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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/17/2007 11:46:26 AM   
Muttling


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It's a method for genetic tracking.   It has potential for use in tracking genetic mutations.   This has a number of potentials.....good, bad, and militarily.    It is a useful tool in genetic engineering science, the only question is how do you use this science?

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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/17/2007 1:59:29 PM   
Lizbetbathory


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Status: offline 		glow in the dark cats.... cloned and genetically modified...... they can do that but hell if they ant stop a cold

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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/17/2007 2:12:38 PM   
Zensee


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Status: offline 		With several other labs also working on super-mice it seems inevitable that some mice will eventually make it out of the lab (by accident or malice). Consider the implications for human agriculture and natural ecosystems, of a mouse that is many times more capable (and aggressive) than its wild cousins. What would we be leaving for our grandchildren?

I am not anti-science and I support pure research as well as the targeted kind. I realise that such research can bring great benefits. But how much greater advantage do we need when it comes to exploiting nature? And what risks are acceptable to pursue such advantage? Science and society can't wash their hands of the moral and ethical questions raised by genetic manipulation, even "only" if the subjects are mice and cats.


Z.


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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/17/2007 2:13:42 PM   
mnottertail


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< Message edited by mnottertail -- 12/17/2007 2:14:03 PM >

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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/17/2007 2:19:56 PM   
Zensee


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Status: offline 		Ron, you stole my thunder. I was saving that one for an emergency but it might as well be put on the table now.


Z.


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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/17/2007 3:37:22 PM   
samboct


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Status: offline 		We've had plenty of alien invasions, generally to the detriment of the native populations- like some damn ugly Chinese fish that I forget the name of and some nasty weeds.  But these occur through commercial mechanisms (discharge of tanks from freighters) and god knows how many insect infestations.  How about the invasion of the pigeon to New Zealand (which became the dodo)?  A few escaped supermice are not going to change the ecosystem very dramatically- besides- a lab mouse has nothing on a city rat.  You wanna worry about something- worry about a tourist bringing a modified strain of one of the nasty Rift valley viruses back to a populated center.  The real killers are lots smaller than a mouse- even one that's trying to take over the world.  Hey- I'd say let him- can he do a worse job than the current President?

Sam

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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/17/2007 4:45:31 PM   
Zensee


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Status: offline 		While viral diseases are far more dangerous, in the short term, to humans, invasive species are more than a momentary annoyance to natural systems and human economies. Consider what impact introducing (normal) European mice and rabbits had in Australia. I can't imagine that an infestation of experimental rodents which are evens more enduring and capable, would be any less disasterous.

Once modified genetics get into the environment they becomes a permanent and functional (or dysfunctional) feature. Over time, the likelihood of misfortune or mismanagement approaches certainty and, given our inability to foresee the consequences of our actions, the assurances from the laboratories that our meddling is just satisfying our intellectual curiosity, seem rather thin.


Z.


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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/17/2007 4:58:42 PM   
samboct


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there's nothing in this lab mouse that nature couldn't have bred in- although I suspect the reason there aren't lots of them running around is that outside the lab, the animal has a very short lifespan.  If a "supermouse" is more aggressive than a regular mouse- and it meets up with a cat- who do you think is going to win?  My money's on the lousy furball- I don't care how much of a "supermouse" it is.  The reality is that nature has bred fear into animals for a reason- they live longer that way.  Too much aggression means that they'll take on something bigger - and lose.

Hey- if they get the GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein) into another cat then we could have X-mas tree glow in the dark furball ornaments.  And before somebody bellyaches that a red glowing furball is unnatural-I kinda doubt that Himalayans are any more "natural"- it's just that people used more old fashioned methods to get them.

Sam

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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/17/2007 6:44:33 PM   
Zensee


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Status: offline 		Comparing selective breeding to genetic engineering is like comparing a camp-fire to a nuclear reactor - sure they both make heat but the similarities end there. When they can put spider-silk proteins into goat's milk we are talking beyond selective breeding, unless you have a plan for getting some goat-on-spider action happening.

Ten times the mitochondria of a normal mouse is not a small variance of the sort a natural mutation would introduce, it is an order of magnitude greater. There is no mention of them having a shorter lifespan, in fact "They could also give birth at three years old - which in human terms is akin to an 80-year-old woman giving birth", indicating longevity and improved fitness in the older mice. Increased agression does not mean they will engage in stupid risks (like going mano e gato with a predator a hundred times bigger), it means out competing similar creatures in a shared environment.

You are making a lot of assumptions  from very little evidence and even from contradictory facts - sort of what I am warning about, in my cautionary way.


Z.


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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/17/2007 9:16:18 PM   
samboct


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Status: offline 		Sorry Z-don't like your analogy.  If you would have said match to a campfire, I'd have been a little happier.  I also don't buy your assumption here "Ten times the mitochondria of a normal mouse is not a small variance of the sort a natural mutation would introduce, it is an order of magnitude greater."  How exactly do new species evolve?  Are they all small evolutionary steps, or do mutations kick in with dramatic results?  Selective breeding IS genetic engineering, it's just a bit slower and takes longer to fine tune- but you're absolutely selecting which genes you want in the animal.  And genes hop from species to species- there are lots of examples in the plant kingdom- heck- mitochondria probably evolved from a bacterium that ate oxygen that was engulfed by a larger single celled organism- that's why there's still mitochondrial DNA.

