The Science of Chimeras

Science is without any inherent morality. Even the medical injunction, "First, do no harm", does not apply. Big science, as all science is these days, requires a grounding in regulation, because it will not regulate itself, especially in an elitist culture which accepts no moral restrictions for itself. If the will to assert moral principles over DNA science does not exist, then the day of Dr. Mengele-science and Dr. Moreau-science, will rapidly emerge to become commonplace, and it will be defended by chimeric super-soldiers.

In Search For Cures, Scientists Create Embryos That Are Both Animal And Human

After the embryos have had their DNA edited this way, Ross creates another hole in the membrane so he can inject human induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS for short, into the pig embryos.

Like human embryonic stem cells, iPS cells can turn into any kind of cell or tissue in the body. The researchers' hope is that the human stem cells will take advantage of the void in the embryo to start forming a human pancreas.

Because iPS cells can be made from any adult's skin cells, any organs they form would match the patient who needs the transplant, vastly reducing the risk that the body would reject the new organ.

But for the embryo to develop and produce an organ, Ross has to put the chimera embryos into the wombs of adult pigs. That involves a surgical procedure, which is performed in a large operating room across the street from Ross's lab.
Pablo Ross of the University of California, Davis inserts human stem cells into a pig embryo as part of experiments to create chimeric embryos.

Pablo Ross of the University of California, Davis inserts human stem cells into a pig embryo as part of experiments to create chimeric embryos.
Rob Stein/NPR

The day Ross opened his lab to me, a surgical team was anesthetizing an adult female pig so surgeons could make an incision to get access to its uterus.

Ross then rushed over with a special syringe filled with chimera embryos. He injected 25 embryos into each side of the animal's uterus. The procedure took about an hour. He repeated the process on a second pig.

Every time Ross does this, he then waits a few weeks to allow the embryos to develop to their 28th day — a time when primitive structures such as organs start to form.

Ross then retrieves the chimeric embryos to dissect them so he can see what the human stem cells are doing inside. He examines whether the human stem cells have started to form a pancreas, and whether they have begun making any other types of tissues.

The uncertainty is part of what makes the work so controversial. Ross and other scientists conducting these experiments can't know exactly where the human stem cells will go. Ross hopes they'll only grow a human pancreas. But they could go elsewhere, such as to the brain.

"If you have pigs with partly human brains you would have animals that might actually have consciousness like a human," Newman says. "It might have human-type needs. We don't really know."

That possibility raises new questions about the morality of using the animals for experimentation. Another concern is that the stem cells could form human sperm and human eggs in the chimeras.

"If a male chimeric pig mated with a female chimeric pig, the result could be a human fetus developing in the uterus of that female chimera," Newman says. Another possibility is the animals could give birth to some kind of part-human, part-pig creature.

"One of the concerns that a lot of people have is that there's something sacrosanct about what it means to be human expressed in our DNA," says Jason Robert, a bioethicist at Arizona State University. "And that by inserting that into other animals and giving those other animals potentially some of the capacities of humans that this could be a kind of violation — a kind of, maybe, even a playing God."

Ross defends what his work. "I don't consider that we're playing God or even close to that," Ross says. "We're just trying to use the technologies that we have developed to improve peoples' life."

Science vs. Neanderthals

"Science" says humans share somewhere around 98 to 99%... oops, now its only 95% DNA with chimpanzees.

"Science" says modern Europeans and Asians share only 2% DNA with Neanderthals.

"Science" says humans share 60% DNA with mice.

"Science" says humans share 50% DNA with bananas.

Obviously Neanderthals lost out in the DNA race. But wait...

"Science" says Neanderthals and Homosapiens interbred.

Now is it possible to interbreed with a chimp... or a banana? Can I be a trans-chimp? or a trans-banana? I say yes, and I demand respect for my new identity!

Genetic Modification of Human Eggs

First: this absolutely will happen, somewhere in the world; Second: it will be abused.

American scientists are trying to genetically modify human eggs
Exclusive: The new gene-editing method could eliminate inherited diseases from affected families

"American scientists have attempted to modify the DNA of human egg cells using a new gene-editing technique that could eliminate inherited diseases from subsequent generations of affected families, The Independent can reveal.

The research was carried out on ovary cells taken from a woman with inherited ovarian cancer to investigate the possibility of eventually using gene-editing to produce IVF embryos free of the familial disease. The results are yet to be published.

Editing the chromosomes of human eggs or sperm to create genetically modified IVF embryos is illegal in Britain and many other countries because of concerns about safety and the possibility of the technique being used to create genetically enhanced “designer babies”.

However, the development of a simple gene-editing technique which can alter human DNA with extreme precision has raised the prospect of it being used in the future to help couples affected by inherited diseases who would like children free of the family mutations."

The race to create a super-race is on. This technique will absolutely be abused by its use by tyrants to create super soldiers, assuming that they don't get enough nano-drones and droids to satisfy their needs. It will be the same as Iran/nuclear bombs redux, only on a different level. And the technology is out of the bag, now, so it will be refined for use on humans.

DNA, Dual Superimposed Codes, and Evolution

This has been out for a while, but I think I failed to acknowledge it. And it is a big deal. It has been discovered that DNA has two codes, written one over the other. Both codes are necessary for genetic selection as well as for manufacturing proteins.

Scientists discover double meaning in genetic code

"Since the genetic code was deciphered in the 1960s, scientists have assumed that it was used exclusively to write information about proteins. UW scientists were stunned to discover that genomes use the genetic code to write two separate languages. One describes how proteins are made, and the other instructs the cell on how genes are controlled. One language is written on top of the other, which is why the second language remained hidden for so long.

"For over 40 years we have assumed that DNA changes affecting the genetic code solely impact how proteins are made," said Stamatoyannopoulos. "Now we know that this basic assumption about reading the human genome missed half of the picture. These new findings highlight that DNA is an incredibly powerful information storage device, which nature has fully exploited in unexpected ways."

The genetic code uses a 64-letter alphabet called codons. The UW team discovered that some codons, which they called duons, can have two meanings, one related to protein sequence, and one related to gene control. These two meanings seem to have evolved in concert with each other. The gene control instructions appear to help stabilize certain beneficial features of proteins and how they are made.

The discovery of duons has major implications for how scientists and physicians interpret a patient's genome and will open new doors to the diagnosis and treatment of disease.

"The fact that the genetic code can simultaneously write two kinds of information means that many DNA changes that appear to alter protein sequences may actually cause disease by disrupting gene control programs or even both mechanisms simultaneously," said Stamatoyannopoulos."

Note the gratuitous genuflection to evolution, entirely unnecessary to the findings of the code duality. In fact, such duality complicates the probability of evolution by many orders of magnitude beyond the negligible probability it previously enjoyed.

No doubt there will be attempts to trivialize this by some sort of Just So Story. If you see one pop up, let me know, OK? Thanks

The Central Dogma: an animation of DNA/RNA Production of Proteins From Code

These are only part of the cell processes which occurred as an accident of nature, according to evolution.