Is Genetical Manipulation all right???
545287
no sir\nabsolutely wrong\nit must be stopped.\ncheers
462921
Sure it WOULD work if there were means to deliver it to each cell, ensure 100% restriction efficiency & specificity, and ligate the DNA nick afterwards. So far it is sci-fi; prenatal diagnostics is the way to go for now.
639499
Is it supposed to be natural genetic modification e.g. animal husbandry, or gene therapy genetic modulation? They are both forms of influencing the genes passed on to a particular animal.
996648
It should be noted that the doomesday scenarios claimed for this technique - cloning Hitler or the like - are absolute nonsense. This takes genetic determinism to its illogical conclusion. To suggest that a clone would adopt the personality of the original is to suggest there's a gene for "genocide of the Jews", which is clearly nonsense. \n\nIt should also be noted that many people accused of being genetic determinists aren't, or at least aren't by the definition used by the accusers. When a gene "for" X is implied, there is always an unstated "given all other things being equal", and usually an "but only in a statistical sense", so a gene for a behaviour will only make it more likely, not force it.\n\nThen we have the religious objections - that the clone would not have a soul. Since embryos are cloned in the same way identical twins are formed, this would mean that identical twins do not have separate souls.\n\nThe real issue I have with this kind of science is eugenics. According to my genes, I'm dead by now - or at least many people with one condition I happen to have are. If we allow the creation and cloning of "perfect" embryos, and encourage the termination of "imperfect" embryos, we will live in a much worse-off place. We will be at the will of whoever decides what is "perfect" and what is not. What's more, people will suffer the whims of their parents. What happens when a couple order up an athlete, and the child instead spends all day fiddling with his Wii? Will they punish him for not turning out how the reciept says? Will ethnic minorities be eliminated as being imperfect? Will parents ensure they have somebody to look after them in old age order up an ugly and infertile slave child?\n\nIt's clear to me that we should ban commercial offerings of genetic manipulation of offspring right now, and also close our borders to genetically engineered humans - so treatment cannot be offered in rogue states. The ethics need a clarification and unity - is stupidity a disease?
798597
Great topic.. I personally LOVE genetics, and geneticists have come a loooooong way. Here's a few websites with good articles for you to read:\n\nhttp://archive.greenpeace.org/geneng/reports/food/intrfood.htm\n\nhttp://uk.encarta.msn.com/text_781566628___4/Genetic_Modification_of_Food.html\n\nhttp://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/835.php\n\nhttp://www.ifst.org/site/cms/contentChapterView.asp?chapter=1\n\nhttp://www.ourfood.com/Genetic_modification_food.html\n\n\nHope these help!
343014
People have been manipulating the genetic makeup of all kinds of species for a long time.  Until recently, they have had to make do with regular sexual reproduction to breed into a species the qualities they value.  Lately, they can alter the genes in a lab.\n\nThis has good consequences, and could have bad ones.  But it is not different from what they have always done.\n\nWhy does no one complain people are playing god when they change the course of rivers to suit themselves, drain swamps to get rid of disease carrying bugs or to build condos on, and so on.\n\nRecently, science has genetically engineered a strain of rice that makes Vitamin A for use in South Asia, particularly India, because there is so little of the vitamin in people's diet that children are being born blind.\nI don't think any god would mind, really, do you?
644679
There are several answers to this question. It depends from person to person, and on your religion too. According to some religions, it might be considered unethical to modify children. And if people really were to modify their children, (assuming they all want their children to be perfect) mankind would have nothing but brainiacs in its society.\n\nHowever, there are some advantages to genetic engineering. For example, if you through genetic screening, you would find out that your future child will have a disease or will be infected in any way, you could use genetic engineering to modify the child's characteristics so that it would not have to suffer when it's born. Just some things to think about...
186135
Not necessarily. It could be a mutated gene, a side effect of another health issue, or it could be a recessive gene thus making it in fact genetic.
1147347
Not possible. Genetics give you what you have, be thankful for it.
