Santorum was right. It's all a liberal conspiracy! Can man/dog hybrids be far behind?

So how long until this becomes a plot point in a harem anime?

Meh. Roughly equivalent to someone receiving a liver transplant from a non-relative being told that he or she now has four parents.

Nessus finds this idea amusing.

/can the fleet of worlds be far behind?

So anybody who has undergone gene therapy as an adult for a genetic problem now has a third parent? If a retrovirus inserts itself into my genome, is HIV my second daddy now? Seriously, people, finish high school biology before you write articles on this topic.

I do think some serious r&d should be done before even considering implementing something like this in a human. The potential is great, but at this stage of the game I highly doubt that we know enough about the interactions between nuclear and mitochondrial DNA to make this risk free. Still, don't shut it down by motivating the arm-draggers with this "third parent" catchphrase followed by a picture of a glaring scientist.

It is only logical that such a thing should come to pass.

"Julius and Vincent Benedict are fraternal twins; the results of a secret experiment carried out at a genetics laboratory to produce the perfect child, using sperm donated by six different fathers."

Still no word on babies with three asses.

phlegmmo: Scientists are eager to do anything they think they can -- simply to demonstrate it's possible. Whether it should be done or not doesn't enter the picture.

This sounds familiar. Wasn't this a Star Trek TNG episode?

ApatheticMonkey: This sounds familiar. Wasn't this a Star Trek TNG episode?

It was how the Tenctonese reproduced on "Alien Nation". Was also the plot of the Enterprise episode "Cogenitor".

GAT_00: It is far too easy to abuse.

It's a lesser risk than parenting, which is the easiest abuse. Lonely? Deluded? Want to make sure your boyfriend doesn't leave you? Feeling old? Have a kid! Have Ten! How does calculated science compare to a kid with mentally or physically crippling traits, produced from two people who can't grasp the concept of a Punnett square? Farmers, dog breeders, your parents, they're all genetic engineers.

Grant Morrison predicted that in the future the triplet will replace the couple as the basic emotional groupage for humans.

Male-Male-Female triples
Male-Female-Female ones.
Male-Male-Male (Think of that Guttenberg, Selleck and Danson movie)
Female-Female-Female

Even more when you get into sexual orientation:

Hetero male - Bisexual female - Homo female (Think of the recycling symbol with the man farking woman 1, then woman 1 performing cunnilingus on woman 2 and woman 2 and man kissing)
Homo male - Bisexual male - Hetero female (Think of human sexual centipede)
Hetero male - Hetero female - Hetero female (I think that'd be the ideal setup for current hetero males)

GAT_00: I severely distrust genetic engineering in general. It is far too easy to abuse.

It's a good thing that most people who hold your ancient views are old and dying out. The next generation wont be shackled with your old-fashioned beliefs.

Scientists =/= engineers, subby. I understand that TFA uses "scientists", but that's a reporter. We're actually literate around here.

designer ladies?

GAT_00: ISO15693: GAT_00: I severely distrust genetic engineering in general. It is far too easy to abuse.

It's a good thing that most people who hold your ancient views are old and dying out. The next generation wont be shackled with your old-fashioned beliefs.

In other news, you have no idea how old I am. Hint: Reagan was President when I was born.

He didn't say YOU were old, but that your views are ancient and that most people who hold them true are dying. Which is well...true.

The modern and future generations will be more acceptant of implants, genetic engineering and transhumanism.

phlegmmo: Scientists are eager to do anything they think they can -- simply to demonstrate it's possible. Whether it should be done or not doesn't enter the picture.

Not really. This is a mischaracterization perpetuated by people who have never seen science from the inside, and think that far more things are inherently riskier than they really are, or what the potential applications that may result down the road from even the most esoteric research.

I can think of plenty of things that would be inherently interesting to do as experiments, and that would give us all sorts of valuable information, but as a human being with morals and ethics I'd never even consider doing them.

That and we have oversight and ethics committees to approve anything involving people and animals which tend to be very conservative and hypersensitive about any potential repercussions.

GAT_00: That may not be the worst idea ever, but I severely distrust genetic engineering in general. It is far too easy to abuse.

True but this is a pretty specific application. The human mitochondrial genome only contains 35 genes, 22 of which are for tRNAs and only 13 of which code for proteins. All of which are subunits of the electron-transport chain complexes. The risk in this case isn't so much for abuse as it is for potentially setting a precedent if appropriate guidelines and regulations weren't put into place first, and making sure that the techniques used were 100% accurate in terms of gene replacement, and that the resulting mitochondrial genome was as stable as the wild-type.

