Transgenic fish go large
- Thread starter Michael
- Start date
No frenching GM humans. Duh...
Also, avoid clones. Trust me on this one- they are bad news.
Look at this cow.
Hey check this new transgenic rainbow trout that expresses a myostatin inhibitor After two years, most exhibited “body-builder” physiques with “six-pack abs” even though fish lack standard abdominal muscles.
Apparently One in 1 million humans (yeah, not sure if I buy that number) has low expression of myostatin inhibitor (and injecting it can counter muscle wasting in age!)
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New Thought Experiment: trans-Soylent Green
Suppose we grow a transgenic HUMAN without a brain, let's say it's fed with a tube and grows at 10 times the rate being fed pure human waste product. From the toilet to the tube (one tube in, one tube out, meat in the middle). Suppose the meat tastes fine, even delicious, quite tender, better than steak even :'o and hey, there's 10 trillion other people living on mother earth in 3x3 meter boxes (wired into a virtual world) ... and they needs their food.
So? How superstitious are we now? You going to happy to eat Human?
It's perfectly safe to eat. Well.....????
For me, I'm thinking I'd say no..... EVEN if it is safe?!? Call me superstitious!
heh...
The level of safety evidence would have to be higher. The thing is that human flesh supports disease causing organisms that affect other humans. You can eat a rare steak without much risk, since the diseases of cattle do not normally affect humans. But human flesh is actually very risky. The ban against cannibalismis there for good reason.
Eating human flesh could very easily pass on to you a fatal disease. The Fore people of Papua New Guinea suffered from a fatal brain disease called kuru. This was passed on only by eating poorly cooked human brains. Great stuff, hey?
So the short answer is that I would probably not eat the flesh of this human you describe. Too risky.
Eating human flesh could very easily pass on to you a fatal disease. The Fore people of Papua New Guinea suffered from a fatal brain disease called kuru. This was passed on only by eating poorly cooked human brains. Great stuff, hey?
So the short answer is that I would probably not eat the flesh of this human you describe. Too risky.
Why not just engineer a soybean that produces meat proteins?
Suppose it was perfectly safe? A nice rare bloody human steak? And I'm not talking about Survivor Island here, but yummy weekend BBQ
I'm absolutely sure, even if perfectly safe, most people wouldn't want to eat human! Is this superstition??? Hardwring? I'm not sure. I was watching an interesting show about food phobias and, apparently, children need to be taught that eating poo is bad. Bad poo! Bad poo! haha.. not sure if that is true or not. A bit of both probably....Do I have a food phobia against eating transgenic fish and other animals? Maybe? Hell, even looking at that muscle-cow "Belgium Breed" and muscle-fish... Euuuwww! Yuck!! I'm sure some of it has to do with our hard-wired sense that if something is slightly wrong, don't put it in your mouth! Even if the technology is fine and the food is "safe" we have a sense on what we'll happily put in our mouths!
Oooo this brings up another "Thought Experiment" on superstition and "food": "No babe, it's perfectly healthy, just a bit of fructose and mitochondria"
haha.... somehow I am 100% sure most of us have a "superstition" about putting things in our mouths and swallowing - - no matter how "safe" it is!!! Who knows? Maybe my friend was right about exchanging spit with many different peole scrambling DNA.
Tell you one thing, i will never forget what he told me about that. It was spooky. Not that i believed it but it did make me think about it for awhile.
Like if i make out with a person who is very low IQ etc.
Michael
Most first world people have a marked emotional repugnance towards the idea of eating human flesh. This is probably a learned response, bearing in mind that cannibalism is not that uncommon in other cultures. As a person living in the South Pacific, I am aware of a number of cannibal cultures in that region, before the coming of 'civilisation'.
If there is a rational reason for that repugnance, it is what I just quoted - the hazard of disease from human flesh. That is a real, not made up, hazard.
Would I personally ever eat human flesh? Only under extreme situations. If I were starving, I would not kill to eat human flesh. But if a dead person was all that was going.... Let me just say that it would have to be cooked damn well!
