Anyone hav an opinion on somatic fusion of animals?
452995
i think mixing different species have both advantages n disadvantages .some of the Advantages and Disadvantages of Transgenic Crops?\nThe use of transgenic crops has been an issue for many years. Many concerns have been raised and these generally fall into two categories: \n\n\nA concern about what affect genetically modified material could have on human health. For example, transgenic crops have been suggested to cause allergies in some people, although it is uncertain whether transgenic crops are the source of this reaction3. Furthermore the antibiotic resistance genes placed in these crops has been suggested to cause resistance to antibiotics leading to super bugs that cannot be killed with antibiotic treatments3. The idea of a population being uncomfortable with ingesting DNA that originated from another source, such as a virus or bacteria, must also be considered when thinking about producing transgenic crops. However, to date, there is no evidence of the DNA from transgenic crops being any different from the DNA ingested from conventional crops. \nA concern about whether transgenic crops cause damage to the natural environment. One example includes pollen from transgenic corn, which has been suggested to kill the Monarch butterfly larvae. It has been shown that hybrid corn expresses a bacterial toxin in its pollen, which is then dispersed over 60 meters by wind. In this range, the corn pollen is deposited on other plants near cornfields where it can be ingested by non-target organisms including the monarch butterfly5. These butterflies have been found to eat less, have a slower growth rate and higher death rate5. A second example is the hybridization of crops with nearby weeds. This could cause these weeds to attain resistance to herbicides or other things that we have been trying to avoid for many years. Genes that provide resistance to viral disease or other traits allowing them to survive in their environment could end up benefiting weed populations around a crop field. This trait could make that population more difficult to control. To date, there has been little evidence to support this theory2. \nOn other side of the coin are the notions that support the use of transgenic crops. The potential benefits of which are quite obvious, including such things as increased yields (to feed a growing population), decreasing the use of pesticides (to save the environment and the cost of pesticides), and the production of novel crops (such as providing crops with increased nutritional value)3. Being able to retrofit any crop to our desires is a powerful concept, especially with the changing climates of today
391966
Okay...i put all quotes i have taken from websites in quotation marks and in >><< marks.\n\nFirst of all...ALL animals, regardless of species, have the EXACT same DNA. >>"DNA from all organisms is made up of the same chemical and physical components. The DNA sequence is the particular side-by-side arrangement of bases along the DNA strand (e.g., ATTCCGGA). This order spells out the exact instructions required to create a particular organism with its own unique traits."<<  This being said, humans are NOT a higher life form than any other animals. We are NO better, whatsoever. Anyone who thinks we can use animals for food, clothing, exploitation, product or medical experimentation because they are a lower form of life is not educated and/or ignorant.  \n\nSecondly, >>"Long known to be poor predictors of human health, the LD-50 and Draize tests have been shown to be less reliable and more expensive than existing non-animal alternatives. There are many variables among species of animals and even among individual animals. The results of non-animal tests tend to be more consistent, and better predictors for human reactions. In addition, companies are spared the expense of breeding, caging, feeding and disposing of animals that are used in testing laboratories."<<  For those of you who do not know about the Draize tests and the LD-50 test, you need to take a look at www.NAVS.org...it's a little more in depth than applying eyeliner on an animal...that was the most ignorant comment i have ever read. \n\nTo the person who told the story of animal lovers who are torturing animals everyday in labs...either they lied or your perception is extremely off honey...people who love animals don't torture them incessantly and then murder them.\n\nAnd to the person who spoke of a neuro-science view of animals being unaware of their existance...can you please put up a website? I'd like to know where you get your information.
425594
May I recommend you to explore http://www.ismeta.org/ and http://www.somatics.com/; especially look at http://www.somatics.com/page2.htm.
682492
wow. no.\n\nBut, okay, let's actually look at this:\nFirst, it Kermit the FROG, Second, she's a pig. A mammal, gives live birth. He's a frog. An amphibian, lays eggs.\n\nIt just wouldn't work.\n\nSorry, Piggy, it was never meant to be.
309735
Never heard of it so I checked it out. Sounds very promising.\nI found this site interesting...\nhttp://www.canderm.com/page.asp?intNodeID=8035
318325
Not the least.  It is quite natural for any animal, including human beings.  The only thing hazardous about it is, one keeps on thinking with may be sense of guilt that it is not normal.  So get rid of that and enjoy.
969668
I was at a party; the host of this party had a large dog with very pronounced male genitalia.\n\nWe were standing around. . a bunch of middle-aged suburban couples with drinks in their hands, (no it was not a very good party) when the dog, presumably to liven things up started to masturbate with its tongue. There was a silence broken only by the frenzied lapping of the dog.\n\nI said, 'I have heard of dogs looking like their owners but this is ridiculous'\n\nIt did not go down (the remark I mean - the dog continued happily to consummation) well at all.
