about religious yes and no's, but quite simply, wondering whether we know where we are taking ourselves. Whether the price of failure.. and success may be too great.
I put "Flowers For Algernon" because that is what I thought of when I saw the topic. The gift of intellect is valuable. It could mean the difference between normal living with friends.. or it could mean a life of being demeaned and being less of a person.
There's nothing wrong with wanting more intelligence, to be smarter and better. That is what advancement is all about. Growth.
But can we live up to that potential? And can we live with the possibility of losing it forever after having tasted it?
I'm hoping for means to improve the intellect of people. But I'm also hoping that by the time that option is available, people are ready for that improvement. And the possible ramifications of it.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
I don't think humans are evolving anymore. The Darwin evolution theory does not apply to humans in this age because we have outgrown nature. If a child is born disabled, diseased, dumb as a doorknob etc. they continue to live and have other childred and spread their poor DNA further into the genepool. This is all because of the great and wonderful world of science and medicine.
:). There's no way to weed out the garbage genes from oour society unless we do something about.
If we were to abandon medicine, these "unfit" individuals would not survive long enough to reproduce. But being such a warm hearted race, we humans nurture the weak and by doing so we break the evolutionary system.
Do you really believe that in 200 years humans will have more intellectual ability than the humans today? I don't. How is that possible when stupid people are just as capable of surviving in this world as smart people (aka "us slashdot readers
This is why I am 100% in favour of genetic engineering.
PS: take this reply with a chill pill
"The voices in my head say crazy things"
I agree that having two disparate populations is not a desirable outcome, and would much prefer that the procedure be available to everyone. However, I also see ethical problems with denying someone access to a procedure that could improve them or their children, simply because not everyone can afford it. Should we disallow heart and liver transplants? Ban college (most people can't afford it, at least without grants and loans of some kind) and private schools?
If we as a society decide it is unacceptable to allow only the wealthy (and I would hope we would), or (much more likely) only the middle class and wealthy, to enhance themselves genetically, then we should work toward subsidizing access to such technologies for the underpriveleged rather than simply banning the practice for everyone. Unless, of course, we want a world in which only the criminals are super intelligent.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
It's Danger Mouse!
Let's think about that one for a sec.
If bomb sniffing dogs were any smarter, they'd realize that they're looking for bombs. That would take out the fun and put in the fear. They would know they're at risk, and wouldn't want to do it anymore.
Then we'd have to rely on all the soon to be out of work Y2K consultants to do the job.
But then again, with a little gene therapy, the BOE of Kansas might actually learn a thing or two.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
But the American Dairy Council is funding the reasearch, since even though the I.Q. benefit may be small, all people who undergo the treatment will have an insatiable appetite for cheese.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Could Pinky and The Brain become a reality? I dunno about you, but if I see a big headed mouse walking on it's hind legs down the street, I'm gonna run.
Well I think so Brain, but if they called them sad meals the kids wouldn't buy them.
-matt
You go in the cage, cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Mouse's in the water, our mouse!
[singing]
Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies
Farewell and adieu you ladies of Spain.
For we received orders for to sail back to Boston
And soon never more will we see you again.
I'm sure they meant well. So did the makers of Thalidomide.
Actually, they only increased the amount of LTP by tinkering with the NMDA receptor (which btw is also responsible for neuron necrosis). The mice did not get 'smarter' but simply performed tasks better. They did not learn/recall better--these are much harder tests to do and involve testing progressively better tasks.
The problem is that simply because you have increased LTP (long term potentiation) this does not necessarily correlate to learning.
The results these scientists got could actually be done by giving the mice caffiene before the tests. Or any amphetine for that matter.
Quite disappointing since I was realy rooting for pinky.
Actually, I found NIMH much more plausible than smart rats running around in gangs. If they are too noticible, they'll be supressed, so the smart thing to do is to hide. I'm not real impressed by the idea of hiding out in the woods, though. Not if they want to run electric gadgets. That's actually pretty noticible. Hiding in an old factory next to a grocery store sounds much more reasonable. And spread out, so you aren't all in one place.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Actually, I do not remember a movie, but a book.
