Gene Splicing and Genetic Manipulation

This wil never happen, but you can change human genes replacing them with better human genes to get rid of cancer and make different color eyes and stuff. I' magains this mainly then I saw in a movie our jobs will be based off those genes and that means it won't be fair.

 

Movies don't have anything to do with this star. I would be worried about this kind of stuff if this does happens. Seriously, why would you want to cross a scorpion with a human or a lion, snake, & a lion to make a chimera or have a frog lay a chimera egg to make a basilisk just from this DNA crossing?

 

It's a science movie. Called GATACA, it was made to protest against this, and it's possible, it was in the news a while back that we can swap chimps chromosomes around.

 

I've actually said something similar to this to people at school.

I told them when genetic engineering is perfected and I'm rich, I'll do it to make myself Spider-Man.

 

Which the title is ironically made up of the amino acids/RNA/mRNA (I forgot what they are called) that make up a gene; G, A, T, C (Except for U and M which is more detailed than G,A,T,C)


Doing Biology in school made me think that gene splicing (if perfected) would be a great thing. Imagine having gills to be able to breathe undewater, curing that "werewolf" syndrome (apologies for the incorrect term), and one of my favourites, if you could add chloroplasts to your genes so food would only be a luxury or a night thing as we would get all our nutrients from the sun itself and cease world hunger (unfortunately everyone will be green because of the chloroplasts, unless they are able to alter that with "perfection")

So Gene splicing isn't always a bad thing in this case, sure some people will try to go overboard as SB had mentioned with Chimera's, and the GATACA theme may come to pass (seems pretty extreme though), but if it is used responsibly it may save the world.

 

Yeah we learned that in school, that's why we watched it to earn how eventually our technology can get to thta point. It refers to DNA strands, that's why it's all caps. My teacher said it's some sort of code or something, but I forget what she said what.

 

Actually it's not all caps. And it's spelled Gattaca.

Anyways, it's basically about the future. When a baby is born, doctors can take a sample of it's blood and learn everything: When the person will die, their personality, any genetic diseases they have, etc. Anyways, parents (If they wanted to) could have their child's genetic code altered while still in the womb. And then there are children who don't have their genetic code altered. Very important concept.

By altering people's genetic code before birth, they're basically created for a specific job. But those children aren't allowed to have those types of jobs because their genes aren't specifically made for those jobs. People who's genetic codes weren't messed with get the worse jobs, such as being janitors and whatnot. The movie is about this one person (I'll call him Guy 1) who's genes weren't messed with, and he wanted to be an astronaut. And then there is this other guy (Guy 2), who's genes were messed with before he was born. His genes made him pretty much what everybody in that movie would consider perfect: A better swimmer than Michael Phelps, a genuis, etc.

Anyways, Guy 2 got in an accident. So he and Guy 1 worked together and basically made Guy 1 be Guy 2. They fooled everybody. At the space center where Guy 1 was trying to get on a mission to some moon on Jupiter or Saturn, this one guy is murdered. When examining the crime scene, one of the people find an eyelash from Guy 1. So they're searching for him. Another guy in charge of the space center was questioned by the cops incase he was the murderer. He said he wasn't. He said they could check his DNA and find he doesn't have a single violent bone in his body (Another very important part). In the end, the guy in charge of the space center was found that he did kill the other guy. That is important because it shows that a person's genes doesn't determine everything about them.

Oh, and the city it takes place in is called Gattaca.

 

Just as long as they don't do no DNA crossing in the future, I'll be glad. Besides, We really don't need any of that, do we? I hope not.

 

We will never live in a "Golden Age" and there are always those who try to make it a "Golden Age" advancing in science such as gene manipulation. If we then perfect that gene manipulation, we will then have another crazy idea that involves more advancements to the human body.

I have done this kind of thing with Bacteria; splicing ecoli with something else that makes it immune to disinfectants and it proved itself to work though some tests.
This however is nothing compared to what the REAL scientists are doing. What they are trying to do is able to create the the ideal child for the person who wants a baby. Eventually something like a shop where a customer can ask what baby they want; blue eyes, long straight black hair, medium build etc.
Now a lot are against this with many reasons but one reason I heard was because it will eventually just be creating clones of perfect beings with similar DNA structures and then we won't be able to adapt naturally to our changing environment and eventually become extinct. It's a "Survival of the Fittest" thing that involves more with you and the environment instead of you being the strongest.

 

Like I said, I'm gonna be the next Spider-Man when they perfect it.

Ever seen the movie The 6th Day? It has Arnold (I can't spell his last name. He's the current governer of California). Anyways, it has a company that makes clones of people.

Anyways, the reason I quoted that one part is because I'm going to prove a point. By doing that, we'd be controlling evolution, and basically be playing God with people (In the aspect that we control every aspect of their creation).

 

Ok. This is what I have a problem with DNA crossing. Playing like God. I really will feel ashame to see the world like that, which is why I never want to get caught in the world system. Also, as good as it sounds to have powers, I really might not like it. Remember Rogue from X-Men? She didn't like her powers because she anyone she touches, their powers becomes hers. She mostly didn't like it when she touches those who she loves or likes.

 

That was her specific power. Who's to say anybody would get that power?

 

Well to alter our genes to have some powers like characters from X-Men seem quite surreal. How do we alter it to fire beams from our eyes or conjure up a storm with our hands?
This might be possible with nuclear mutations but obviously would have a harmful side effect and probably won't be done because it's inhumane to give another some sort of harmful disease/s.
The spiderman theory is different, Spiderman is able to do things what a spider can do naturally so therefore a spider itself is able to do these things that Spiderman can do. Climb walls, jump heights and shoot/spin web, but still we are still far off to be able to splice two completely different genes together.

Something we have done is grow an ear on a mouse's back and put a pig hearts into a human body for temporary heart transplants (plus some other things). More strange things we are trying to do involve the food we eat. An example of this is splicing some potato genes into fish, what do we get now, potato flavoured fish or simply fish and chips.

 

But with the powers thing, there are some things in X-Men (And the TV show Heroes) that would be more plausible than the examples you gave. Like super-quick healing. Telepathy. That kind of stuff.