Geneticists create Chimeras - I'm effing serious.

[diaglo]

What he said.

ditto.

when i first started taking insulin it was a pork product.

now they make it... semi artificially... in that it is made more efficiently, less expensive, etc...

and they don't slaughter cows, pigs, dogs, horses, and so on by the thousands.

they slaughter E.coli and mice.

 

[Mercule]

(a) PETA is probably already crapping themselves in fury over this. "GROWING ANIMALS FOR HUMAN USE?!?!?! ARGH!"

I fail to see what the People for the Eating of Tasty Animals (PETA) could possibly object to about this.

And... I'll just stop there.

 

[frankthedm]

Chimeric animals are a standard research tool in some areas. I've made mouse/chicken chimeric embryos in order to look at gene/protein expression in vasculogenesis. Mouse/something else chimeras are pretty damn common, but the very idea tends to get an OMFG!!! from people outside the sciences. We sadly have to overcome the mad scientist creating giant ants/blobs/godzilla/plagues/flesh golems stereotype too often. Trust us that we take the ethics of what we do very seriously and nothing is done without a good reason.

No, YOU might take ethics seriously, but there are many scientists detached from thier own humanity accross the world and military budgets can run higher than normal government grants. Goats have been giving spidersilk protien milk for years, and that is what "they" were willling to tell us about.

I shudder to think what the genes from the poison arrow frogs will be used for.

 

[Torm]

No, YOU might take ethics seriously....

I was about to mention Josef Mengele, but you've summed it up nicely.

 

[Remathilis]

Cool.

I want a griffon, a Hippogriff, a minotaur, an centaur, and uh... I dunno. Gnome?

[bart simpson] God Shmod. I want my monkey-man! [/bart simpson]

 

[Shemeska]

No, YOU might take ethics seriously, but there are many scientists detached from thier own humanity accross the world and military budgets can run higher than normal government grants. Goats have been giving spidersilk protien milk for years, and that is what "they" were willling to tell us about.

I shudder to think what the genes from the poison arrow frogs will be used for.

The X-Files was a cool show... but there's not a conspiracy lurking behind every corner.

And why bother. Smallpox/anthrax/plague etc are already a reality, easy to weaponize, and there's not much of a need to invest the time and money to genesplice to get something better/worse. Nature already did the unethical research for us.

Sure I can think of evil unethical things: modified HIV or adenoviruses that are benign and nonfunctional except when triggered by proteins specific to certain populations of humans, then they go berserk either to kill the host or sterilize them by coding for a toxin that targets germline cells. Nobody in their right mind would even do preliminary work on such things regardless of money.

Now if you think that either: 'The Man' / 'The Evil Empire' / 'Corporations' / PNAC are grabbing up scientists and working on doomsday viruses or transgenic mutants to rule after the apocalypse, stop watching horror movies and calm down. Evil geneticists aren't real so there's no need to be afraid of them.

"There's plenty of real things to be afraid of. Like Super AIDS."

 

[s/LaSH]

Bioengineering is the way of the 21st century, IMHO. It's going to happen, somewhere, somehow, and it's probably best if 'we' hang onto it...

Damn, no zombies yet.

From what I've read, historical zombies are pretty easy to make if you have the right pharmacopia. Some simple narcoleptic herbs to KO the victim, something to slow the heartbeat to the point of seeming death, a shovel for after the funeral, and a healthy helping of drugs to keep them stupid and pliant.

Failing that, electroshock therapy apparently does the trick.

 

[WayneLigon]

No, YOU might take ethics seriously, but there are many scientists detached from thier own humanity accross the world and military budgets can run higher than normal government grants.

Bah, if I'd had the grades and determination, and could get the funding, I'd so be a mad scientist right now. I mean, I'd be working on headless body organ farms, brain transplants to younger bodies, artificial womb designer baby factories, the whole Transhuman Space nine yards, man. I'd be trying my damndest for human cloning, just to say I'd done it.

 

[Aeolius]

I fail to see what the People for the Eating of Tasty Animals (PETA) could possibly object to about this.

"Meet the meat."

 

[Shemeska]

I'd so be a mad scientist right now. I mean, I'd be working on headless body organ farms

Maybe I'm wierd, but I have no problem with that idea so long as there was never a CNS developed beyond a brainstem to keep it all plugging along till harvest time. Yeah it looks bizarre and freakish, but ethics-wise I have no problem in the slightest with it. No harm, no foul.

Besides, we'll likely skip that phase and move right along to growing you your own organs from your own stem cells once we know the proper growth factors and get a little better at tissue engineering. Give it a decade at most. We've had some pretty cool results so far including functional bladders and small but functional kidneys (not human yet AFAIK).