96293
The previous answer would be exellent except it is dead wrong.  You've confused transgenic with hybrid.\n\nA transgenic organism is an organims whose genome has been artificially altered.  For example, a transgenic cow may be altered to produce human insulin excreeded in her milk (which is excellent for treating diabetes).\n\nMajor ethical issues include, of course, the issue of "playing god," mentioned above.  More relevant issues tend to revolve around animal cruelty.  Basically, you've got some cow embryo (or whatever animal you're using) and alter its DNA to make it produce human insulin.  Great for the diabetic people getting the insulin, but what about the cow?  Is it right to keep her locked up for our use?  Was it right to mess with her DNA in the first place?\n\nTrangenic species can also be used to produce enhanced versions of the animal (ex. a cow that yields twice as much meat).  This creates some more animal cruelty issues, and maybe some issues about fair competition.\n\nTransgenic species are also commonly used in medical research (as well as other areas of biology) to test to effects of potential drugs and study the modes of action of certain diseases.  Animal testing has its own set of ethical issues.
1089442
Well..Scientific experiment or no, there is a new thing out that when it becomes more popular amoung the general public, I'm SURE it will create quite some controversy..The thing I am talking about are called, GenPets. They are genetically created pets, and I think they are cloned using a splice between a human child and a mole..That's what they look like, and believe it or not, next year, they will be coming available for purchase..Go check out the website for them, i'll leave it on the source thing..It's amazing actually..Living and funtioning clones, and for a pet at that..Biogenetic engineering is such a controversial thing, but I believe if scientists could actually hoan the full potential of it and not just goof around with it, it would be VERY useful!!\nHttp://www.GenPets.com
469349
The cloning of animals, while promising, has many problems that would need to be adressed before the cloning process would be more effective than simply breeding the animals. A surprisingly low success rate of creating clones, along with the possibility of genetic defects being passed on and the expensive equipment required to perform these processes are large deterrents to cloning in today's world.\n   \n   The famous sheep, Dolly, was one out of numerous attempts to clone a single sheep.  Creating multiple clones would require either an enormous amount of equipment or an improvement on current methods to prevent only a small population of clones successfully being created.  In addition, any flaws in methods used could result in genetic defects.\n\n   Any unseen genetic defects in an animal to be cloned could ruin a large number (if not all) attempts to clone the animal.  Any animal to be cloned could possibly need extensive testing before the cloning process begins; again, slowing down the idea of mass-producing foods or medicines without the use of more equipment to attempt to create more clones.\n\n   Cloning equipment, in order to do its duty, needs to be precise.  Such equipment will not come cheaply.  While in the future, prices of this equipment may drop due to the aging of the technology or the possibility of mass production in the future, it is still expensive, as no kinds of grants or rebates by any government organization exist(as far as I know).\n   \n   If cloning equipment and techniques were improved upon, the cloning of animals would be very helpful to society.  As these techniques are now, however, it is not much more beneficial to clone animals as it is to simply breed them; a much more cost-effective solution for the present.
193524
The thoughts on 'theraputic cloning' is to be able to fix a disease which has a genetic component (which is pretty much all of them) in patients.  Which is why the S Korean research was hailed as a breakthrough (and turned out not to be the case, but still an advancement).  The idea is to take stem cells from a patient, 'fix them' via DNA alterations, and put them back into the patient.  This avoids immunocompatibility questions.  \n\nThere is no medical purpose for creating complete clones of individuals, humans or otherwise.  For research purposes if we are trying to establish a new breed of animal which has particular characteristics, we can clone one animal and then interbreed it's cloned 'offspring', thus creating a breed of identical members.  It's important for research to find breeds which are genetically identical; it takes some 20 generations of interbreeding to get to this point.  If a species has a 2+ year breeding time, then it would take 40+ years to get to this point.  By cloning this goal can be achieved much quicker.  \n\nOrgan cloning is a separate area; the goal here is to generate human organs using tissue culture or animal models.  But the organs would have to be immunocompatible, ie grown from the same person.  No one in their right mind would clone human individuals for the sake of organ replacement.  You'd have to be some Nazi scientist or something like that.  It won't happen in the developed world any time soon.
1176326
Maybe animal experimentation? If you want a source for some information on the topics you mentioned (and a few more), take a look at http://www.balancedpolitics.org/. It'll discuss the pros and cons of each issue.\n\nGood luck with that.
278951
I think that everyone has to make their own decision. \nI don't feel that conjoined twins should be seperated. sure it might make their lives easier if the seperation isn't fatal, but maybe they were born conjoined for a reason. Maybe it is part of the greater journey that they are on.
