This bit of possibly counter-intuitive finding from The Guardian:
Childhood acute leukaemia, says the highly respected Prof Mel Greaves, is nothing to do with power lines or nuclear fuel reprocessing stations. Nor is it to do with hot dogs and hamburgers or the Vatican radio mast, as have also been suggested. After the best part of a century of speculation, some of it with little basis in science, Greaves – who recently won the Royal Society's prestigious Royal Medal – says the cancer is caused by a combination of genetic mutations and a lack of childhood infection... [P]art of the answer could be to ensure children under the age of one have social contact with others, possibly at daycare centres.
[...] Greaves describes a "triple whammy" that he believes is the cause [of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia]. One in 20 children, he says, are born with a genetic mutation that puts them potentially at risk. But they will be fine if their immune system is properly set up. For that to happen, they must encounter benign bacteria or viruses in their first year of life. Those whose immune systems are not fully functioning because they have not had an early challenge to deal with – and who then later encounter an infection such as a cold or flu – may develop a second genetic mutation that will make them susceptible to the cancer.
Also at Discovery Medicine as "A Paradox of Progress?" and Science Magazine as "Study May Explain Mysterious Cancer - Day Care Connection".
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @04:44AM (5 children)
Screen embryos for the bad mutations and then cull them.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday May 22 2018, @05:17AM (4 children)
I know you're just trolling, but here's the thing: Everyone has a sequence somewhere in their DNA that counts as a "bad mutation" by someone's reckoning. Even if the eugenics leaders were able to accomplish what you are suggesting, we would not get "more people without bad mutations" nor "more people" in any way; the human race would simply die out within a single generation as every single one would be "culled for bad mutations."
Though of course there are some who would like to see this (as an answer to overpopulation or some such nonsense), I am not among them. Just pointing out what happens when thought or reason are applied to your culling protocol.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday May 22 2018, @05:54AM (3 children)
OP may be trolling but we already know how this would work in the real world. If the parents are able to make the decisions, possibly with some counseling from a doctor, they sure as heck will identify a few "bad mutations":
Down Syndrome Births Nearly Eliminated in Iceland [soylentnews.org]
Ohio Bill Would Ban Abortion when a Prenatal Test is Positive for Down Syndrome [soylentnews.org]
No, the human race would not die out. Not everyone will use or want to use these services. But there is a near universal consensus that certain mutations* (or more accurately, genetic disorders resulting from mutations) are bad. Down syndrome is actually one of the more controversial mutations that you could screen out or abort, since it isn't a terminal condition and pushing to eliminate it makes a statement about the supposed inferiority of the sufferers. Yet those Icelandic mothers and many more seem to have made their peace with choosing not to carry Down syndrome babies to term.
Maybe in the near future, we will see baby genomes designed from scratch, including randomized "good and neutral mutations" picked by a computer alongside "designer genes" that influence intelligence, height, attractiveness, innate athleticism, etc. Even that isn't the end of the story because your perfect designer baby could still experience serious mutations that occur during cell division that would need to be fixed by gene therapy.
*Here's some more: trisomy 21, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, Huntington disease
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @10:24AM (2 children)
An evolutionary step forward is usually started by a step backwards - forcing a change in survival strategy and movement into a nearby ecological niche, then refining adaptation to it through series of beneficial mutations (for those bloodlines who are lucky to get them). That is why weeding out "bad" mutations is not such a great thing in the long run. At best, stabilizing the human genome would freeze us in time, like e.g. bees or ants (successful, but with hard limits in development and dispersion, life forms), but it would (well, obviously: will) also freeze us in evolution.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:01PM
I agree with your analysis of mutations. Going on, arguably, your analysis about the "long run" is irrelevant to humans. Evolutionary aspects are not relevant anymore for making decisions today. They take thousands of years to realize innovations. Such time frames will make them be utterly washed away by developments in AI.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:34PM
Shrewdsheep is right. Natural selection is mostly irrelevant to humans. Throughout the 20th century, many diseases that made quick work of humans were conquered, managed, if not eradicated. And people who would not have made it in hunter-gatherer times can survive and reproduce now. Couples who find it difficult to conceive a child now have IVF, surrogates, and other fertility advancements on the table. On the time scale in which natural selection could work again, we will have already gained the power to make sweeping changes to the human genome and survivability using gene editing, and be well on our way to spreading throughout the solar system. That's assuming we don't start a nuclear war (lots of selection pressure there).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday May 22 2018, @06:52AM (2 children)
It's not just leukemia.
Two different biologists, one of them a mother, both told me that babies who are raised in very, very clean homes go on to be sickly children.
Have you ever noticed that toddlers sometimes eat dirt? Their dirt-eating behaviour is speculated to be the result of natural selection. Toddlers who inoculate themselves with the germs found in dirt won't get sick when exposed to those same germs later in life.
My other quite clearly has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder:
"Mom, you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder".
"No Mike. I don't have OCD."
"Then why do you clean so much?"
"I just want to live in a clean house."
I myself was a sickly child. I was close to death from pneumonia when I was two. It wasn't until I left home to go to college that I stopped getting sick all the time.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 22 2018, @01:02PM
Polio.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by noneof_theabove on Tuesday May 22 2018, @01:15PM
GLYPHOSATE !
I'm a mid generation "boomer" and growing up in a new house that was a grain field in the 1960s we ate plenty of dirt.
NOT ANYMORE !
We have sterilized ourselves into extinction.
Do your research.
Glyphosate [round-up] was patented as an antibiotic not a weed killer.
What is happening is that all the "good bacteria" in the soil are being killed off, same as taking antibiotics from the doctor/pharma.
Oh, and that is a conspiracy against humanity as Monsanto produces "fake research" that says Round-UP is not harmful while
there is plenty of evidence it is killing us along with the weeds.
Wait.....we are weeds in the economics of the Autocrats.
(Score: 3, Informative) by opinionated_science on Tuesday May 22 2018, @10:39AM (3 children)
And to add to the general discussion, being born via the birth canal is one major way to get ones immune system primed.
There is some evidence that the increase in apparent allergies is due to the increase in the number of caesarian section births (for whatever reason...).
Unfortunately, have an immune system challenge you *cannot* handle leads to mortality - just read some 19th stats to get a feel for that...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by choose another one on Tuesday May 22 2018, @11:46AM (2 children)
> And to add to the general discussion, being born via the birth canal is one major way to get ones immune system primed.
You would think vaccination would be to, since priming the immune system is what vaccination does, but since most modern kids are vaccinated (several times) "under the age of one"... they can't be working as a primer in that way.
It is possible that it matters a lot exactly how the immune system gets primed and what with - could be that we actually need to risk mortality early on to get an immune system that properly protects from it later.
As regards your theory - after a childhood history of mild(ish) allergies, my immune system is currently trying to kill me in multiple fun ways, probably wasn't primed right, but I _did_ arrive by birth canal. Theory no work - for me.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 22 2018, @01:05PM
Bottom line: the environment we evolved from is still more complex than we understand.
We've made lots of changes, many of them improvements, but we don't really know what we're doing so some changes intended for the better actually turn out worse, especially when you consider the whole of human population and not just the majority.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Tuesday May 22 2018, @05:50PM
Breast feeding enlists the mother's antibodies to protect the baby.