I'll stand by my comments on aggression.  Animals that are overly aggressive either don't reproduce or get eaten sooner.  Since these animals were bred in a lab setting- it's unlikely that they will survive in nature.  Plenty of lab mice have escaped from labs- is there some large lab mouse population roaming the cities- even Cambridge, MA?  Even if they do- and they displace the native rats- will that be such a problem? The lab mice are certainly cleaner.  But if it comes down to a rat and a lab mouse- well, my money's on the city rat- they're a lot bigger, and a lot meaner. 

My grumble is when humans try to play god- and decide that certain species are "cute" or cuddly, they tend to warp the ecosystem to protect them, so that it becomes unbalanced.  Don't believe me- look at the deer population which is now beginning to starve in the Northeast because there are no predators.  This is hurting the population as a whole- since now the deer which would be eliminated by natural selection survive to reproduce.


Sam

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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/18/2007 12:03:22 AM   
Zensee


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Status: offline 		sambotc - "Selective breeding IS genetic engineering, it's just a bit slower and takes longer to fine tune- but you're absolutely selecting which genes you want in the animal."

That statement is simply incorrect, unless, as I suggested last post, that you know how to cross breed spiders and goats in the traditional manner. Since living things cannot produce viable offspring unless the parents are of the same species, getting creatures that are not even in the same phylum to breed is a natural impossiblity.

Selective breeding manipulates the mechanics of natural selection to accelerate and guide the development of inherent traits. Genetic engineering  manipulates the genetic material directly and allows for the importation of traits that never existed. That is an e-fucking-normous difference. Like the one between taking apart chemical bonds  to make heat (a camp-fire) and taking apart atoms to do the same.

Even given that gene migration may occur cross species, by means of viruses, this is not a practice in selective breeding. Indeed the possibility of interspecies gene migration was not imagined until the frontiers of genetic engineering were approached. It's way more than just apples and oranges.


Z.

PS:  SpiderGoat Sex - how it is really done - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgSmt9b6BmA



< Message edited by Zensee -- 12/18/2007 12:36:17 AM >

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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/18/2007 6:47:19 AM   
samboct


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Yah, I know about spider silk in goat's milk- I bought stock in Nexia years ago (not one of my better choices as it turns out).  In terms of the boundary of "interspecies" breeding- I suggest that you don't look at fruits and vegetables very closely or you might get unhappy.  In practice, selective breeding by humans has resulted in the wide variety of dogs- which have the largest intraspecies variations in the animal kingdom.  Wanna see a Great Dane mate with a Chihuahua?  Theoretically possible, but I suspect the practice might be a bit challenging.  The dodo from the pigeon is another example of selective breeding.  We're not even close to that in the lab- heck, we're still struggling to design a lousy single celled organism from scratch- and so far we've failed. 


Here's why I'm not worried- nature sets down the rules as to what's viable and what isn't- and organisms which are viable have to find an ecological niche- which has been established over long periods of time.  What are humans going to be able to do that nature hasn't already done?  Wipe out half the population?  Gee, what about the plague?  Yes, humans might come up with the next pandemic, but my money's on nature doing it first.  It's not like nature gets a species right the first time- there have been millions of extinctions to get where we are today, and it looks like there's no slowing down in the process.

Developing new species- whether it's human or nature doing it- requires gene transfers or massive mutations.  As far as I know, nobody's really got a good explanation for how it occurs, but since evolution occurs in fits and starts, i.e. an explosion of lots of species all at the same time, that's not a slow, steady evolutionary change- that's something else.  Think about the transformation from chimp to human- about 1.5% difference in the genes- but where did the other genes come from?

Sam

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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/18/2007 11:19:45 AM   
luckydog1


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Status: offline 		Sam that people like you (actually involved in this work), are not even worried about this (I mean the whole field of genetic manipulation, the glowing cats in themselves seem rather harmless), is one of the reasons I am worried about this.

One way of testing a proposition is try it with different terms.  Try substituting Global Warming (Man altering the atmosphere)into your arguments instead of Man altering the genome.  It has been much hotter in the past than Global warming is theorised to.  Nature can alter the Climate faster.  We could get hit with a massive asteroid this afternoon (or a pandemic). 

We have no idea of the full meaning of the supermouse, almost certainly there are characteristics and changes to it, we do not understand.  Assuming it is of normal intelligence, it would be faster in running away from a cat.  But the supermouse is not the big danger to me, they would certainly if escaped and establish (which doesn't seem far fetched to me).  Mice and Rats already have differnt niches, and coexist.  but one would imagine they would replace the regular mouse( this gene disperse), which would increase the productivity and expand the ranges of Mousedom a bit, but that would have horrible effects on food production adn birds/grubs.  But humans could handle it.  But I imagine this would also have the always on switch part encoded, which is what they demonstrated with the glowing cats, right?  What else does that do?  Recently I was reading that some genes are encoded to effect grandkids.  Do we know that the glow gene doesn't have an effect 3 or 7 or 19 generations down the line?  We are just poking around in a very complicated code, that ALL life that we know of shares. 