Most first world people have a marked emotional repugnance towards the idea of eating human flesh. This is probably a learned response, bearing in mind that cannibalism is not that uncommon in other cultures. As a person living in the South Pacific, I am aware of a number of cannibal cultures in that region, before the coming of 'civilisation'.
If there is a rational reason for that repugnance, it is what I just quoted - the hazard of disease from human flesh. That is a real, not made up, hazard.
Would I personally ever eat human flesh? Only under extreme situations. If I were starving, I would not kill to eat human flesh. But if a dead person was all that was going.... Let me just say that it would have to be cooked damn well!
Kat9Lives
Registered Senior Member
eeewww....that's a whole other thread!!!!!
Kind of...i was just responding to the post.
Kat9Lives
Registered Senior Member
Kind of...i was just responding to the post.
FOOD FORUM transcript..
Stranger - eewww..who would eat human flesh
Hannibal Lecter - i know right..crazy..but still hhmmmm??
Stranger - OMG, you wouldn't would you??
Hannibal Lecter - NO, no..I"m just responding to a post
John99 - i dont have to eat. after a few days you start to act crazy though.
No, they don't. From your own quotation....
In other words, papers submitted via the Prearranged Editor route are still required to undergo peer review just like any other submission. Endorsement of a submission by the Prearranged Editor does not necessarily mean it will pass the review process.
PNAS members didn't undergo peer review. Do they now? Perhaps it's a bit better, as I mentioned they changed their submission protocol. They used to consider having another member glance at the paper "peer review". Which in the case I cited, meant two members can review one another work with an understanding it always gets passed. Normal peer review its sent to anonymous scientists and reviewed. That was not the case at PNAS.
TBH I'd really be shocked if PNAS membership does not confer a publication perk. If it's now like a normal journal and all papers undergo anonymous peer review. ALL work is treated the same regardless of WHO submits?!?! I'll eat my pipette! Regardless, in the past if you were a member you were considered to be such an exalted specimen of scientific prowess your work didn't need normal peer review. That was the whole point in being a member. You simply published in PNAS.
Lastly, while peer review sounds fine in theory and appears to be impartial that is not how people work. For example. My buddy I went to coffee with is published in Nature (when he was a postdoc). His boss got a call from a mate over a Science one afternoon. They had received a publication that was under review that would scoop their work. He got on the phone with an editor for Nature. He sent his data in Nature format that same day, it was reviewed (by someone people?) Saturday and accepted for publication on Monday.
I'm not saying the process isn't decent, but it's far FAR from perfect.
IMO we should have a website were we (we I mean everyone) run experiments and simply add the data to the site on a weekly bases. Much like Sciforms, you'd soon realize who is what kind of scientist. Whose data you trust. Who you can trust to ask for advice or technical help. Plus there'd be a record of your idea as you had it on the day you posted it.
As it stands now some fields are friendly and others are filled with arseholes. It takes awhile to make the "right connections" if you do move laterally.
/rant/
TBH I'd really be shocked if PNAS membership does not confer a publication perk. If it's now like a normal journal and all papers undergo anonymous peer review. ALL work is treated the same regardless of WHO submits?!?! I'll eat my pipette!
Regardless, in the past if you were a member you were considered to be such an exalted specimen of scientific prowess your work didn't need normal peer review. That was the whole point in being a member. You simply published in PNAS. Lastly, while peer review sounds fine in theory and appears to be impartial that is not how people work. For example. My buddy I went to coffee with is published in Nature (when he was a postdoc). His boss got a call from a mate over a Science one afternoon. They had received a publication that was under review that would scoop their work. He got on the phone with an editor for Nature. He sent his data in Nature format that same day, it was reviewed (by someone people?) Saturday and accepted for publication on Monday.
I'm not saying the process isn't decent, but it's far FAR from perfect.
IMO we should have a website were we (we I mean everyone) run experiments and simply add the data to the site on a weekly bases. Much like Sciforms, you'd soon realize who is what kind of scientist. Whose data you trust. Who you can trust to ask for advice or technical help. Plus there'd be a record of your idea as you had it on the day you posted it.