Did they make a movie of the book?
Animated?
Interesting, perhaps it is not far off then.
010110000010110101010100011110010111000001100101
I watched that movie.
I loved that movie.
I purchased that movie.
I show it to all of my friends.
Yes it was an excellent movie.
010110000010110101010100011110010111000001100101
Does this mean that my mouse no longer will have to use a cord? Will it do what I tell it? :)
http://www.bombcar.com It's where it is at.
Fellowship 9/11
"Trouble is, just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's true"
"Trouble is, just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's true"
--Terry Pratchett
Hmmm anyone remeber the Don Bluth movie "The secret of Nyph"??? does this sound familar??
You know, one of these days they have to start referring genetic engineering as genetic hacking. Essentially that is what it is. You don't know what the code snippet is doing. It's like plugging some C code at random places into a program. Most of the time animal is defective (buggy programs), sometimes the code is ignored (uncovered code). Sometimes, after a million iteration, you get something great like this, but you are still not sure what the side effects are. Reverse engineering at its best.
Hasdi
Now if they developed a smarter trac ball, then I'd be impressed.
Well if you read any Douglas Adams, you understand that it wont matter anyway because there will only be two mice left who were once scientists and they fill get eaten by an owl.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
> Can you imagine how a cat will react after being outsmarted time and time again by a mouse?
Isn't this the whole premise behind Tom and Jerry?
Bush should have died, not Reagan -- Morrissey
Morrissey rides a cockhorse -- The Warlock Pinchers
Wasn't this the plot of some (bad) horror movie recently released -- they genetically increased the intelligence of some sharks and the sharks all became Einsteins and killed everyone?
When will we learn.
rooooar
Interestingly enough, I started reading the new Ender book yesterday (so far, so good!), after reading this piece of news about the mouse. One of the subjects the book tackles is the subject of ethics and genetic alteration. So-go read the book!
-Lisa
> Am I the only one that was thinking of Pinky and the Brain after reading this?
No.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The only fundamental wrongness in Genetic Engineering is that manipulating things farther along than Zygote is pretty much impossible.
Which means I must resort to self-trepanation to expand my mind further ;) And my oft wished for tar/carcinogen proof lungs will probably never arrive...
License: By reading this you are agreeing that you agree with me.
I thought the work of Dr. Adams in this field long ago revealed that mice where the most intelligent beings in the universe already.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
NIMH = National Institute of Mental Health
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
I heard about this on NPR last night. There's a 4 1/2 minute RealAudio recording at: /19990901.atc.16.ram
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
Since "building a better a mouse trap" has become a cliche, now we're building better mice.
/., see this story, and have a nervous fit.
I bet all of those mouse trap builders have been slacking off these past few years, sitting around in their R&D labs reading email, eating cheese samples, etc.
One of them will eventually load up
Time to get back to work..
I think that this is a really good thing, this genetic "pre-engineering". After all, literature shows us that anything that gets us closer to clone wars is good. Most great science-fiction cultures have had clone wars, therefore it's unlikely that we will achieve greatness without one. No, this isn't cloning, strictly, but it's a critical improvement---who wouldn't want clone warriors with improved ability to learn/remember?
From the Boston Globe link above...
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Heh.. it was a quote from southpark, a joke =)
But more nerves doesn't mean much at all. Heck, the more money you have doesn't intrinsicly mean that you will earn more. Its how you use it.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
From my understanding of neuron chemistry of firing, there are two steps, the bringing in of one element and the release of another. It's like a heart beat. I am not sure that the quality of the spark will matter much more than its presence.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I won't say it is useless, I just think that the wording is completely wrong and gives people false impressions that hey, now you'll be smarter. There are things such as reasoning that doesn't get improved upon in this case. Reasoning may seem to be improved due to recall, but that little bit, that je ne sais quoi that says "I know something and can answer correnctly" because I can actually understand is not necessarily there.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I hope I quoted that right.
