Topic: 'Designer babies' debate should start, scientists say - page 3. (Read 2987 times)

Personally, I like the idea that Bitcoin Talk allows same name threads. Imagine a full page in a forum with 20 separate threads, all having the same name.

I wonder if they will allow us to personally start 20 threads with the same name. Imagine! A full page of "'Designer babies' debate should start, scientists say" all by Wilikon!



EDIT: Think of the possibilities. Imagine a hospital full of unrelated designer babies, all born to different parents, yet all exactly the same, simply because they had been designed that way.

Is that why there are two threads with the same name? I wouldn't put it past Wilikon to have one of his buddies start a second, "designer" page, just like his designer baby page, at least in title, simply to make a point, or, to get some laughs.

I was not even sure I replied to my own thread either. I was confused.

I'll scan the page first next time before posting a new thread 

I first thought I was seeing double or these two threads were cloned.  

We're all hoping you live out the year.      Just kidding.

Regarding my perception thereof, the duration of a year is directly proportionate to my “activeness” thereover.

However, this kind of thinking is self-deceptive.

Think back to when you were 10 years old. Didn't a year take much longer to pass back then? And if you can remember back to 5 years old, didn't a year seem to take exceedingly long to pass back then? Think of how long the first month in Mommy's tummy must have taken. Maybe a thousand years? 10,000? 100,000?

We are living off that basic training that we received back at those millions of years that we lived in Mommy's tummy. "Practice makes perfect." We practiced how to live for those millions of years in Mommy's tummy. But it has only taken us 80 or 90 years outside to forget how to live, and get old and die.

“People" are adults “a lot" longer than they are babies; therefore, it would follow that one would primarily consider their “adult selves” and not their “baby selves,” as is often the case.

When I see a reply from you in one of my thread, I feel honored. I have no idea what you mean 97.59% of the case, but it does not matter as I am sure others do... 

Generally speaking, Homo sapiens sapiens babyhood is rather ephemeral; therefor, that one would so consider it (indeed, neglecting its adulthood) is, without a context of the subspecies’ natures, peculiar.

Rapid progress in genetics is making "designer babies" more likely and society needs to be prepared, leading scientists have told the BBC.







Dr Tony Perry, a pioneer in cloning, has announced precise DNA editing at the moment of conception in mice.

He said huge advances in the past two years meant "designer babies" were no longer HG Wells territory.

Other leading scientists and bioethicists argue it is time for a serious public debate on the issue.

Designer babies - genetically modified for beauty, intelligence or to be free of disease - have long been a topic of science fiction.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote

This is not HG Wells, you can imagine people doing this soon”

Dr Tony Perry
University of Bath
Dr Perry, who was part of the teams to clone the first mice and pigs, said the prospect was still fiction, but science was rapidly catching up to make elements of it possible.

In the journal Scientific Reports, he details precisely editing the genome of mice at the point DNA from the sperm and egg come together.

Dr Perry, who is based at the University of Bath, told the BBC: "We used a pair of molecular scissors and a molecular sat-nav that tells the scissors where to cut.

"It is approaching 100% efficiency already, it's a case of 'you shoot you score'."


New era

It is the latest development of "Crispr technology" - which is a more precise way of editing DNA than anything that has come before.

It was named one of the top breakthroughs in 2013, hailed as the start of a new era of genetics and is being used in a wide-range of experiments in thousands of laboratories.

As well simply cutting the DNA to make mutations, as the Bath team have done, it is also possible to use the technology to insert new pieces of genetic code at the site of the cut.

It has reopened questions about genetically modifying people.

Prof Perry added: "On the human side, one has to be very cautious.

"There are heritable diseases coded by mutations in DNA and some people could say, 'I don't want my children to have these mutations.'"

This includes conditions such as cystic fibrosis and genes that increase the risk of cancer.

"There's much speculation here, but it's not completely fanciful, this is not HG Wells, you can imagine people doing this soon [in animals].

"At that time the HFEA [the UK's fertility regulator] will need to be prepared because they're going to have to deal with this issue."

He said science existed as part of a wider community and that it was up to society as a whole to begin assessing the implications and decide what is acceptable.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30742774



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------