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[Akroma]

well, I could think of at least one use for bio-enhancement that doesn't sound like science-fiction shit

the immune system of a crocodile, or any animal that lives in really really dirty water

crocodiles are often fighting over all sorts of things, and those fights end with horribly maimed wounds, that are then bathed in bacteria cocktails that could easily kill a human
yet they do not even get an infection from that


they are already selling antibiotics that are won from crocodile blood, but they are expensive, hard to get by, and most importantly, not already built in


having an immune system that would let you bath wounds in feces and getting away with it sounds really useful

I don't know if this also works with viruses though
if it does, awesomesauce

[dei]

...Since natural evolution has practically halted, it'll be up to geneticists to build the platform for long-term human survival...

Wrong! According to Discovery magazine's most recent Darwin issue, evolution is happening faster than we think. And me thinks it's a bit racist too. But that's not the point. Humanity is still evolving, more or less, adapting to various living environments, for various things; some parts of the world, men are becoming more fertile, while at other parts, people are being born much smarter (I know how stupid it sounds, just follow me). If you find some way of referencing the 2009 Darwin issue of Discovery magazine, you will find an article upon this subject. Go to your Library, to the internet, to where ever, just to find it.


And now to the subject of the red puppy...

Awwwwwwwwww.... :3 Despite my fear and disgust of most canines, this puppy is rather cute <3

[Mephisto]

Didn't they do this to some kittens or lab rats earlier? I think I remember seeing a small critter glowing green.

I bet we'll see the market flooded with glow-in-the-dark pets. I've got the same feeling on this as I do on the designer babies. People are generally stupid, so they're willing to waste a small fortune to give their children certain features (blonde hair, blue eyes, freckles, all that cutesy crap).

[SHAD0Wdump]

What happens when you get one angry?

[Duke 2.0]

 1. The source of HIV is unknown, but the most possible and most popular theory is that simian blood with their version of the virus contacted human blood somehow, and the virus adapted to Humans. Considering that the virus mutates every generation, it is not out of the question for a virus attacking cells 99% similar to us adapting to us.
 I'm not going into where the disease went from there, but generally the virus is fairly even in the demographics it attacks. Only reason it is so bad in Africa: it started there.
 2. D'Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
 3. Now we just need a glowing kitten, a dark house and several blacklights...

[Rysith]

Didn't they do this to some kittens or lab rats earlier? I think I remember seeing a small critter glowing green.

They've done it with mice before. I think that they were always glowing, rather than only under UV, too. If I get a glowing pet, I want it glowing all the time.

And evolution is still happening (you can't really stop it, even if you remove nearly all the selection criteria the way humans have: pretty much everyone can breed if they want to.), but the pace that it moves at is extremely slow compared to the rate at which we are changing our environment. Genetic engineering has the potential to speed that up, and guide it in the directions that we want to (removing annoying but non-fatal traits, adding capabilities that don't naturally exist, etc.). For example, humans won't evolve super immune systems, stronger hearts, or cancer resistance naturally, since none of those has much of an influence on our ability to have children. But we might want them anyway.

On the other hand, there are the people complaining that all people will do with it is have children with the IQ of Einstein, the looks of {some attractive person}, blonde hair, blue eyes, and wings. Those people are morons, since almost none of that is the sorts of things that you can do with the level of genetic engineering that we have now, or are likely to have. And yes, I've actually heard people claiming that genetic engineering would cause the rich to speciate because the rich would genetically engineer their children to have wings.

[Hawkfrost]

And yes, I've actually heard people claiming that genetic engineering would cause the rich to speciate because the rich would genetically engineer their children to have wings.

That is one of the stupidest things I've heard this week.

For one thing, the human body is MUCH too heavy to fly unless you have the wings of a small plane.

[Rysith]

And yes, I've actually heard people claiming that genetic engineering would cause the rich to speciate because the rich would genetically engineer their children to have wings.

That is one of the stupidest things I've heard this week.

For one thing, the human body is MUCH too heavy to fly unless you have the wings of a small plane.

For another, you can't just stick in "genes for wings", since it doesn't work that way[1]. Even if you could, you'd also need strengthened (and lightened) bones, flight muscles, etc.

And for a third, unless you're really bad at genetic engineering, nothing that you do is likely to prevent you from breeding with other humans. If it does, it generally means that you've sterilized them, which is one of those undesirable side effects when you are working with humans.

[1]

Remember, genes are NOT blueprints. This means you can't, for example, insert "the genes for an elephant's trunk" into a giraffe and get a giraffe with a trunk. There are no genes for trunks. What you CAN do with genes is chemistry, since DNA codes for chemicals.

[Frelock]

This reminds me of a course I signed up for next semester: Genetic Engineering and Ethics.  It's big turn-on for me is that it's a lab class, meaning I probably get to create genetic mutants .  Or we could just be taking DNA out of a kiwi, but it still sounds very interesting.  I have to say though, as far a human gene manipulation goes, GATTACA (the movie) really turned that off for me.  Besides the piano player with 12 fingers, it's pretty realistic. 