Anyway, how accurate are they with this gene manipulation. I would also imagine that intelligence, like skin colour isn't specific to one gene but of several genes. This would increase the possibilty for error. Its no longer a slip of the knife but now a drug which isn't as well targeted.
Another problem I have with this experiment is that intelligence isn't rated solely on what they provided. They showed that these new super mice have better retention amd quicker ability for a trained operation to be forgotten.
In psychological terms, the curve for training and extinction has grown taller (graph-wise). Let's wait for the cognitive psychologists to have a field day with this one.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Was that the name of the story? God, it has been a while since I read that. Trying to remember, didn't they use the same medicine on a retarded man after they experimented with the mouse. If I remember, the guy grew to superhuman intelligence then it all slipped away. Seem to remember the mouse dropped off first and dies before the guy had the same thing happen.
but can they make them smarter and THEN transplant their heads?
Pork is not a verb
GRANT PROPOSAL:
I am requesting $4 million in grant money for the purpose of reviewing the effects of genetically-enhanced mice on the biological ecosystem.
To put more fine a point on it (bonus for referencing old slashdot article), I wish to study what happens when mice become smarter than their feline predators.
My research will consist of several hours of reviewing Tom and Jerry cartoons. Sylvester cartoons involving the "giant mouse" (actually a kangaroo) will also be included in the study.
My proposal has already gained support from the Cartoon Network. Johnny Bravo himself has stated, "Well, that sounds like a fine idea you got there, mister."
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
According to the article, this gene produces a
protein that is in effect for young mice and
makes the mice stay 'young brained'. OK, it's
particularly important for young animals to be
able to pick things up quickly, but why stop
there? Presumably there is selection pressure
of some kind to 'lose' some of that intelligence
as one gets older and they are defeating the
evolutionary pressure. Maybe it's just metabolic
effort to keep effect going, but I wonder.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Humans also are smarter when they are kids, if you measure intelligence in certain ways. Certainly before the age of six kids are way better at learning languages than adults are, and I suspect there are a lot of other things that kids learn more easily than adults. But I don't think that kids are actually smarter than adults. They just have different ways of learning.
All the measures of intelligence they used were simply measures of memory. How quickly the mice could learn and remember something. In humans, intelligence is more often associated with the ability to reason than with the ability to memorize. Except in elementary school and anatomy classes, in which case the ability to memorize is equated with intelligence.
Basically, I think this is a very interesting development, but to generalize from smart mice to smart people seems a bit silly.
I hope those mice are smarter than these stupid things.
Quoth the Penguin, "pipe grep more!"
We already can enhance intelligence just as well as we can enhance strength. Of course some people are just born smarter than others just the same as some people are born stronger. It is called reading and thinking. All things being equal the person who reads more and trains themselves to think logically will be smarter.
Also, I found nothing morally wrong with the world in Gattaca. Sure a few people are screwed, but the society as a whole was better. The average person was smarter, stronger, and had less chance of diseases. I have no problem with that.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
even "regular" mice are smarter than those stupid things
Insert mind here.
As soon as they genetically engineer smarter trackballs... dude, ill be there!!!
... hmm, i have a microphone here... :)
but seriuosly, wouldnt a smarter mouse be great? for those times when you dont want to take your hands off the keyboard, but your version of netscape wont let you scroll down without the mouse? i would love to just be able to tell the little thing to pull on that scroll bar for me.
and now i have hours of code ahead of me...
The cat would probably respond like all the other cats who are outsmarted by mice on TV.
On the one hand, it would probably start out too expensive for most people to afford. On the other hand, this would probably change with time.
On the gripping hand, "Vote for me if you want a free intelligence boost" is a rather double-edged campaign slogan.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Lake Placid = David E. Kelley's funny giant crocodile movie. Funny, funny. Ha.
For some reason when I read this post I thought it was about computer mice. Got me really confused for a while there (who the heck would want a smart computer mouse anyway?).
Has everybody seen the Secret of Nimh? It's a movie about mice (and rats) with artificially enhanced intelligence building an advanced civilization under a rose bush near a farmhouse.