Proctalgia: I do think some serious r&d should be done before even considering implementing something like this in a human. The potential is great, but at this stage of the game I highly doubt that we know enough about the interactions between nuclear and mitochondrial DNA to make this risk free. Still, don't shut it down by motivating the arm-draggers with this "third parent" catchphrase followed by a picture of a glaring scientist.

In humans I think we do, at least from the mitochondrial genome perspective. It's tiny and we know exactly what all of the genes do. Plus replacing a defective copy with one from another human isn't going to actually affect biological function abnormally in any way. It can't alter gene regulation negatively, protein-protein interactions, transcription, or translation except to restore them to normal.

I can see your point when it comes to trying to optimize, tweak, or radically alter function in human genomes in all but the simplest cases. But this would be a relatively simple gene therapy case with a fairly ideal situation. The mitochondrial genome being so small and well-studied. 13 protein coding genes, most of which are parts of like 3 or 4 complexes.

How many parents can you have???

Male DNA donor
Female DNA donor
Male Sperm donor
Female Egg donor
Surrogate mother
Adoptive mother
Adoptive father

You can also get a genetic engineer to restructure the donor DNA with other donors/samples.

How am I doing so far?

Came for the Alien Nation reference, leaving satisfied.

That's cool. I look forward to GATTACA in my lifetime.

TFA is filled with fail. Mitochondrial DNA belongs to a symbiotic organism, and is not strictly 'human' in the sense that our nuclear DNA is. Therefore, porting mitochondrial DNA from a donor to a recipient is not strictly porting 'human' DNA.

As for the 'danger' involved, it sounds to me like the condition is plenty dangerous by itself. If parents are willing it to risk the alleged dangers of the treatment to advance research and possibly get a healthy baby, then I think it's a bit heavy for the government to forbid it.

CravenMorehead: Santorum was right. It's all a liberal conspiracy! Can man/dog hybrids be far behind?

There are already man-pig chimeras that produce human blood and insulin.

And man-sheep chimeras with human-like livers and hearts.

And man-mouse chimeras with all kinds of human cells inside them.

Why not man-dogs?

StoneColdAtheist: Why not man-dogs?

How to be your own best friend?

Sylvia_Bandersnatch: StoneColdAtheist: Why not man-dogs?

How to be your own best friend?

That's nothing like sheep shagging, is it? Because if it is, I'm not going there.

/besides, I don't live in Florida

UsikFark: Farmers, dog breeders, your parents, they're all genetic engineers.

What a naive thing to say. Certainly you understand that scientists with the right equipment can do things that are impossible without it?

God created us because he was lonely and he wanted some friends to hang out with.

Bennie Crabtree: Certainly you understand that scientists with the right equipment can do things that are impossible without it?

It's not naive. I'm probably agreeing with you, anyways.

Farmers selected traits for thousands of years to turn dull plants into something that looked like corn, wheat, marijuana- not kidding. In the last 50 years or so they've done the same, using hybrids, GM, and chemicals.

Thousands of years ago, people kept around obedient, friendly canines, which bred with others to form modern dogs. Recently, they did the same thing with foxes, and virtually turned a wild animal into a very dog-like pet in five generations through selective breeding.

IDK about your parents, but it's unlikely they were selected for breeding by someone who's putting thought and research into visible genetic traits, let alone inherited and dominant/recessive genes.

We all do genetic engineering, think of it as a basic mixing experiment in a farm field or a uterus. But people are worried about "unnatural" creation in a lab, even though the scientist with a pipette has better training, knowledge, and tools than a teen with a dick.

what's the worst thing that can happen?.

Honestly, if you knew how many deformed genetic mutants and severely retarded people were born every year. getting a couple hundred rejects before the process was perfected would seem like a minimal risk.

eeizbee: what's the worst thing that can happen?

Babies who carry all of the allergy-inducing proteins in their skin cells?

CravenMorehead: Santorum was right. It's all a liberal conspiracy! Can man/dog hybrids be far behind?

Link (new window)

phlegmmo: Scientists are eager to do anything they think they can -- simply to demonstrate it's possible. Whether it should be done or not doesn't enter the picture.

Science isn't about why, it's about why not. You ask: why is so much of our science dangerous? I say: why not marry safe science if you love it so much. In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won't hit you in the butt on the way out, because you are fired.

Science should only be between a man and a woman as God intended.

Wow, it's going to be hard to divide the Holidays 3 ways...

One hot parent, one smart parent, one strong parent?

/Hideous weakling retard baby comes out. You can't explain that.
//But you can sue the lab of course.