As to Rysith's comment on how little we can do with genetic engineering, I'd like to say that you can get blond hair and blue eyes really easily, considering that we already know which genes code for those.  Really, you can re-create most of the things which humans can naturally mutate into.  Want to make a really smart baby?  Get a bunch of smart people together, check out what genes they have in common, check out what genes are different from physically similar but mentally lacking people, and insert what you find into a new embryo.  Odds are, you'll get out a smart baby.  Same goes for physical characteristics.  It's not quite that simple, but if a human already has it, then there's a gene that you can tinker with to get it.  We might not know what that is yet, but it's certainly possible.

You can't just cut and paste whole organs, though.  The wings idea is nuts with what knowledge we have now.  In a hundred years, with sophisticated computer modeling, a better understanding of genetic chemistry and a few well-designed genetic algorithms, who knows?  You'd still get a new species out of it, though, and it would probably have more in common with a bird's DNA than a humans.  It would be really funny if civilization were to collapse at that point, and millions of years later, creationists of the new civilization would look at the wing-man's decendents and say "what about that?  There's a huge missing link there!  Evolution can't be right!"

[Rysith]

As to Rysith's comment on how little we can do with genetic engineering, I'd like to say that you can get blond hair and blue eyes really easily, considering that we already know which genes code for those.  Really, you can re-create most of the things which humans can naturally mutate into.  Want to make a really smart baby?  Get a bunch of smart people together, check out what genes they have in common, check out what genes are different from physically similar but mentally lacking people, and insert what you find into a new embryo.  Odds are, you'll get out a smart baby.  Same goes for physical characteristics.  It's not quite that simple, but if a human already has it, then there's a gene that you can tinker with to get it.  We might not know what that is yet, but it's certainly possible.

Blue eyes and blonde hair are certainly possible, but that hardly seems like a worthwhile thing to be going for when you could also be getting the immune system to end all immune systems (for example). Tiny cosmetic changes like that hardly seem like the thing to be worried about (especially since you can do them much more cheaply without playing with genes. My point there was more that if you are worried about the effects of genetically engineering humans, it's the wrong things to be worrying about. More worrying is things like "What happens to the people who can't get super immune systems when they start getting infected by stuff that can survive the super immune systems?"

Intelligence is a bit more tricky, since there are a lot of genes that influence it, and a lot of known side effects to pushing it too high (go look up the correlation between intelligence and various types of mental disorders. There are even some theories that being too far above average just drives you insane as an environmental thing.). So many genes control so many things that just turning them all to "on" is almost always a bad idea. I'd also guess that there are different genes linked to intelligence that cancel each other out (more of hormone A means smart, more of hormone B means smart, same levels of hormones A and B mean average), and other wrinkles like that. Would it be possible? Sure. Do I think that it would be in the same league as adding organs and other major things? Yes.

You also wouldn't speciate simply because making enough changes that you couldn't form viable offspring would be seen as an immense drawback to the people involved. As long as you can make viable offspring, you haven't speciated yet.

[Duke 2.0]

 I dunno, genetic editing for the immune system seems a little odd as viruses have been doing that as long as they have existed. I fear that dicking about would either make us immune to quite a few viruses, or makes viruses cause cancer now that they stick DNA into a cell that is not designed to handle such DNA editing.

 Think of the cold giving you cancer. Of course I admit I know nothing about the intricacies of viruses and genetic engineering, but viruses are a very interesting thing to study and they could very easily be the first things we mass-produce with genetic engineering. Think viruses that result in desirable traits, like fixing the cells of a diabetic to react better to insulin.

 Think people made of steel. Think of gods.

[sonerohi]

There are serious problems with people made of steel. How would we hug non-steel people? How would we be able to interact with domestic animals? Transportation becomes an issue due to an immense increase in weight. Flight would no longer be viable, and a large group of people would sink a ship. We wouldn't be allowed to jump because we would break the shit out of a building that way. China and glass wouldnot be usable by us, the flesh people would have it all to themselves.

Sure we could diversify a little bit, but too much diversity means too many problems.

[Duke 2.0]

 We need not worry, the flesh-beings will take care of us for we are GODS!

[Nilocy]

Well, I'm interested in genetic modification and all i can say, is that its the next major awesome boom industry. That said, its a long time off. With the changing of DNA you can effectively rewrite people and their genes, making them more artificially stronger, fasters, more immune to disease and all that.

My current theory on how to change people is retro-viruses, they little buggers are extremely clever in what they do. They aint alive and they do change your DNA on a regular basis, to effectively make more of themselves. Its relatively simple how it'd work. Or, just change the gene's in the embryo, which would be even easier.

Although a problem you'd get with having the ultimate immune system is that if everyone had the same immune system then one virus would screw us all, be it natural evolution or man made...

[SHAD0Wdump]

I'm interested in how all of this will factor into sports.

We're looking at the new steroids here...