China's western Shaanxi Province is known for rugged windswept terrain and its coal and wool, but not necessarily its science. Yet at the Shaanxi Provincial Engineering and Technology Research Center for Shaanbei Cashmere Goats, scientists have just created a new kind of goat, with bigger muscles and longer hair than normal. The goats were made not by breeding but by directly manipulating animal DNA—a sign of how rapidly China has embraced a global gene-changing revolution.
Geneticist Lei Qu wants to increase goatherd incomes by boosting how much meat and wool each animal produces. For years research projects at his lab in Yulin, a former garrison town along the Great Wall, stumbled along, Qu's colleagues say. "The results were not so obvious, although we had worked so many years," his research assistant, Haijing Zhu, wrote in an e-mail.
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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is planning to lift its moratorium on chimeric embryo research:
The National Institutes of Health is proposing a new policy to permit scientists to get federal money to make embryos, known as chimeras, under certain carefully monitored conditions. The NIH imposed a moratorium on funding these experiments in September because they could raise ethical concerns.
[...] [Scientists] hope to use the embryos to create animal models of human diseases, which could lead to new ways to prevent and treat illnesses. Researchers also hope to produce sheep, pigs and cows with human hearts, kidneys, livers, pancreases and possibly other organs that could be used for transplants.
To address the ethical concerns, the NIH's new policy imposes several restrictions. The policy prohibits the introduction of any human cells into embryos of nonhuman primates, such as monkeys and chimps, at their early stages of development. Previously, the NIH wouldn't allow such experiments that involved human stem cells but it didn't address the use of other types of human cells that scientists have created. In addition, the old rules didn't bar adding the cells very early in embryonic development. The extra protections are being added because these animals are so closely related to humans. But the policy would lift the moratorium on funding experiments involving other species. Because of the ethical concerns, though, at least some of the experiments would go through an extra layer of review by a new, special committee of government officials.
You can submit a response to the proposal here up until the end of the day on September 4.
Related: NIH Won't Fund Human Germline Modification
U.S. Congress Moves to Block Human Embryo Editing
China's Bold Push into Genetically Customized Animals
Human-Animal Chimeras are Gestating on U.S. Research Farms
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2015, @10:09PM
We are already doing this in the U.S. extensively with crops. Why not livestock as well? I think as global human population continue to rise, genetically modified animals will essentially be necessary to continue feeding everyone. The U.S. needs get over their hang ups pretty quickly or else we risk falling behind the rest of the world in this genetic revolution.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 26 2015, @01:09AM
The US has far less hangups than does China in this regard.
http://www.fda.gov/animalveterinary/developmentapprovalprocess/geneticengineering/geneticallyengineeredanimals/ [fda.gov]
Why do I get the feeling that both you and the Chinese come down on the other side of this issue when the conversation turns to GMO Corn?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @02:21AM
We should skip the "genetic revolution" all together and be decades ahead in growing tissue from scratch. We already do so for medical purposes. Imagine warehouses where delicious filet mignon is grown like sod. Acre sized slabs a foot thick fed from the top via nutrient spray and a waste water deposition system at the bottom.
Huge fields of cultured bacon! What kind of patriot would deny that American Manifest Destiny! That is clearly far superior to the communist solution of hairy, muscly goats.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2015, @10:47PM
Greatest Of All Time Goat
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Wednesday November 25 2015, @11:08PM
China is doing mad (cool) science. Meanwhile we get:
Do We Need an Ethics of Self-organizing Tissue? [soylentnews.org]
Mitochondrial DNA Manipulation and Ethics [soylentnews.org]
Sex With Robots: the Debate [soylentnews.org]
Should Human Stem Cells Be Used To Make Partly Human Chimeras? [npr.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Gravis on Wednesday November 25 2015, @11:30PM
it's all cool science... until you make it into the most devastating weapon. nuclear physics is cool... nuclear bombs, not so much. genetic engineering is cool... a dormant STD that makes group-of-people-someone-doesn't-like bleed out, not so much.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 26 2015, @12:42AM
I will side with the scientists, not the ethicists. Virtually all of the scientists in question follow some kind of ethical guidelines. Those that don't can be punished after the fact if necessary.