That and the fact that in every nation in the world (and I include the US) who can do this work (Korea level and up I suppose)  there are desperate and/or amoral people, who know they can become rich and thier familly priviledged if they do come up with a nightmare uses of this stuff.

I know we can't stop it,  but please be a little worried. 

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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/18/2007 1:38:33 PM   
Real0ne


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do they have one that will make lying polititians glow in the dark too?


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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/18/2007 2:23:27 PM   
samboct


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Status: offline 		Luckydog et al-

I think what you're getting at is the difference between risk and hazard.  The two are not the same.  Hazard is easier to define- its the probability of an unpleasant event.  Hazards are well defined for air travel, car travel, taking baths in Iowa etc.  Perceived risk is based on human extrapolating the unknown.  Since we have little to go on, we either underestimate the hazard involved in a particular enterprise- or more often, overestimate them.

Since I don't think humans really have a very different toolbox than nature- ours just works faster because we're more impatient, I percieve the risk from this genetic engineering as not very great.  However- the hazard from nuclear weapons wielded by rogue states or organizations, the hazards of a possible pandemic, possible asteroid impact, computer mutation a la Terminator, global unrest due to reduced fresh water supplies, disease established in new areas, from global warming (whether from anthropogenic or other sources- see my post on Steven Chu's talk) strikes me as far more worrisome.  I view the risks from genetically engineered organisms as only slightly more dangerous than the hazards put forth by nature.  In short- there's plenty to worry about in the world- this risk sounds novel, but upon reflection, there are other hazards that I view as more serious threats.

Sam

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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/18/2007 2:34:41 PM   
Real0ne


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perceived risk can also be from knowns, the stock market is risky and it only goes up and down and that is all known.

how about a glow in the dark king kong?

I wouldnt think twice about it if it were done on another planet so we can sit back and watch the results.


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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/18/2007 2:44:50 PM   
Zensee


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Status: offline 		"Stop whining about the infestation of super-mice, FFS - it could have been a nuclear attack!"

That's cold comfort.

You can't justify one risk with simply because there are other greater and unrelated risks out in the big bad world. (e.g. "It's OK to play in the road, kids, because smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer.")

While some gene manipulation techniques mimic nature many are purely human inventions. To pretend complete or even significant understanding the consequences, good and bad, short term and long term, is hubris.


Z.


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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/18/2007 2:58:41 PM   
BruisedHick


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Status: offline 		Everyone on this thread happy that we have cars?  Great, because one just ran over your new puppy.

Knowledge is just that - knowledge.  If the government wants to make us all glow in the dark, they'll do just that - if we let them.  And if they want to make peeing illegal and hole us all up, they'll do that too - if we let them.

The key is to make intelligent decisions when voting.  If you vote for the right government (not saying what is, just saying vote smart) this stuff will never happen in our respective countries.  Vote for fear-peddling ignorami, and we just may approve this ourselves (A terrorist would never let himself glow red, white and blue, boys!  Let's dye us like that, and them green.  And the pinkos can get  pink.  Get it?)

In closing, I want a 4" dolphin in my fish tank, a 10" giraffe, a horde of finger sized monkeys, and a liger that can fit in my pocket.

Yours,


benji

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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/18/2007 4:59:48 PM   
samboct


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We evaluate hazards every day we get in a car, get out of bed, take a shower etc.  Since we have control over the outcomes, we're happier taking these hazards.  It's why lots of people would rather drive than fly- even knowing the driving is statistically more hazardous, the lack of control in an airplane drives them bonkers.  Science is all about risk evaluation versus reward.  If the most likely use of this technology would be to tag all of us with glow in the dark IDs that the gov't could use to track us everywhere- I wouldn't be real happy with it.  (And if you don't like that idea- turn off your cell phone.)  However, since there are also some useful therapies that could result from this work especially for some nasty diseases that we haven't gotten very far with such as the aforementioned myasthenia gravis,  parkinson's, ALS, Alzheimers, cystic fibrosis, diabetes etc- anything where insertion of a working gene could be helpful, I'm inclined to say that the risk is acceptable, because the possible rewards are significant.  Conversely, I do worry about the hazards of towelheads with atom bombs because I can see no situation where that benefits anyone- and the current administration has proven to be disastrously incompetent.

Also- I'll fully agree we don't understand the technology fully yet.  The old jape was- if we knew what we were doing, they wouldn't call it research.  Unfortunately, nobody's come up with a way to learn the results of an experiment before actually doing it.

And LD-just to correct something- I don't work in this area- I work commercializing advanced materials.

Sam

< Message edited by samboct -- 12/18/2007 5:02:50 PM >

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RE: Disturbing science? - 12/18/2007 5:13:12 PM   
thompsonx


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Raechard

Except over population is already a big problem in terms of global poverty.


Raechard:
Why do you feel that global poverty is a function of over population and not perhaps some other cause?
thompson

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