What is it? Beeing bored? Just a image of..

[Michael Fontana]

...........just a image of the future, showing the decision of UK to allow hybride embryon's? aka, to mix human gene's with animal ones.

Or just fun?

Anyway, have a look (http://www.yuretz.ru/prikol.php?id=471) here.

[Asher Kelman]

...........just a image of the future, showing the decision of UK to allow hybride embryon's? aka, to mix human gene's with animal ones.

Or just fun?

Anyway, have a look (http://www.yuretz.ru/prikol.php?id=471) here.

Michael,

We are hybrid anyway! That's how we work. It's nothing new. All cells share the same basic DNA code give or take presence or absence of variations in particular genes and adaptations. We are actually just one DNA organism: life.

Although people might not realize it, DNA is not merely exchanged in mating, it is also transmitted by viruses and infectious DNA strands. Mutations occur in all DNA and that variablity is how we have been able to adapt to every nook and cranny on the planet from the highest mountains, hot humid jungles to the superhot vents in the depths of the oceans.

All cells contain captured bacteria, now so much part of our cells that they cannot exist independantly.

Without these inner cells, for example, mitochondria, we could not even burn sugar for energy. Plants similarly captured green algae and so are able to trap the energy of sunlight in a complex of plain water and carbon our exhaled carbon dioxide to build sugar, which we in turn eat!

It is only lack of knowledge and delusions of being so special that creates sthe idea that humanit is somehow static and separate from other parts of life. Every day we are subject to virus, the taxis of DNA which hop from birds through mosquitoes and ticks and flied to man and back!

This trade had been going on for eons.

No one is contemplating making any viable embryo of a human with an animal gene, although I see no moral issue in providing a diabetic the genes for curing the disease if that becomes possible.

We have already made chimeras of mice with cells from different embryos and that has taught us a lot. I see doing careful controlled studies in responsible research settings as serious and worthy. We now have the human genome mapped and can look at individual genes of almost the same sequences in a series of animals. Suprisingly the "fat gene" discovered decades ago in fruit flies (yes there are obese fruit flies, LOL) are also present in mice and in man. Under-expression, even one bad gene copy, leads to fat accumulation and diabetes in the mice! What disease the poor fruit flies get I don't know, but for sure they aren't giving themselves insulin every day!

Having found genes, we need to know the steps by which they work and the sequence and detail of molecular switches, the cascade of conditions and induced activations that need to occur to make things actually work as "designed"!

"Designed"; you like that word? Hmm!

Is it fun doing that work? For sure! I'd imagine it's fun to unlock a safe with the Crown Jewels too, one of my unmet ambitions!

Science is fun, as one is playing a big mind game against the problem which seems to be devious, giving up false clues or ones competitors, vying for the best graduate students, funding and most prestigious journal placement for their work.

On the whole the biological scientists are good and moral people and responsible.

Still, Michael, it's our job as a society to know what's going on and the implications.

Asher

[Ivan Garcia]

Well Put Asher.
I don´t fully understand the ins and outs of the process myself. But, I do believe is the way forwards, Parkinson, diabetes, and even cancer, may one day be all solved thanks to these technology.
To the thousands of scientist working on the project: keep up the good work. :-)

[Ray West]

Hi Michael,

These images remind me of the flood of 'fake animals' that hit the museums when 'the new world' was being discovered. The art of the taxidermist. Then, someone brought back a 'duck-billed platypus', which was obviously a faked animal.

No matter how hard we try, we can't invent anything weirder than much of our 'wild-life'.

Best wishes,

Ray

[Nicolas Claris]

Well Put Asher.
I don´t fully understand the ins and outs of the process myself. But, I do believe is the way forwards, Parkinson, diabetes, and even cancer, may one day be all solved thanks to these technology.
To the thousands of scientist working on the project: keep up the good work. :-)

Of course, but:

"Science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’âme"

Rabelais, in Pantagruel
Écrivain français (v. 1485-1553).