Do not believe the scary engineered plague doomsday scenarios. They are overblown, and a little population reduction would not hurt the planet anyway.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Thursday November 26 2015, @01:16AM
Do not believe the scary engineered plague doomsday scenarios. They are overblown,
based on what? you think everyone is just going to agree to not commit genocide? the sad fact is that genocide happens regularly, it's just that it's ineffective. however, i would expect the plague to be more insidious and instead of killing them, it would make them a carrier of the disease and result in infertile offspring. it could go decades before being detected and by then it would be too late for an entire generation.
a little population reduction would not hurt the planet anyway.
sure... but losing 85% of the population would be devastating to the human race.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @01:37AM
genocide, ineffective, by what measure? Certainly, in the US and Canada, it was rather effective...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @02:29AM
Backpedaling so fast that you could be put on a treadmill and run an Amazon server farm off the electricity generated.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 26 2015, @02:48AM
Too bad everything I said is 100% true.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @03:29AM
> I will side with the scientists, not the ethicists.
That is literally the scariest thing I've ever read on Soylent or Slashdot. At best it is staggeringly myopic.
> Virtually all of the scientists in question follow some kind of ethical guidelines.
Not all guidelines are created equal. You should be especially suspicious of corporate designed ethical guidelines because those are not about what's best for people but what's sufficient for the corporation to win, or at least minimize losses, in court. That sort of legalistic loophole seeking doesn't even deserve to be called ethics -- "CYA guidelines" is a lot closer to the truth.
> a little population reduction would not hurt the planet anyway.
Wow. I think someone with that callous of an attitude towards the well being of so many people is simply incapable of having an informed opinion about ethics.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @01:08AM
Right, at least the Chinese haven't nuked anyone. About the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Admiral William F. Halsey said [google.com] that "the first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment." Something called the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission [wikipedia.org] was formed, to study the survivors. I wonder: was knowledge about the bombs' effects on people a motivation for dropping them?
People were injected [wikipedia.org] with radionuclides, among them plutonium, as part of the Manhattan Project. Soldiers were brought to the vicinity of above-ground nuclear explosions. Civilians exposed to the fallout were provided with disinformation.
About STDs: In Guatemala between 1945 and 1956, U.S. researchers [news-medical.net] deliberately infected [theguardian.com] human subjects with syphilis, gonorrhea and other diseases, to test [nature.com] the effectiveness of penicillin. The victims were not told that they were being experimented upon.
There was also the Tuskegee [wikipedia.org] experiment, in which sham treatment [cdc.gov] was given to people who had contracted syphilis on their own.
Wikipedia has a page about unethical human experimentation in the United States [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Insightful) by dyingtolive on Wednesday November 25 2015, @11:41PM
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday November 26 2015, @12:59AM
You do know that that line was there just to hand-wave away why people smart enough to reincarnate dinos weren't quite bright enough to safely store them, right? "Life will find a way" is another one. Remeber "I know this system"...? Same thing.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 26 2015, @01:03AM
To ethicists and proponents of restricting science, Jurassic Park is a documentary film series, not blockbuster entertainment.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @02:24AM
Brilliance is a non-fungible resource. Being good at one thing does not make you good at another. I'd think computer scientists, engineers, and physicists would have learned their lesson when trying to find a mate in highschool, but arrogance dies hard.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 26 2015, @12:21AM
This from the same country that Bans US Beef since 2003 [beefmagazine.com], and Pork since 2009 [bloomberg.com] and Corn since 2014 [bloomberg.com] - since partially reversed, and Chickens [thepoultrysite.com] - due to avian flu which was transmitted to US from China).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @02:32AM
Haven't figured it out? China cares about China and nothing else. They will and do pollute the seas and air. They will and do poison both foreigners and their own people. They will and do bully other nations, break treaties, and do whatever else they believe they can get away with. In China's world the only thing that matters is China. Truth, reasoning, fairness, morality, or alliances are tools to be abused at best.
(Score: 1) by ksarka on Thursday November 26 2015, @07:04AM
:%s/China/United States of America/g
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday November 26 2015, @06:03PM
Yeah, both are pretty much true. China is (historically) a bit more insular. Even the Monroe Doctrine was less insular than China's normal stance. Of coures, China includes more people than anyone else, so perhaps insular isn't the correct term.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @12:33AM
I found the perp.
http://images.clipartof.com/small/1251781-Clipart-Of-A-Black-And-White-Muscular-Ram-Running-Upright-Royalty-Free-Vector-Illustration.jpg/ [clipartof.com]