BIZARRE GENETICALLY ENGINEERED ORGANISMS

AS MAN "PLAYS GOD", HE CREATES SOME VERY WILD, OFTEN UNIMAGINABLE "NEW" ORGANISMS, LIKE, OH, "SCORPION CABBAGES" THAT CONTAIN SCORPION DNA WHICH PRODUCES SCORPION VENOM IN THE CABBAGES, WHICH CAUSE ALL ATTACKING INSECTS TO CONVULSE TO DEATH, BUT WHICH IS SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.

YOU MAY HAVE MY CABBAGES, THANKS. 

FDA APPROVED HUMAN DNA IN FOODS

USDA Backs Production of Rice With Human Genes
FROM THE WASHINGTON POST

 "The Agriculture Department has given a preliminary green light for the first commercial production of a food crop engineered to contain human genes, reigniting fears that biomedically potent substances in high-tech plants could escape and turn up in other foods.

The plan, confirmed yesterday by the California biotechnology company leading the effort, calls for large-scale cultivation in Kansas of rice that produces human immune system proteins in its seeds." 

I'LL BE INTERESTED TO SEE HOW THIS PLAYS OUT.

THE ABSOLUTE LEADER IN BIO-ENGINEERING, GENETIC MANIPULATION, IN MY OPINION, HAS BEEN AND MAYBE ALWAYS WILL BE OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, BY MEANS OF 'DARPA' AND A FEW OTHERS. 

DARPA SCARES THE HELL OUT OF ME. 

CREATING THE SUPER SOLDIER
IN THE 2013 DARPA BUDGET <CLICK HERE AND GO TO 2013>, 
DARPA "sets aside $44.5 million to develop “biological systems that 
cross multiple scales of biological architecture and function, from the 
molecular and genetic level.” 

The goal is to enhance the soldier’s abilities in a warzone.

HOW?
Their Human Assisted Neural Devices program  (on page 70 of the 
budget, if you want to look), sets a goal to 
“Determine whether networks of neurons can be differentially 
modulated through optogenetic neural stimulation in animal models.”

 Optogenetics is an obscure branch of neuroscience that is used to, 
we kid you not, “manipulate neuronal activity and to control animal 
behaviour.”

OPTOGENETICS CAN PRODUCE SOME WILD RESULTS!

"Optogenetic approaches have been used to map neural circuits in the amygdala that contribute to fear conditioning." 

SO, NO MORE FEAR? 

USING OPTOGENETICS, ONE IS "able to control the activity of the dopaminergic terminals that innervate medium spiny neurons (MSNs) in the nucleus accumbens. These accumbal MSNs are known to be involved in the neural pathway through which cocaine exerts its effects."

AND THEY CAN BE "HOPPED-UP", MAYBE LIKE THOSE OLD "BERSERKERS"?

OPTOGENETICS ALSO ALLOWS "complete green light-induced silencing of spontaneous activity in the same prefrontal cortical neuronal population expressing an AAV-NpHR vector..."

THAT IS, IT CONTROLS ACTIVITY IN THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX OF THE BRAIN, AND CAN TURN OFF SPONTANEOUS ACTION THERE.

TOTAL CONTROL?

WELL, EVENTUALLY....READ MORE <HERE> , "An optogenetic toolbox designed for primates"

[PSSST! HUMANS ARE PRIMATES!]

OR, READ THIS... "Detection of Optogenetic Stimulation in 

Somatosensory Cortex by Non-Human Primates - 

Towards Artificial Tactile Sensation"

DARPA PLANNED TO HAVE A "DEMONSTRATION" OF THIS

"SUPER WARRIOR" IN A NON-HUMAN PRIMATE TO SHOW US 

IN 2013. 

By eliminating empathy, the Department of Defense (DoD) hopes to “enhance” a soldier’s ability to “kill without care or remorse, shows no fear, can fight battle after battle without fatigue and generally behave more like a machine than a man.”

Scientists are researching the construction of soldiers that feel no pain, terror and do not suffer from fatigue as tests on the wiring of the human brain are furthered by Jonathan Moreno, professor of bioethics at Pennsylvania State University. Moreno is working with the DoD in understanding neuroscience. The Pentagon allocated $400 million to this research.

LIKE I SAID, NOTHING TOPS DARPA, BUT HERE ARE A FEW OTHER GENETICALLY MODIFIED ODDITIES...

1~ "SPIDER GOATS" (GENETICALLY MANIPULATED WITH SPIDER DNA) WHICH GIVE MILK FULL OF SPIDER SILK, WHICH MILK IS THEN FILTERED TO REMOVE THE SILK.

WHY?
BECAUSE "harvesting enough silk requires tens of thousands of spiders and a lot of waiting time, not to mention the fact that spiders tend to kill other spiders in their territory, so you can’t farm them." 

HOW? 
"Professor Randy Lewis, of the University of Wyoming, isolated the genes that produce dragline silk, the strongest type of silk spiders use when they anchor their webs (most spiders produce six different types of silk). Then he spliced the genes with the genes used by goats to produce milk, mated that goat, and confirmed that three of the seven baby goats retained the silk-producing gene." 

2~ "CHICKEN HUMANS"
REAL CHICKENS INFUSED WITH HUMAN, YES, HUMAN DNA.

WHY?
"TO HELP FIGHT CANCER"
British researcher Helen Sang has developed chickens infused with human DNA that contains proteins that can fight skin cancer. 
Using farm animals to produce drugs is potentially faster, cheaper and more efficient than current industrial methods.  

