[Kosh]

it's basically exactly like a normal bacteria, if you didn't know it's history then you wouldn't notice anything extraordinary, the only thing interesting is that the genome was assembled by machine using a digital copy of the original genome (with a few markers added in) rather than copied the old fashioned way.

the reason why this is big news (and you probably already understand this but I'm gona say it anyway) is because now they can make genomes that are NOT verbatim digital copies, this is basicly the same as giving someone a hex editor for DNA, they can make anything they want, they could even try doing something funky like introducing new base pairs.

Sounds like the next step in genetic engineering.

[SpardaSon21]

Nice.  One step closer to Homo Superior.

What?  Is it wrong to want mankind to be all it can be, rather than what evolution has left us (appendix, joint issues, congenital defects like dwarfism, Tay-Sachs, muscular dystrophy, phenalketonuria, cystic fibrosis)?

I do hope we have some fairy stringent laws in place to prevent stuff like genetically creating a slave sub-race who enjoy doing all our manual labor simply because it is easier for us than building non-sentient robot drones.

[BloodEagle]

Nice.  One step closer to Homo Superior.

What?  Is it wrong to want mankind to be all it can be, rather than what evolution has left us (appendix, joint issues, congenital defects like dwarfism, Tay-Sachs, muscular dystrophy, phenalketonuria, cystic fibrosis)?

I do hope we have some fairy stringent laws in place to prevent stuff like genetically creating a slave sub-race who enjoy doing all our manual labor simply because it is easier for us than building non-sentient robot drones.

There are some real nasty side effects to creating a genetically superior race.

Just saiyajin.

[SpardaSon21]

Well, what if its our race that gets made superhuman?

[Flipside]

There are some races that are never meant to be won

[General Battuta]

Let me just repost my shopping list!

1. Move retinal arteries behind the retina instead of in front to prevent many causes of blindness.

2. Remove wisdom teeth to prevent brain abscesses, empyema, and meningitis.

3. Slightly lower the position of the larynx. Helps with choking.

4. Alter the odontoid process in the spine; a simple ball-and-socket joint instead of a peg here would prevent a lot of paralysis injuries in whiplash.

5. Strengthen hip joints, which are still optimized for quadripedal locomotion - that's why the hip joint so frequently degenerates with age. You'd need to do some canny designing to pull this off.

6. Intelligently re-engineer the knee joint while you're at it. It's also still optimized for quadripedal life, and it's way too weak.

7. Redesign the foot so we're no longer walking on our wrists. I'll leave the specifics to the structural bioengineers!

8. Weave the plantar nerves in the foot into the bone structure so they're not crippled by arch collapse.

9. Redesign the median nerve in the wrist so it's no longer damaged by each wrist flexion. Improve ligamental shielding.

10. Move the ulnar nerve to the inside of the elbow; we're not horses, so why is it still built like a horse's ulnar nerve?

11. Reengineer the brachial plexus and add protection to prevent the destruction of the nerves there by certain forms of pressure.

12. This might be a contentious one, but the placement of the rectum, urinary tract, and vagina in females is poor and prone to infection. Needs a bugfix!

13. Remove the appendix.

14. Prevent progressive dilation of veins in the legs during posture change to reduce the risk of death by blood clot.

15. For god's sake, move the vital cranial nerves and carotid artery structure farther from the nose, or protect it somehow! We shouldn't be dying of sinus infections that get into our vital nerve and blood pathways. Similarly, move other cranial sinuses away from the middle ear!

16. Prevent chordoma and gill-type birth defects; they're a product of old evolutionary structures that grow and then vanish during fetal development, for no real reason.

[Rodo]

Control, Control, Control.... what if we loose control?

That's what makes people freak out when they see stuff like this.
Remember the atom bomb?
Remember the computers?
Remember the WEEL?

We don't die because of new "stuff" included in our worlds, we tend to.... adapt.

I for one think this is great news.

[Flipside]

The Atom Bomb (or rather, Nuclear theory) bought us Nuclear Power, it also bought us Hiroshima, the Cold War, the current problems with Iran and North Korea etc, the fear of 'dirty bomb' terrorism etc.

