military uses of genetics

[youngbiologist]

link
darpas symposium 2002 presentations

Recently darpa made available the presentations of their 2002 symposium, some of it is very interesting. In particular this one by Dr.Joseph Bielitzki on enhancing human performance.
Presentation

transcript


He mainly talked about increasing the number of hours a human can stay awake before his cognitive ability starts to decrease, increasing healing speed and increasing the amount of energy reserves a human has.

Turns out the doctor is the senior vetrinarian advisor at nasa, don't know why darpa has him working for them. Using genetics from other species is useful, we've already have some experimentation with such things but mainly for curing diseases. Personally I think his three main areas of improvement were lame, two of them could be solved with everyday pharmaceutical meds and additional candy bars. Seriously, how many soldiers died in desert storm from starvation? And he also talks about regulating mitochondria of the soldiers, thats kinda dumb. What he doesn't say anything about is using real gene therapy. Okay, so we got a gene that will improve a soldier, but what about when he leaves the service? Do we have to remove it? What if we can't? And how will the soldier feel after hes been "declawed"? Not to mention the nightmare of a super soldier falling into enemy hands, all they need to do is take the soldiers dna so they can make their own super soldiers.


I guess you could try to hide the supergenes, but it would be tricky....


Anyone here got some ideas of future military genetics? I have alot that I've looked into for feasability, but I'd rather stay hush hush on some of them. One idea I've already talked about is looking into increasing the signaling speed of neurons by making them have large axons such as those in squid. You would probably need more glial cells and more myelin cells for the increased cell area that they have to insulate, but overall it should increase reflexes. Hell, I just can't believe that with all he COULD have been talking about he mentions such lame topics. Forgot "modulating" the mitochondria, just grow custom embryonic stem cell banks with genetic enhancements and the "good" mitochondira". Then you just need to inject the stem cells into thef muscle tissue for each soldier, and the new genes and mitochondria get to work.

Actually that brings up another question, why the heck isn't the military giving out human growth hormone during basic training camp, it would dramatically increase the muscle mass each soldier developes.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

Originally posted by youngbiologist
Actually that brings up another question, why the heck isn't the military giving out human growth hormone during basic training camp, it would dramatically increase the muscle mass each soldier developes.

because it has serious side effects and a good soldier is actually not a beefy one, but one who actually aims his gun at the enemy and pulls the trigger, instead of randomly shooting and hiding most of the time.

yes indeed, the limits of a good soldier are not so much in the physical, but in the mental area. That's why most soldier lost their combat effectiveness after spending a certain amount of time at the frontline. That's why you have to pull troops out of the frontline once in a while and let them recooperate. Not because they are so tired physically, but they are bloody shell shocked and need a mental break. This has been well documented. The effectivenes of any group will be reduced dramatically if they stay at the frontline too long.
Also there is a tendency that experienced soldiers will loose the edge. When they first go into battle they often think that nothing can happen to them. Later this changes into the opposite. They will become more careful. That may sound good, but often you rather have careless soldiers than careful ones. For instance when the allied forces landed at the beaches of Normadie. All american forces were very green in a way and eager. That might have been the right attitude to storm a heavily protected beach.

end rant

 

[youngbiologist]

HGH

HGH does not have serious sideeffects, only in people with high risk for cancer is it dangerous. When weight-lifters use huge amounts of it, it can cause diabeties but thats easily preventable by better rationing.