I wonder if mice could be enhanced up to human intelligence?
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Yes, a movie out of a book. Yes, Animated. Yes, Disney (or whoever) mangled the story.
Um, did you miss World War II? That was Hitler trying to implement selective breeding. For that matter, there have been a lot of eugenics wackos wandering around for the last few centuries (ok, probably only 95% of them have been wackos, since the underlining concept is sound, but people get power-hungry really fast.)
If we're going to create smarter mice, then we really need to create smarter cats to hunt them down. Can you imagine how a cat will react after being outsmarted time and time again by a mouse?
Hmm... I'm not sure I WANT my cats any smarter then they are. They're already in charge - what are they going to want next? Me to groom them?
Seriously... this could have serious applications for improving animals that we have doing tasks. It would allow bomb/drug sniffing dogs to do better and learn faster, for example.
And if there aren't side effects to it, maybe we could do it to people so they stop being so resistant to change later on in life and closed-minded - could keep those geezers in govermnet from trying to close down all the new stuff. Maybe this would have kept those Australian idiots from passing the censorship stuff...
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
What exactly are the ethical oppositions to this? Except from bad sci-fi warnings, I fail to see how it would be wrong to augment the intelligence of the human race as a whole. Of course, learning ability has nothing to do with social or emotional intelligence, so it might just turn all of mankind into socially-misadapted geeks.
:)
They're called religious objections. Something about believing man to be the "perfect" creation of a god or gods, and therefore altering this creation is a bad thing in the eyes of those god(s). Go ask a religious fundamentalist if this is a good thing, and they'll probably tell you it's not.
I don't have any objections to doing this, provided it's well researched so that we know there are little if any negative side effects, well planned, and available to everyone. The last part is the key for me - if we make it just for those who can afford the higher cost, we'll actually engineer ourselves into two species; the smart and wealthy "better" species, and the dumb and poor "labor". So shoot a billionaire now.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
"A planet where APES evolved from MEN??"
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Another case of reality catching up to science-fiction. I love it; it makes me feel like we really are living in the Year 2000! (Well, we will be in 4 months.)
What exactly are the ethical oppositions to this? Except from bad sci-fi warnings, I fail to see how it would be wrong to augment the intelligence of the human race as a whole. Of course, learning ability has nothing to do with social or emotional intelligence, so it might just turn all of mankind into socially-misadapted geeks.
Of course, a real problem arises if the procedure is not dispensed to the whole of mankind, but to some sort of ethnic or social elite. We don't need the rich to get more intelligent as a whole: the beauty of intelligence right now is that it comes up in unexpected places, and gives a real edge to anyone to change their destiny.
Other than that, I don't have a problem with intelligence augmentation. We seem to think of intelligence as a God-given gift, whereas, say, an athletic build is just a lot of work. By this I mean people think you can work up to a strong built, but you have to be "gifted" to display intelligence. I say, if we can artificially augment strength, why not augment intelligence.
What would that imply? Less stupid lusers, more Linux-savvy... I bet Microsoft are shitting their pants. :):)
Hey, I'd love to see the next Kasparov disqualified for unlawful IQ boosting. :)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
"The Secret of Nimh"
Does no one else remember the Rats of Nim? *grin*
What about The Secret of NIMH? Now that would be something.
[Seoman] "A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking."
It's Pinky & The Brain. ;) (Though, I do love DangerMouse, this was the very first thing I thought when I saw the headline. ;))
-- www.bteg.com | bleh.n3.net | hac47.dhs.org
Arg, I submitted this after I found it next to the comics in the paper this morning. I even tracked down a website with info. Gargle! Those super mice are already outsmarting me! IT'S A BIG CONSPIRACY!!!
/. effect........
I know it is..
Rat of Nimh, Pinky and the Brain, NAZI SUPERMEN! Think of the possibilities, people!!
It's all a plot! They're out to get you all! Bwuahahahahahahaha!!!!
