• UK scientists have been given the go-ahead to genetically modify human embryos
    49 replies, posted
[QUOTE]The research will take place at the Francis Crick Institute in London and aims to provide a deeper understanding of the earliest moments of human life. The experiments will take place on embryos in the first seven days after fertilisation and could explain what goes wrong in miscarriage. It will be illegal for the scientists to implant the embryos into a woman. Earlier this year scientist Dr Kathy Niakan explained why she had applied to edit human embryos: "We would really like to understand the genes needed for a human embryo to develop successfully into a healthy baby. "The reason why it is so important is because miscarriages and infertility are extremely common, but they're not very well understood." Out of every 100 fertilised eggs, fewer than 50 reach the early blastocyst stage, 25 implant into the womb and only 13 develop beyond three months. [/QUOTE] [URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35459054"]Source[/URL]
cool [editline]1st February 2016[/editline] can't wait for zealots to start preaching "HOW DARE YOU PLAY GOD" or something
[QUOTE]It will be illegal for the scientists to implant the embryos into a woman.[/QUOTE] Well, this ruins all the supersoldier program hopes right here and there.
[QUOTE=gufu;49648842][quote]It will be illegal for the scientists to implant the embryos into a woman. [/quote]Well, this ruins all the supersoldier program hopes right here and there.[/QUOTE] I get the feeling a lot people will ignore that line.
[QUOTE=gufu;49648842]Well, this ruins all the supersoldier program hopes right here and there.[/QUOTE] We can always engineer artificial wombs.
[QUOTE=Buck.;49648857]We can always engineer artificial wombs.[/QUOTE] A fetus needs more than just a womb to survive. It also needs food and air from the mother.
Let's science the shit out of those embryos
[QUOTE=a3poify;49648874]A fetus needs more than just a womb to survive. It also needs food and air from the mother.[/QUOTE] I think they'd account for that if they were to create an artifical womb.
[QUOTE=gufu;49648842]Well, this ruins all the supersoldier program hopes right here and there.[/QUOTE] Insert it into a man. Problem solved. I know experiments to that effect have been done.
[QUOTE=a3poify;49648874]A fetus needs more than just a womb to survive. It also needs food and air from the mother.[/QUOTE] An artificial womb by definition would have to do that. If it didn't it would just be called a box. Of course we're nowhere near that kind of tech yet but I think we will eventually get there.
[QUOTE=download;49648897]Insert it into a man. Problem solved. I know experiments to that effect have been done.[/QUOTE] Get Schwarzenegger on the line
General question, why will it be illegal for them to implant the embryos into someone?
[QUOTE=TheCactusman;49648924]General question, why will it be illegal for them to implant the embryos into someone?[/QUOTE] Because it says so.
[QUOTE=TheCactusman;49648924]General question, why will it be illegal for them to implant the embryos into someone?[/QUOTE] Because it's one thing to study the effects of certain genes on human embryos, it's another to have a person born with the modifications. They could be horribly disfigured because of it.
[QUOTE=TheCactusman;49648924]General question, why will it be illegal for them to implant the embryos into someone?[/QUOTE] Because chances are the results of this would be a very deformed human since the purpose of this isn't to actually breed modified humans but to see what changing a certain gene will do to the embryo so as to know what that gene does. They're basically going to be changing genes at random and see what happens, not a good idea to breed that.
[QUOTE=TheCactusman;49648924]General question, why will it be illegal for them to implant the embryos into someone?[/QUOTE] Because then they lose control of the experiment and they don't want someone to decide to keep the pregnancy till birth and then sue them when it has no leg bones or some stupid shit. How would you feel if you were a malformed accident from a science experiment? There's no legitimate reason to do it at this stage and there's a ton of reasons; ethical, moral, and logical, not to do so.
[QUOTE=TheCactusman;49648924]General question, why will it be illegal for them to implant the embryos into someone?[/QUOTE] These embryos are being tweaked to see how birth defects and infertility happen, thier chances of developing normally are pretty much zero, it'd be unethical to implant them even if it wasn't illegal
[QUOTE=TheCactusman;49648924]General question, why will it be illegal for them to implant the embryos into someone?[/QUOTE] You should have seen enough movies/games/books by now to know the answer to that question.
When the time comes remember this; don't save anything for the swim back.
...I didn't sleep last night, I really was NOT thinking properly there. [editline]1st February 2016[/editline] And I actually meant to put "Stupid" question now that I think about it
[QUOTE=gufu;49648842]Well, this ruins all the supersoldier program hopes right here and there.[/QUOTE] I think they are just talking about the people who are modifying them, that being said i wouldn't be surprised if there already are people in the population that are because if your able to get gene improvements out into the wide population you'll allow for natural selection to take or distake theses new genes.
[QUOTE=Buck.;49648999]You should have seen enough movies/games/books by now to know the answer to that question.[/QUOTE] "Let's not find a cure for Alzheimer, AIDS or cancer; we might accidentally create a dystopian reality and turn everyone into zombies, create an empire of sentient dolphins that annihilates humanity or play god in the process and make baby jesus cry" Yeah, no. The media is chock-full of anti-science messages and other wrongful lessons everywhere, by that principle progress shouldn't exist at all since practically everything in books/games/movies can cause a catastrophe.
[QUOTE=Passing;49649123]I think they are just talking about the people who are modifying them, that being said i wouldn't be surprised if there already are people in the population that are because if your able to get gene improvements out into the wide population you'll allow for natural selection to take or distake theses new genes.[/QUOTE] I don't think natural selection is really something you can rely on in humans anymore. People don't have kids with whoever is technically the best mate, or more likely to survive. People usually have kids with people they love, well some people just do it with whoever they can get their hands on to. People aren't really competing for mates anymore like animals. More successful people generally have less kids to due to societal demands.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;49649233]Can we cure AIDS through genetics though?[/QUOTE] Propagate the genes of HIV resistant people through the population?
There isn't any reason for some level of genetic manipulation to become standard eventually but that's far in the future. For now though just dicking around with some genes to see what happens is all we can accomplish.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;49649233]Can we cure AIDS through genetics though?[/QUOTE] AIDS, probably not. But we might very well be able to fight HIV with the use of stemcells one day.
[QUOTE=gufu;49648842]Well, this ruins all the supersoldier program hopes right here and there.[/QUOTE] I'm sure we will still learn a lot from this. You gotta see it like this. If we already practiced that with embryos in the womb mistakes would definately happen, we would have disfigured or just ill children and many people would turn away from that. It would become illegal and demonized. But if we gain enough knowledge now we will probably be more successful with genetic engineering once it gets legal only a few decades from now.
[QUOTE]It will be illegal for the scientists to implant the embryos into a woman.[/QUOTE] That's all I wanted to hear, last thing we want is more fertility solutions when people should just adopt.
[QUOTE=TheCactusman;49649069]...I didn't sleep last night, I really was NOT thinking properly there. [editline]1st February 2016[/editline] And I actually meant to put "Stupid" question now that I think about it[/QUOTE] don't beat yourself up, it's definitely a question that deserved to be asked
Looking at articles on this topic, you can already see the idiots over reacting. Hate it so much, these are the ones holding back scientific progress.
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