That doesn't make Nuclear theory a 'bad' thing to have, I'd be the first to agree, theories are neither good nor bad, what makes them good or bad is the people whose hands that knowledge gets into. After all, one day, an innocent scientist may find a way to detect and erase the possibility of homosexuality in unborn humans, there are those who would leap on that opportunity, claiming it is a 'cure' for it, but that could be like knocking over the first domino in a terrible chain, we don't know the outcomes of all our actions.

I'm not, in any stretch of the word, saying that this is a 'bad' idea, and I fully support it continuing, but we have to bear in mind the fact that the science may be infallible, but the people using it cannot be gauranteed to be so.

Edit: Physical alterations, such as Battuta recommended are actually less of a problem in my eyes, but even those would, obviously, have to be approached with great care.

[Rodo]

Then we agree, new stuff is not bad

And for the record, control is impossible.

[SpardaSon21]

Well, even if we do **** things up, as long as mankind isn't completely extinct it will adapt and survive and rebuild, since adaptation and survival are quite possibly the two things we do best.

[General Battuta]

I think distance running is actually the thing we do best.

[Flipside]

Well, even if we do **** things up, as long as mankind isn't completely extinct it will adapt and survive and rebuild, since adaptation and survival are quite possibly the two things we do best.

Actually, if we screw things up and decimate ourselves, the chances are that'll be it, we are, after all, living on a time-bomb, the only chance humanity really has is to get into Space and diversify (which may require that we use this kind of knowledge, so it's a two-edged sword), setting ourselves back a few thousand years means that we have an extra few thousand years trapped on a single planet.

And Rodo, It's not really a question of 'control' as you put it, it's a question of responsiblity, which is something different. One step towards that may be getting the rules sorted out before we start, but the problem is, who defines those rules and who enforces them?

It's not really anything to do with what you are defining, which appears to be along the lines of 'just deal with it', that's an attitude that has landed us in so much trouble in the past, we could get away with it before, even with Nuclear theory, but the fact of the matter is, this isn't a question of 'morals' or 'Right/Wrong', it's a question of good old fashioned common sense, I'll agree that whether we are ready as a race for this or not, it's coming, so maybe we should start thinking 'what are we going to do about it?' before it explodes in our faces this time?

Growth is good, change is good, knowledge is good, idiots trying to turn it to their own agenda is bad, with things like genetics, this is so vital to be aware of. Mistakes, at least, can be safeguarded against, political expediency is far harder.

[headdie]

governing tech like this needs an international body to have the jurisdiction to apply it consistently but you then wander into the minefield of who controls it.

the best solution i can come up for now with is a UN funded agency that is run like a police force with one guy at the top

[Bobboau]

and then does nothing when someone makes a race of frogmen supersolders.

[Herra Tohtori]

I think distance running is actually the thing we do best.

Yes.

[Nuke]

k, so how do we use this technology to decimate the human race?

[Bobboau]

engineer a new type of bacteria that has biochemistry totally different from all other life on the planet and have it derive it's energy from splitting water molecules into free hydrogen but fixing the oxygen to carbon. basically it would eat the ocean, and the water in all living things, and nothing would have any defense against it, the immune system wouldn't even recognize it as alive.

[General Battuta]

engineer a new type of bacteria that has biochemistry totally different from all other life on the planet and have it derive it's energy from splitting water molecules into free hydrogen but fixing the oxygen to carbon. basically it would eat the ocean, and the water in all living things, and nothing would have any defense against it, the immune system wouldn't even recognize it as alive.

i like the way this man thinks

[Nuke]

i would have gone with super aids but i guess that works

[Rodo]

And Rodo, It's not really a question of 'control' as you put it, it's a question of responsiblity.

Then we think alike, I was just replying like that to avoid unnecessary chatter about a subject for which I have a pretty much made up opinion.

About the "deal with it" thing... you got my point, truth be told:
I think like that every now and then...
The world seems too big and thinking about setting rules for everyone/everything just to make it acceptable for me (and maybe others) doesn't seem right... I just try to set a good example and live the way I consider correct (which might be mostly influenced by my parents teaching and some good old cartoons ).