493684
Cloning has become a widely debated issue in the media since 1996, when a group of Scottish scientists led by Ian Wilmut cloned Dolly, a sheep that was the first clone of an adult mammal. The cloning process involves destroying the nucleus of an egg cell of the animal that will carry the clone and injecting a donor nucleus from the individual to be cloned into that egg cell. The resulting egg thus has a nucleus from the donor animal (which may be an endangered animal) and can develop into an animal that has the same genetic makeup as the donor, thus making the resulting offspring a clone.\n\nSince Dolly's appearance, a wide variety of uses for mammalian cloning have been proposed, including using cloned animals to produce superior livestock and to simplify the process of creating transgenic animals (genetically modified animals that can make human proteins in their milk, for example). Several groups have suggested cloning endangered or recently extinct species. A company called Advanced Cell Technology used a cow named Bessie to clone an Asian gaur, an endangered oxlike animal native to India and Burma (the cloned gaur died of an ordinary disease two days after his birth). Scientists also hope to move on to cloning extinct animals, perhaps starting with the cloning of the now-extinct bucardo mountain goat from Spain; scientists froze some tissue from the last living animal before the species became extinct.\n\nCloning endangered and extinct species has raised heated debate in the scientific community and beyond. On the one hand, many say it may offer us an opportunity to protect animals such as the giant panda from extinction so that our descendants will be able to see the beauty of these creatures. Some claim that cloning may help us bring back recently extinct species. Still others just want to have an opportunity to see a mammoth. (By the way, cloning mammoths from tissues frozen in Siberian permafrost is considered impossible with the current techniques because their DNA has become fragmented. In addition, scientists do not think that fossilized species such as dinosaurs can be cloned.) Indeed, if successful cloning of an endangered or recently extinct species is possible, we may be able to boost the populations of these animals.\n\nOn the other hand, cloned populations consist of genetically identical individuals, leading to high susceptibility to many diseases and slow adaptation to the environment. In addition, some argue that introducing extinct species back into the wild may upset the natural balance and have disastrous effects on the populations of other species. Such concerns are probably not as relevant with recently extinct species, where their extinction has usually been caused by human interventions, such as destruction of habitats and hunting. We do have to consider such issues when we start talking about bringing back mammoths, but the cloning of long-extinct species is still only a theoretical possibility. Concerns remain, however, that endangered and recently extinct species could be brought back to a world where their habitats no longer exist, and they will only be able to survive in zoos.\n\nAnother concern voiced by animal conservationists is that cloning endangered species would be viewed by the public (and governments) as an alternative to the breeding and habitat-protection programs already in place. Such possibilities are especially alarming as cloning techniques become cheaper and may be viewed as a less costly alternative to the more traditional means of protecting endangered species. Of course, cloning cannot serve as a substitute for such programs, because cloned animals lack the genetic diversity that is crucial to survival, and they still need habitats to live in.\n\nAs you can see, cloning is far from being able to serve as a Noah's Ark that would save all endangered species from extinction, but together with habitat protection and breeding programs, it may help some endangered and rece
253459
Yes...they say eventually with a single cell, you could produce the world's annual meat supply. And you could do it in a way that's better for the environment and human health. Considering all the  diseases spread by animals ( asian brd flu, mad cow disease, ect. ) it doesn't sound like such a bad idea.  They still have a long way to go though...so far what they have gotten has turned out like mush...and even after they get something that turns out right it will be a long time before the US Food and Drug People get through with all their approval testing were anything can be placed on the market.
625599
Not necessarily, it might be better in the right environment.  If the animal is in the right environment, then yes, absolutely.  If the animal is in the wrong environment, or the environment suddenly changes, then absolutely not.  It all depends on where the species is living at a particular moment.
865425
I think they offer the perfect solution to one of society's more pressing moral problems.\n\nHuntingdon Life Sciences and its associated companies are constantly under attack for their use of animals in scientific research. Obviously, the experiments conducted on the animals, while essential to medical and scientific research, are often painful and result in the death of the animal. Another problem is that, while guinea pigs, chimpanzees or dogs share certain physical and biochemical similarities with humans, they aren't exactly the same.\n\nStreet beggars fill the gap admirably. Physically and biochemically they are identical to human beings, without actually being human. There are plenty of them and there is absolutely no reason to care about what happens to them. If we finish experimenting with one and dispose of it afterwards, we can just go and get another one. There are plenty to go around.\n\nThough it's of no concern, this also gives their life some purpose, in that they will save a chimpanzee or a rat from having to suffer. This is certainly of far, far greater value to society than their current role.