628849
I'll assume you are talking about cloning of humans, and I'll assume you mean cloning that takes place in a laboratory, not the natural cloning that results in identical twins.  I don't think the idea itself is right or wrong, only the uses to which it is put.  If one clones a person to use as spare parts, of course that's abhorant to most of us.  If a person wanted to have a child exactly like themselves, then that might be a little odd, and maybe a bit warped for the kid, but I'm not sure it would be worse than the way a lot of kids are raised-and at least the parent would understand a lot about the kid.  But, I don't see much use in cloning..unless we as a society wished to clone some great genius, like Shakespeare or Newton, and DaVinci- I could see that as being exciting and possibly as useful to the society as a whole, but I'm not sure how badly that would interfer with the rights of child, and whether they would be happy with it, horrified, whatever...The young princes of England have to deal with constant media scrutiny and a lack of privacy, but nobody suggests the royal family shouldnt have children... It's complex-In the end, I don't think there will be enough of a positive possible outcome to really generate any excitement about doing it that would overcome our natural repulsion of the idea ("we" meaning Western society).  In other societies, though, the variable of the equation might be totally different than what we as Americans and Europeans might feel.\n*edit* I didnt even think about extinct animals- now that would be a *really* interesting debate, that would likely make for some very odd bedfellows and enemies!  Do we bring back the Dodo, the passenger pigeon? Or even the Mammoth?  That might very well generate enough societal excitement to actually get done, if it were possible..
17259
Gene splicing doesn't work in the sense that they just stick the gene in the plant, grow it, and it is modified.\n\nThey have to grow many plants before they get one that expresses the gene, then do many tests to make sure the modification has not had any undesirable phenotypic effects.\n\nThe end result would be that in order to "improve" the human race, we'd have to submit thousands of children to chilling experiments in the lab. Most of them would not express the gene - what happens to them? Who is the authority that decides what are good genes and bad genes? While noting Godwin's Law, I'd like to point out that this guy called Hitler had a few ideas about improving the human race through artificial selection.\n\nWhy should we worry about computers? They have no wants, no desires. They're not suddenly going to go on strike because they want a TV card to watch while they're working. They aren't going to take our women. If we develop machines powerful enough to do a large swathe of the work, I'd view that as a good thing. Society will have to change to take account of this, hopefully for the better as we gain free time to spend with people, rather than slaving away doing some menial job.
263964
Absolutely, I suggest\n\nYang X, Tian XC, (2002). Cloning adult animals - what is the genetic age of the clones? Cloning, 2(3):123-8. \n\nThat is an almost perfect review!\n\n:-) Happy reading!
961312
Well, that is the Holy Grail of biochemistry and we've been dreaming of that ever since Dr. Pauling had me researching metabolic diseases, Lesch-Nyhan syndrome in particular.  The problem has been 1) finding the precise genetic coding of the fouled up part of the DNA and 2) devising a mechanism to clip out that nucleic base and replace it with the correct one (or series of bases).  Precision is, of course, vital or you'll kill the experimental animal (or, ultimately, human patient).
96132
There have been hundreds of thousands of such experiments done. Moreover you can easily do them yourself using some nutriemt agar and an incubator with a few hundred dollars to pay someone to do the genetic workup.\n\ntalk.origins is your one stop shop for these types of quetsions. The site is highly reputable, well refernces, cites peer reveiewed science journals and most importantly lists literally hundreds of experimenst that show exactly what you describe.\n\nI've attached a couple link to pages that list a dozenor so such mutation studies, but the site has many hundreds of others.
437157
Unless Einstein, Patton and Churchill were alive today, or until they figure out a way to test from DNA, it will always be conjecture.\n\nSo go ahead and use them to motivate your kids if that is what will light a fire under their butts.
124759
The process that you are refering to is called parthenogenesis.  Evolutionarily it is a bad idea.  It produces clones of the mother.  Cloning is bad because you produce genetically identical offspring and if a disease comes or the environment changes, you do not have survive as a population.  If it kills one, it kills all.  All sexually reproducing animals have the advantage of unique offspring with differing abilities/disabilities.\nTo answer your question:  yes, but that doesn't mean I agree with it.  Scientists can already remove the incomplete nucleus (haploid) of an egg and replace it with a complete nucleus (diploid).  Quite possibly, a woman could give birth to her own clone.  Scientists could also possibly find a way for two women to use their own haploid nuclei to produce and diploid egg.  Yay for the lesbian lovers.  Bad for the christian conservatives.  I'm not saying I agree with this all, just relaying the facts.
519495
Theoretically yes, but there would be so many mutations required that it would take decades of manipulation and the result would end up being of one species or another.  \n\nLast year, scientists finally succeeded (reportedly) in the birth of a mouse with two mothers and no father.  It took them many long years, and although published in Science magazine the method is still questioned.