Raising the Neanderthals: scientism and playing God
February 26, 2013 (Breakpoint.org) – In 1856, workers at a German quarry found some bones in a cave. They took the bones to a local teacher, Johan Karl Fuhlrott. To Fuhlrott, while the bones appeared human, they were unlike those of any living European. Eventually, scientists concluded that the bones belong to an extinct species of hominid which they named after the place where the bones were found: the Neander River Valley, or Neanderthal in German. Paleontologists estimate that Homo neanderthalensis were extinct no later than 25,000 years ago. Yet if one scientist has his way, Neanderthals could make a comeback. George Church [...]
Categories: Uncategorized Tags: genome, neanderthal, Neanderthal Baby, whole genome sequencing
Leading Geneticist: Human Intelligence is Slowly Declining
Would you be surprised to hear that the human race is slowly becoming dumber, and dumber? Despite our advancements over the last tens or even hundreds of years, some ‘experts’ believe that humans are losing cognitive capabilities and becoming more emotionally unstable. One Stanford University researcher and geneticist, Dr. Gerald Crabtree, believes that our intellectual decline as a race has much to do with adverse genetic mutations. But human intelligence is suffering for other reasons as well. According to Crabtree, our cognitive and emotional capabilities are fueled and determined by the combined effort of thousands of genes. If a mutation [...]
Previously unknown human population boom revealed by DNA: Massive expansion occurred 40,000 years ago
Scientists guess that baby boom occurred as our ancestors adapted to life away from the coasts By Damien Gayle PUBLISHED: 14:27 GMT, 31 October 2012 | UPDATED: 14:27 GMT, 31 October 2012 DNA sequencing has revealed a previously unknown human population boom between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago, a new study claims. The sequencing of the Y chromosomes from 36 men has revealed a ten-fold increase in the number of genetic markers nearly 20,000 years after our ancestors first left Africa. Scientists believe the expansion could have occurred as our ancestors adapted to more rugged environments, allowing them to spread [...]
Colorado Researchers Say DNA Proves Bigfoot Is Real
Bigfoot is real. That’s according to a group of Colorado researchers who say they have hard evidence proving its existence. Researcher Dave Paulides is convinced the reality of Bigfoot isn’t as fuzzy as the photos from people who claim to have seen the mythological creature. “This DNA is like nothing else in the world,” Paulides said. Paulides says Bigfoot looks approximately 7 to 8 feet tall and weighs in at a whopping 800 to 1,000 pounds. “It’s easy to say a lot of things are crazy. If you lived underground your whole life, the belief that 400 [...]
Neanderthal Baby Momma Ad Denied
Yesterday, DNews ran the article, Surrogate Mother Wanted for Neanderthal Baby. In it, we told you that Harvard professor of genetics, George Church, proposed finding an “extremely adventurous female human” to serve as a surrogate mother for a cloned Neanderthal baby. Since that article ran, Church has come out saying that’s not what he meant, exactly. He blames the misinterpretation on the poor translation of an interview with him that appeared in the German magazine, Der Spiegel. “I’m certainly not advocating it,” Church told the Boston Herald. “I’m saying, if it is technically possible someday, we need to start talking [...]
Categories: Uncategorized Tags: Homosapien, Human Genome, human genome sequencing, neanderthal, Neanderthal Baby, whole genome sequencing
DNA map offers hope on cancer treatments
Cancer will become a manageable disease rather than a death sentence thanks to a revolutionary treatment which will be available within five years, British specialists predict. All patients will soon have their tumour’s DNA, its genetic code, sequenced, enabling doctors to ensure they give exactly the right drugs to keep the disease at bay. Doctors hope it will be an important step towards transforming some types of cancer into a chronic rather than fatal disease. The technique could enable terminally ill patients, who can currently expect to live only months, to carry on for a decade or more in relatively [...]
It’s Alive! Artificial Life Springs From Manmade DNA
ANALYSIS: It’s Alive! Artificial Life Springs from Manmade DNA A paragraph from his book, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves,” clarifies his idea. Church explains that genetic engineering gives researchers a way to start with an intact genome of an animal and change it to the genome of another animal. You could start with an elephant’s genome, for example, and change it into that of a mammoth’s. “The same technique would work for the Neanderthal,” he writes, “except that you’d start with a stem cell genome from a human adult and gradually reverseengineer it into the Neanderthal [...]
Could a Surrogate Mother Deliver a Neanderthal Baby?
In a controversial interview that has ignited commentary across the world, a respected Harvard professor of genetics has suggested an “extremely adventurous female human” might someday serve as surrogate mother for a cloned Neanderthal baby. Besides saying that the cloning of a live Neanderthal baby would be possible in our lifetime, George Church told Der Spiegel magazine that using stem cells to create a Neanderthal could have significant benefits to society. “The first thing you have to do is to sequence the Neanderthal genome, and that has actually been done,” Church said. “The next step would be to chop this [...]
‘Adventurous’ Woman Needed as Surrogate for Neanderthal Baby
‘Adventurous’ Woman Needed as Surrogate for Neanderthal Baby Are you an adventurous human woman? Adventurous enough to be a surrogate mother for the first Neanderthal baby to be born in 30,000 years? Harvard geneticist George Church recently told Der Spiegel he’s close to developing the necessary technology to clone a Neanderthal, at which point all he’d need is an “adventurous human woman” — einen abenteuerlustigen weiblichen Menschen — to act as a surrogate mother. It’s not out of the question at all. As MIT Technology Review‘s Susan Young points out, scientists cloned an extinct subspecies of ibex in 2009. It [...]
The Human Genome and how it works
A colossal international effort has yielded the first comprehensive look at how our DNA works, an encyclopedia of information that will rewrite the textbooks and offer new insights into the biology of disease. For one thing, it may help explain why some people are more prone to common ailments such as high blood pressure and heart disease. The findings, reported Wednesday by more than 500 scientists, reveal extraordinarily complex networks that tell our genes what to do and when, with millions of on-off switches. “It’s this incredible choreography going on, of a modest number of genes and an [...]