[Ivan Garcia]

I fully agree Nicolas, science without conscience ruins the soul.
The thing is that this particular method (as I understand it) uses eggs from already dead animals, so the question is, is it ethical to use said eggs?
IMHO, yes it is, the animal is already dead, so it will be a shame not to. After all, the animal passing, has the potential of saving thousands of lives.
Now we should question the ethics of creating hybrid foetuses, and I think that Asher has answer that question already.

[Asher Kelman]

I fully agree Nicolas, science without conscience ruins the soul.
The thing is that this particular method (as I understand it) uses eggs from already dead animals, so the question is, is it ethical to use said eggs?
IMHO, yes it is, the animal is already dead, so it will be a shame not to. After all, the animal passing, has the potential of saving thousands of lives.
Now we should question the ethics of creating hybrid foetuses, and I think that Asher has answer that question already.
Guys,

Nothing is made perfect, except art which we decide is so.

Animals, all life, OTOH, is always incomplete, just being seen, as it were, in one frame of billions. A creature now will be different next year in minute ways. We do clean up, equivalent to noise ninja, repairing the DNA to keep things functional, but when it comes time to mating, subtle differences allow a scant few to escape devastating threats which wipe out others..

For example at the time of Bubonic Plague in Europe which wiped out whole swaths of civilization, people with a mutation in one gene resisted and their offspring survived. Those genes it appears also has influence on other dieases.

We need change!

We need good genes sometimes,

Asher

[Georg Baumann]

Neurobiology: A case study of the imminent militarization of biology

A major change is therefore necessary in the culture of the biomedical sciences. Failing this, the wholesale militarization of biology will be anintegral part of the continuing revolution in modern biology......

......What we are suggesting here is that the biological, medical (and legal) communities should face the near certainty that unless active steps are taken to prevent it, biology will become the next major military technology, and that neuroscience — and by implication much of the rest of modern biology — will become highly vulnerable to use or abuse in entirely unintended, but clearly foreseeable, ways. We know of no major technology with military utility that has not been vigorously exploited for hostile purposes, and there is no reason to think that the revolution in biology will not be similarly bent to military ends.

http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/review-859-p553/$File/irrc_859_Whelis_Dando.pdf

I do not trust any governement on this planet to have their hands on gene technology. Period!

Particulary the well known "new-world-order-trigger-happy-chaps".

But guess what.... they drive it....

[Michael Fontana]

Your reactions are interesting,

when I first saw the images on the site, I was amused; but had to think about it.

My questions - beeing in a photographer forum - weren't intended just as a moralic or ethique one, but how and if positive, if these images "transport" on a image level things that become reality on other aspects of humanity.

Hope I wrote it clear ;-)

[Asher Kelman]

Your reactions are interesting,

when I first saw the images on the site, I was amused; but had to think about it.

My questions - beeing in a photographer forum - weren't intended just as a moralic or ethique one, but how and if positive, if these images "transport" on a image level things that become reality on other aspects of humanity.

Hope I wrote it clear ;-)

This is hilarious! The link to the pictures hadn't worked until today!

Michael, what nice art work! Yes that's fun, but might be done as a metaphor in the first place, to stir up debate.

We have nothing to worry more than yesterday or last year. Science will always be exploited. The military has the job to fight wars and try to win! So they need to look to whatever is avaialble be it increase in fire power, intimidation through trickery or show of strength, anything that can be done without breaking national and international law.

I'm more concerned on the commercial domestic markets where misuse of drugs is rampant. Many antibiotics, for just one example, should be out of reach of most general doctors as we are forcing a natural selection of organisms resistant to everything!

The biggest tragedy is the provision of clean water, cheap food and antibiotics to subsistance level popuations that for many reasons have no birth control and little else to dop except breed and pray. Here, all benefits are swamped by unfettered population growth with consequent human misery and agitation. Not good. We don't need complicated science for that!

The underlying issues are moral and organisational, not scientific! As long as we are on a race to get the most souls for our particular culture or creed, then more suffering will sprout from overpopulation than anything else. Its that basic!

Asher

[Georg Baumann]

On another note, the compositing is first class!

[Ray West]

This thread made me think of this, too.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1644154.htm

'the genetically modified mouse growing a human ear', as the popular press had us believe. I think the above link says it more truthfully.

Best wishes,

Ray