Genetics and our future

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by tochatihu, Sep 24, 2016.

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  1. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Perhaps we have need to quickly alter crops towards productivity and against climate or other sensitivities. If so, GMO is the only quick way. If we cannot do this, while managing GMO potential risks, we drop the effing ball.

    Not good to drop that.
     
    #21 tochatihu, Sep 29, 2016
  2. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    #22 bisco, Jul 27, 2021
  3. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Yeah my thought too. Natural selection is pretty bullet-proof. With humans these days, not so much. Take me: I focus about 4" in front of my nose, get winded going up a flight of stairs, and every winter my extremities practically freeze and fall off.

    With handle like mine you'd think I'd know more about genetics, btw....:rolleyes:
     
    #23 Mendel Leisk, Jul 27, 2021
  4. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    'Everybody' learns Mendelian genetics these days. Oddly enough, Chas. Darwin never did.

    Peas will self-pollinate which somehow allowed him to manipulate the process or let the pea plants 'self'. That must have been tricky but details are mot readily available.

    Or /the poster above may be related to bakery made famous in movie Grand Budapest Hotel.
     
    #24 tochatihu, Jul 28, 2021
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  5. kenmce

    kenmce High Voltage Member

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    There is a general rule that any technology becomes more dangerous as it becomes more powerful. Gene editing should be massively powerful. The problem is of course that you are working with living systems, and living systems have imperatives and moves that have been honed over many a millennia. We don't know what all of them are, and for some of them we have no counter moves.

    The complexity of the code for any living thing takes the phrase "Spaghetti programming" and raises it to entirely new levels. This is what we need to work with. We also know that genes are capable of lateral transfer with non-target organisms. They don't need us to do this.

    There are lots and lots and lots of things we would like to do and I expect someone will try them all. There's already that guy in China who tried to make two unborn girls AIDs proof. It might have worked, but I understand that the entire Chinese medical establishment came down on his head and told him "stop that." I just hope we don't get a biological Chernobyl, or at least not during my lifetime...
     
    #25 kenmce, Aug 7, 2021
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  6. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    some description of this AIDS proofing research:

    New Details About The Infamous 'CRISPR Babies' Experiment Have Just Been Revealed

    China’s CRISPR babies: Read exclusive excerpts from the unseen original research | MIT Technology Review

    Readers are drawn to conclude that this was done wrongly, and that it could have been dome better.

    ==
    Here is a much more optimistic overview of CRISPR vs. human diseases:

    https://www.labiotech.eu/best-biotech/crispr-technology-cure-disease/

    ==

    'Doing' plants, undoing antibiotic resistance in bacteria, vaccine design, and human genetic repair are a few ways to categorize the breadth of CRISPR. Each has its own set of potential risks and benefits. Seems to me that each should face very stringent controls. For which no adjudicating bodies exist, and I don't know how that could be established to satisfy all.

    Yet CRISPR missteps in one area should not necessarily shut down other research areas. Or should it? This is complex stuff and it's not way off in the future.
     
    #26 tochatihu, Aug 7, 2021
  7. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    #27 tochatihu, Aug 18, 2021
  8. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    least of all richard attenborough
     
    #28 bisco, Aug 18, 2021
  9. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Why pick on Sir Richard?
     
    #29 tochatihu, Aug 18, 2021
  10. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    he was a starry eyed fool
     
    #30 bisco, Aug 18, 2021
  11. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    He played one in a movie. Hubris is an issue here but hissing at villains may miss the point.
     
    #31 tochatihu, Aug 18, 2021
  12. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    still, i have to go with jeff goldblum, chaos theory and all
     
    #32 bisco, Aug 18, 2021
  13. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    From Woody Allen's Sleeper:
    [​IMG]

    Bob Wilson
     
    #33 bwilson4web, Aug 19, 2021
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  14. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    #34 ETC(SS), Aug 19, 2021
  15. Merkey

    Merkey Active Member

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    Jurassic Park - Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should. - Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to John Hammond (Richard Attenborough)
     
    #35 Merkey, Aug 19, 2021
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  16. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    #36 Trollbait, Aug 19, 2021
  17. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    Difference WITH or WITHOUT a distinction?

    Takes about 30 years to find out, eh?
     
    #37 ETC(SS), Aug 19, 2021
  18. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    CJD is caused by a prion, an infectious agent that is notorious for difficulty in destroying. Taking any material from a brain infected with it could infect the patient. Dura mater, growth hormone, what was harvested doesn't matter to whether the prion gets to another victim.

    The copy of the HGH gene that was inserted into the plants may not have even originated from brain tissue. It may have been a copy used for the synthetic HGH. Which is probably likely, as that would be easy to get for the lab.
     
    #38 Trollbait, Aug 19, 2021
  19. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    I look forward to following papers reproducing their results.

    Bob Wilson
     
    #39 bwilson4web, Aug 19, 2021
  20. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Post #27 is not about human growth hormone. FTO is a different thing:

    Fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) protein regulates adult neurogenesis | Human Molecular Genetics | Oxford Academic.

    It is well worth knowing that extracted HGH may be contaminated with misfolded prions. But it is not the same thing.

    FTO codes for an enzyme that removes methyl (CH3-)groups from RNA. As link in #27 made clear, investigators had no obvious reason to expect that removing some 'methyls' from some plant RNA would alter plant carbon allocation (so much), but it did.

    HGH is 7 amino acids in a row:
    Human growth hormone (32-38) | C39H60N8O13 - PubChem
     
    #40 tochatihu, Aug 19, 2021
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