Posted on 06/28/2013 6:53:52 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Britain may allow a controversial technique to create babies using DNA from three people, a move that would help couples avoid passing on rare genetic diseases, the country’s top medical officer says.
The new techniques help women with faulty mitochondria, the energy source in a cell, from passing on to their babies defects that can result in such diseases as muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, heart problems and mental retardation. About one in 200 children is born every year in Britain with a mitochondrial disorder. …
Similar research is going on in the U.S., where the embryos are not being used to produce children. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
How many fingers and toes does that get you?
"... You won't need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube"
IN THE YEAR 2525 - Zager and Evans
seems you can get a baby with the DNA from FOUR people (your grandparents) without any effort or expense. This is just silly
Another advance in the field of High Speed Rail.
The sort that makes its last stop in Hell.
Eugenics ALWAYS has great results!
So, let me get this straight...when creating a baby in a test tube, it is considered a ‘baby.’
When creating one The Old Fashioned Way - in the WOMB - it’s just a parasitic glob of cells and should be destroyed immediately?
*Rolleyes*
Reminds me of the History of the Human Race in two acts:
1. "What could possibly go wrong?"
2. "How was I supposed to know?"
Bump!
Whew. I'm so relieved. Luckily they have ethicists standing by to make sure only the Best Practices are used. A third "welcome option" would be "screening out potentially problematic wives" and launching a baby with a better one. Distasteful to be sure, but ethicists seem to have no problems with the "screen out and dispose" options.
But this being the UK, I suppose it goes all the way back to Henry VIII.
That's so 20th Century. Now, if 0bama had a son, they would look like his spawn. Besides, so many liberal women prefer the "Mandingo" experience.
God: “Ok everybody, out of the pool.”
Win!
We're screwing with the fundamental forces of Nature. What could possibly go wrong?
Chimeras anyone?
Over millennium, human DNA has picked up an enormous amount of “garbage”, including mutations and even the complete RNA of several viruses. The vast majority of our DNA is never used, but some of it still has passive functions. All told, maybe half is worthless.
The mitochondria has its own, independent genome, and its DNA is more like that of a bacteria than a human. Mitochondria are membrane-enclosed structures found in most eukaryotic cells (the cells that make up plants, animals, and many other forms of life). So even though eukaryotic cells are a distinctly different domain of life from bacteria, we still have our bacterial origins within us.
This being said, I wouldn’t get overly excited about some mitochondrial cut and paste, to replace really rotten mitochondrial DNA with less rotten mitochondrial DNA.
Especially since out mitochondria doesn’t particularly define who we are, a job left to our DNA. It just provides the energy it needs to function. So replacing mitochondria is like replacing your car’s bad battery. It does not change what the car is. It just provides it electricity more reliably.
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