You know they are what's *really* behind the Amiga, Transmeta, First posters,
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
My biggest question is: What the hell are these guys smoking? It may be politically correct to limit your mad scientist experiments to mice and rats, but most of this research doesn't involve trying to build a better animal. If you're going to go trying to improve the beast, why not pick one that we don't already fight a losing battle with? Maybe after they create some gene therapy from this research, they should feed some of it to the scientist who dreamed up this brainfart in the first place.
Just because it works, doesn't mean it isn't broken.
Great then this Logitech mouse i have will never need to be touched again, it will probably know what i want to click on. sweet.
It's seems no one's seen the movie Gattaca, a pity it flopped cause it was IMHO an excellent movie.
Go get it out on video, think about it and then ask yourself if there are any ethical objections to genetic engineering of humans.
I'm not saying I'm against it, and I don't have any religious objection to it. I'm just saying it's a complex issue that can't be dismissed out of hand.
Isn't anyone else afraid that we always do this stuff to mice? We clone them, we make them smarter, and we put human ears on their backs. What happens when the make smart mice with super hearing who know how to clone themselves? If we keep giving them all of these advantages, we'll never win when the the war of Mice and Men for control of the world breaks out. Humanity's end may be near...
-- I don't really have anything useful to say. ~Tuts
This lab wasn't called Nimh was it?
Suppose one\some of these mice escaped. Would the resulting offspring be smarter?(assuming that there were male and female escapees) Kinda makes you nervous the next time you walk down a dark alley. Imagine smart mice gangs roaming the back allies of New York. Now there's a horror movie in the making!
It's kinda like a parallel of human society. factions a-line, fighting begins, strongest rule the weak, ect... . I saw the cartoon movie years ago. It was quite good.
If we make people smarter then thell all start coming to /.
Good thing it's moving to new servers.
What do you mean 'Linux in a nut shell', it don't fit.
now where do I sign up for the human trials?
I have rats the size of small dogs living outside my apartment. now they want to give these rodents more brainpower? yippee. so when they escape just like the shark did in that movie that's out right now, I'll have huge smart rats running around INSIDE my apartment eating everything in site (maybe even my leg).
this is just another case of life mimmicking movies mimmicking life (sorry, stole that from Scream II, see what I mean?)
and how the hell can you really tell if a mouse got smarter? is it spouting einsteinian algorithms and theorums or just finding the cheese a little bit faster?
You can splice genes anywhere on any creature's DNA. Whether it produces an organism capable of living and reproducing is another matter.
/. article, it seems that they targetted a gene that deals with a construct common to most mammals: a protein construct for nerve cells. Generally speaking, all mammals have a certain number of common traits and it is quite likely that they managed to stumble on a gene that works well on a large % of mammals. Granted, there are undoubtedly a multitude of genes that would not work in this way. I'd say there's a pretty good chance that this gene wouldn't work nearly so well on reptilian and insect specimens, given their differences in the basic nervous system.
In this case, from what I can tell from the
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
I'm one of the few (seemingly) geeks that doesn't get into southpark. I must be missing the southpark appreciation gene ;)
As far as the nerves, I was actually referring to the biochemical interaction of the nerves, not the quantity. Not knowing much about the molecular level difference between mammalian neurons and those of reptiles and insects, it was actually just a wildly unfounded guess that their biochemical interface would be dramatically different from ours. For all I know their neural chemical interface is identical.
Given that the protein in question is something that interacts on a molecular level, if the chemicals that trigger it are not present in some other form of life (like reptiles and insects) then inserting a gene for that protein will have, at best, no effect.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
smarter mice - great, i'd like to have that operation during finals week though
i hate to contribute to the poison of the news threads but, am i first?
As other people have pointed out they have 'only' increased the ability to learn, and then only maybe. What their tests showed maybe an improvement in 'performance' and not ability. A short term improvement in performance can be achieved with amphetamines.
Which I suppose is a concern...people have enough difficulty understanding each other, without diverging on a more fundamental level.
That's not to say we shouldn't explore this, it's just one more thing to keep our eyes open for.
Check out an interesting example of what I'm talking about.
'In knowledge is power, in wisdom humility.'