HOW? 
THE ANSWER IS INSUFFICIENT, FOR ME, BUT...
"Human proteins are secreted into the whites of their eggs. Dr Sang used the chickens in place of the industrial bio-reactors. She modified the gene in the hens that produces ovalbumin - a protein that makes up more than half of egg whites - so that it also produced specific medicinal proteins. 

WHAT HAPPENS IF THE EGGS BECOME "CHICKS"? 
WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE? 
WHAT DO THE HUMAN PROTEINS DO TO A CHICKEN'S SYSTEM?
STILL TRYING TO FIND ANSWERS  TO THOSE QUESTIONS.

3~ "HUMAN COWS"
COWS WHICH HAVE CLONED HUMAN GENES SPLICED IN WHEN THEY ARE EMBRYOS SO THEY CAN BE USED TO PRODUCE "HUMAN" BREAST MILK.

WHY?
"Their plan is to develop a genetically modified alternative to baby formula which can be given to infants."

HOW? 
Their method involved cloning human genes and mixing them with the DNA in a cow embryo. The embryo was then implanted into a female cow.

Scientists in China have already spliced human genes into more than 200 cows in an attempt to make them produce human breast milk. And it worked. According to Ning Li, who’s in charge of the research, all 200 cows are now producing milk identical to the milk produced by a lactating human mother.

Helen Wallace, director of GeneWatch UK, a biotechnology monitoring group, said: ''We have major concerns about this research. There are welfare issues with genetically modified animals as you get high numbers of stillbirths.

''There is a question about whether milk from these cows is going to be safe for humans and it is really hard to tell that unless you do large clinical trials like you would with a drug.''

4~ "HUMANIZED PIGS" 
BRED SPECIFICALLY TO HAVE THEIR HUMAN-LIKE ORGANS REMOVED AND TRANSPLANTED INTO HUMAN PATIENTS.

WHY? 
For xenotransplantation—transplanting organs across species—which has been a problem for pig-to-human transfers because of a specific enzyme that pigs have, but which is rejected by human bodies.
THAT 'BOTHERSOME' ENZYME IS BEING BRED OUT OF THESE PIGS. 

HOW? 
"A team of scientists led by Randall Prather of the University of Missouri in Columbia created four cloned piglets in which one copy of the sugar-producing gene was "knocked out" (an organism receives two copies of a gene, one from the mother and one from the father). The piglets were born in September and October. A description of the work was published online by the journal Science. 

Earlier this week, PPL Therapeutics PLC of Scotland, the company that helped clone Dolly the sheep, announced the birth of five cloned piglets that also lack a copy of the sugar-producing gene. 

Prather's team at the University of Missouri and his colleagues at Immerge BioTherapeutics Inc. in Charlestown, Massachusetts, genetically altered fetal pig cells, which were used to create embryo clones. Of 3,000 genetically modified pig embryos that were implanted into 28 surrogate sows, only seven piglets were born, three of which died later.

The cloning of Dolly almost five years ago raised expectations of creating identical, genetically modified organs for transplantation into humans. The cloning of genetically modified piglets brings scientists closer to their goal of "xenotransplantation"—the transfer of cells and organs from one species into another."  

I SERIOUSLY DOUBT ANY OF THE PIGS, SHEEP, COWS, GOATS, ETC, ARE WILLING SUBJECTS.

OH, WAIT...THEY CAN'T TELL US THAT...CAN THEY?

AND WHO GIVES A DAMN AMONG THOSE DOING THIS "STELLAR RESEARCH" WHETHER OR NOT THIS IS ETHICAL, HUMANE, RIGHT? 

NO HUMANS...

5~ "HUMAN EAR MOUSE"

YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS ONE TO BELIEVE IT: 

THE STORY IS ON BBC <HERE>

BUILT ON LIVING MICE AND RATS ON A TITANIUM PLATFORM... 

AND THEN THE ANIMAL IS KILLED...  

CREATING A SUPER RACE? 

DESIGNER BABIES.

CRISPR-Cas9 Gene-Editing Technology In Patent Dispute - What Could This Technique Do?  

This method of altering the genetic codes of human beings could be used for purposes many people consider to be unethical.

A new gene-editing technique could allow the creation of designer babies. 

Now, courts may decide who controls the rights to the technology.

In January 2015, researchers in China announced they had designed primate embryos with desired hereditary traits. Geneticists were able to alter the gender of the primate, along with genes related to immune system functions and metabolism.

Three months later, scientists in that nation began experiments on human embryos for the first time, attempting to eliminate beta thalassemia, a form of blood disease, from the developing organisms. While some of these tests were successful, others resulted in mutations in the embryos. The embryos used in the study were each fertilized by two sperms, meaning they could never have developed into full-fledged babies.

TO ME, WE'VE GONE TOO FAR... 

WE'VE CREATED DOGS AND CATS AND RABBITS THAT GLOW IN THE DARK, IN COLORS OF YOUR CHOICE...GREEN, BLUE..."JUST FOR FUN".

IN JAPAN, "RESEARCHERS" SIMPLY TOSS VARIOUS DNA FROM SEVERAL OTHER ANIMALS AND PLANTS INTO MICE, STAND BACK AND JUST RECORD WHAT HAPPENS. 

"It’s part of the Evolved Mouse Project, a Japanese research project that’s taking a brute force approach to genetic engineering—they’re modifying mice, letting them breed, and just sort of noting down the results." 

THEY GOT A "SINGING MOUSE" FROM THAT, SINGS LIKE A BIRD. 

DO YOU SEE HOW QUICKLY THAT RANDOM AND THAT UNREGULATED AN "EXPERIMENT" CAN GO WRONG? 

WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S BEING DONE IN THE FIELD OF GENETIC ENGINEERING, NEITHER HERE IN AMERICA OR ABROAD.

WHAT NEXT?