Time Magazine Article

[VileRomulan 0]

Hey, for some of you who do not have a Time Magazine subscription, there was a special report on the discovery of DNA, as it is the discovery's 50th anniversery, they talked of screening your embryos for the qualities and flaws your child would develope, and in the future, 'editing' the embryo to 'manufacture' your offspring, how we change our food to our liking, like planting fish genes into tomatoes to stop them from freezing, they also talked about how we are looking in planting human cells into pigs so we can slaughter them for the organs.

On the lighter side of this...

They talked of looking at your DNA to see what cancers you will develope -  and when, whats stopping your employer from finding out you'll develope alzheimers at 45? they talked about screening an embryo to see what cancers your offspring would develope, and then isolate then and terminate that gene, so a family tree prone to have cystic fibrosis could end generations of sadness, they have figured out that a single gene may yeild 20,500 genes, they don't know how many actually exist, or how they work for that matter, by using a single protein, they can activate a dormant gene that wards of a cancer or disease, in a distant future, we could have eradicated all cancers and diseases. Our skin replaces itself every two weeks, our bones every 7 seven years or so, maybe someday, scientists may find the genes to slow that down, leaving us with almost eternal life. Scientists are anticipating the discover of the of how all this DNA works, so they have started creating words, or measurements to be exact, of information, we used to think the highest data measurement was "Terabyte" trillions of bits of data, but there are now "Petabytes", which one is the equivelent to half the contents of all the academic libraries in America) there are also "Exabytes", "Yottabytes" and "Zettabytes" All the words uttered by all the people who ever lived on this planet would only ammount to 5 exabytes, heres an ending quote:

 

"The speed of discovery leaves our imaginations behind"

[Images 0]

ya know your poll doesn't have a "we haven't gone far enough by far" type option, isn't it a little biased? no offense man, it's a cool survey to put on

[VileRomulan 0]

i just noticed, that, lol, i'll get right on it

[FredM 0]

Hey there,

 

Well, in regard to your peronsal genetic information getting out, today what's to keep your employeer from learning if your diagnosted with AIDS? What's to keep them from learning you have cancer? Laws.

 

The same will have to be true about genetic information. I can't really vote on the poll because I don't think we've gone far enough. Perhaps my opinion is baised given personal reasons, but I would love a day where someone could look at a child's genetic information...see they are going to develop a certain type of cancer...and solve the problem right then.

 

Could this be used for bad things? Sure. Airplanes can be used for evil too. But I personally would tend to think the potential good outweights the potential bad.

[Dumbass 0]

I only have one word on the subject of genetics:

 

KHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Vex Xiang 0]

I agree with embryo genetic study and voluntary abortion should they detect incurable genetic diseases.

 

Obviously the fetus is defective and must be destroyed for replacement with a more viable one.

 

Yes...now you think I am being cruel. But if you consider how many time the human female body aborts embryos naturally, "natural abortion", because of genetic anomalies, I don't see the problem with looking for things nature can't see.

[Captain Huff 0]

I always found the movie Gattica interesting for bringing up many of these issues.  I'm all for the research personally.

[LoAmi 0]

First, a reality check on the mass media's understanding of basic research: In a molecular biology class, I watched a documentary from the sixties that - in pompous language - chronicled the discovery and characterizations of the lac and lambda repressor systems in bacteria (two prototypical genetic regulation mechanisms).  The show presented the science as if the discovery of the repressor would lead to all kinds of wonderful things - cures for cancer, aging, etc.  So, they exaggerated just a little...

 

The same is pretty much true for DNA/the human genome.  It is true that the discovery of the function of DNA as the genetic information caused a revolution in biology.  However, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that it's really only one piece of the puzzle.  (For the programmers in the audience:) Looking at the whole genome is like looking at a core dump of an entire computer's memory.  It's totally meaningless unless you know a whole lot of other things about how to interpret the raw information.  In the case of DNA, some of it is code for proteins, some for RNAs, some of it is control code, some of it structural, some of it junk, etc.  Further, evolution builds not just by adding information, but by reusing information.  The number of genes in the human genome is not much larger than those in a fly's - or a yeast's! - genome, and yet, humans are much more complex than flies and yeast.  A lot of the complexity is added through  systems of regulation (when and where to turn "programs" like proteins and RNAs on and off).  The simplistic hypothesis that we're just products of an *entirely* predetermined code just doesn't work.

 

While new treatments for all kinds of diseases are likely to be developed (and already have begun to come out, although I would guess the major *direct* clinical contribution of genetics to this point has been that we've become better at diagnosis) of the genetic revolution, I wouldn't hold my breath for a cure for aging.

 

This all brings us to a second comment about popular media coverage of science: issues tend to be broken down into alarmist yes or no questions, prompting readers to ask questions like "has genetics gone too far?"  What it would mean to "end genetics" is totally beyond me, unless we want to just stop studying science.  Just about any new discovery or technology comes with its ethical pitfalls.  Given the potential promise of genetics and its associated sciences, it would be foolish to place any kinds of blanket restrictions on it.  The ethical issues should be discussed on a one-by-one basis, and decided by a consensus of an *informed* public's thoughts (the ** bringing to mind all the wrong fears about GM-foods, but that's another topic althogether) and the weight of scientific opinion.

 

Whew... That was a long post...

 

(PS. This particular Time article didn't do too many of the sort of thing I'm referring to - except in the headline - but lots of other articles do...)