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First Human Embryos Edited in U.S.

zeemumu

Member
The line between science fiction and reality is blurring with every advancement in science.

That worries me a bit. Who knows how far this could go? They say it's to stop birth defects but before you know it they're altering DNA to replace eyes with fidget spinners. When is the line crossed?
 

Hrothgar

Member
Not too late. In 20 years or so (or less!) we'll have solved telomeres making us age.

I'm not blowing smoke either, go look it up. Lots of research on it atm.

It's not even known if telomer shortening is the (sole) cause of ageing or is a result of ageing, it is currently actually considered unlikely that they are the cause.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
regulate that shit and establish a board to determine what is acceptable. then get rid of anything that makes life terrible. start conservative. then TAKE THE BRAKES OFF FOR THE VERY RICH
 
So while next generations are gonna be edited before even born we are gonna have to make due with cybernetic enhancements huh

Cyborg ninjas are cooler anyway
 
There are a lot of potentially amazing uses for something like that, but given the state of race relations around the country and world, I expect this will make things worse. Like seriously, what if you could change your baby's race?

There's plenty of other worrying examples. The entire reason we try to preserve the life of various animal species and prevent extinction is for genetic biodiversity, which is necessary in order to evolve healthily. If society decides that one set of traits is the most desirable, and eventually society clings to it, we lose that kind of diversity. Does evolution stop happening at that point? Do we even need it, if we can just program whatever genetic traits we want into an embryo?
 

Acyl

Member
Star Trek was an autobiography on society.

Eugenics Wars and the Bell Riots that started in San Francisco.

Bell Riots were in response to inhumane treatment experienced at sanctuaries - internment camps for the poor in major cities that were created by the US government to combat homelessness and unemployment.

haha I am imagining, say Russia for example, will openly use these technologies to produce engineered "superior" children because Make Russia Great Again. Then another country will do it, like the nuclear arms race. And goodbye world as we know it.
 
I'm glad there's an explicit requirement it be done exclusively for correction of maladaptive genetic code, but I fear the designer baby culture will eventually bear out anyway. Also fear what this could do to biodiversity and future plague susceptibility.
 

RMI

Banned
You guys are getting way ahead of yourselves. At this point it's challenging enough to target and correctly edit just one site. designer babies would require tons of targeting.
 
Can't wait
mutantsqms8k.jpg
 

Dirca

Member
Awesome! Now can someone please inject some of that sweet sweet gene splicing into my scalp so I can get some long, luxurious hair again? Bald is for the birds
 
Star Trek was an autobiography on society.

Eugenics Wars and the Bell Riots that started in San Francisco.

Bell Riots were in response to inhumane treatment experienced at sanctuaries - internment camps for the poor in major cities that were created by the US government to combat homelessness and unemployment.

Woah what if Gene Roddenberry was a time traveler sent back in time to correct the future by creating a "Fictional" TV series....
 
Ew. Gene splicing and robotic augments I guess are how future man is gonna look.

Like giant aryan looking motherfuckers with interior robot improvements, the body would of rejected it but we spliced our way to victory.

And all the women too, long ass legs and - hey you know what it doesn't sound too bad.

When you get gene tanks and such you'll be able to customise your own woman, they can be a cyborg, sexy cyborg that cleans your weener and house.
 

Khoryos

Member
Yeah neat, but not neat for us. lol

Another case of being born too soon. We all die within a century (usually a lot less then that) and to painful shit like cancer whereas humans a few generation from now will be modified to be beautiful, smart, and disease free and probably live for hundreds or even thousands of years due to medical advancements and anti-aging tech. This of course is predicated we don't fuck up the planet too much by then or go into a nuclear holocaust.

I feel jipped.

Gotta make way for Homo Superior...
 

wazoo

Member
Maybe a dumb question, but what is stopping this from being done in already developed people? Cells form and die all the time so if you edited the information of the new cells and the old cells die, wouldn't the old information die along with it? Or would it create the same problem they already mentioned?

Nothing. And it will happen. And worse.

I can not wait to be in the society of nuclear weapons everywhere + AI emergence + genetically modified humans.

There is a good chance the climate change will not come soon enough to kill us before our own stupidity.
 

Sakura

Member
Not too late. In 20 years or so (or less!) we'll have solved telomeres making us age.

I'm not blowing smoke either, go look it up. Lots of research on it atm.

Assuming this is true, would it make me young again, or would I be stuck as a 40 something year old guy?
 
Star Trek was an autobiography on society.

Eugenics Wars and the Bell Riots that started in San Francisco.

Bell Riots were in response to inhumane treatment experienced at sanctuaries - internment camps for the poor in major cities that were created by the US government to combat homelessness and unemployment.

And we all know that Star Trek sucks at world building and describing societes.

We are talking about a series where everything can get fixed with changing the energy matrix.
 
Did you guys see this new result by the same group in the OP?

https://www.nature.com/news/crispr-fixes-disease-gene-in-viable-human-embryos-1.22382

Thy have successfully corrected for a mutation causing hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in human embryos. Apparently this is the first time viable embryos were used.

By introducing CRISPR at the same time as the fertilization, they could avoid mosaics, that is, embryos with only some cells modified.

If I understood correctly, this means that it would be much more difficult to do this successfully with already fertilized embryos, much less fully developed people, but then again, these things are still in their infancy.
 
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