As it stands now some fields are friendly and others are filled with arseholes. It takes awhile to make the "right connections" if you do move laterally.
/rant/
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Here's something VERY interesting from 2009:
The science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) offers special publication privileges to members of their Academy, a group of elite scientists chosen by other esteemed scientists based on their unique contributions to science research. Now the editorial board has retracted some of those privileges in light of papers that recently appeared in the journal. Nature News reported on a "row" caused when PNAS published research that didn't meet the journals' standards for peer review. The dispute is now heating up. The controversy began in August when one article published on-line at PNAS forwarded a theory by author Donald Williamson, all about what he called "larval transfer hypothesis".
..
Less charitably, scientists said that the paper was better suited to a a tabloid than to a science journal, and called the paper "absolutely ridiculous". They also scoffed at his attempt to show the "superficial similarity between adult velvet worms and larval moths and butterflies" with "very poorly reproduced line drawings that really need to be seen to be believed".
It turns out that Lynn Margulis "communicated" Williamson's paper to PNAS, a method of publishing offered to Academy members that differs from "submissions". Via this method, members can suggest for publication papers by non-members, along with reviewers selected by the member. PNAS recently announced it will eliminate this "Track I" publishing in 2010.
Commenting on the aboveControversy "Proceeding" at National Academy's Journal
The paper was ushered into print by Lynn Margulis, a member of the National Academy. All Academy members have the right to help colleagues get papers published in PNAS in quick order, a process that bypasses normal peer review. In short, members can select their own judges for the paper, allowing them to pick people inclined to be favorable. PNAS recently decided to eliminate the track, but not until next summer.
Hence they have changed some of their procedures for publication (in July).
The science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) offers special publication privileges to members of their Academy, a group of elite scientists chosen by other esteemed scientists based on their unique contributions to science research. Now the editorial board has retracted some of those privileges in light of papers that recently appeared in the journal. Nature News reported on a "row" caused when PNAS published research that didn't meet the journals' standards for peer review. The dispute is now heating up. The controversy began in August when one article published on-line at PNAS forwarded a theory by author Donald Williamson, all about what he called "larval transfer hypothesis".
..
Less charitably, scientists said that the paper was better suited to a a tabloid than to a science journal, and called the paper "absolutely ridiculous". They also scoffed at his attempt to show the "superficial similarity between adult velvet worms and larval moths and butterflies" with "very poorly reproduced line drawings that really need to be seen to be believed".
It turns out that Lynn Margulis "communicated" Williamson's paper to PNAS, a method of publishing offered to Academy members that differs from "submissions". Via this method, members can suggest for publication papers by non-members, along with reviewers selected by the member. PNAS recently announced it will eliminate this "Track I" publishing in 2010.
Commenting on the aboveControversy "Proceeding" at National Academy's Journal
The paper was ushered into print by Lynn Margulis, a member of the National Academy. All Academy members have the right to help colleagues get papers published in PNAS in quick order, a process that bypasses normal peer review. In short, members can select their own judges for the paper, allowing them to pick people inclined to be favorable. PNAS recently decided to eliminate the track, but not until next summer.
Hence they have changed some of their procedures for publication (in July).
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Anyway, my point is it's OK to be skeptical about whether or not the food is healthy. While I'm sure it is, as we've only recently begun manipulating genomes, its could be unhealthy.
I just don't want to eat frankenfish. Not because they are unhealthy, but because I think it's gross. Look at the 6 pack abs on that rainbow trout? It doesn't look natural nor appealing. One solution to feeding the planet is to grow transgenic animals. Another is to eat people as we die. Still another is to do something about getting populations under control. Look at China - they're at least trying.
I just don't want to eat frankenfish. Not because they are unhealthy, but because I think it's gross. Look at the 6 pack abs on that rainbow trout? It doesn't look natural nor appealing. One solution to feeding the planet is to grow transgenic animals. Another is to eat people as we die. Still another is to do something about getting populations under control. Look at China - they're at least trying.
Michael
Skepticism should be based on something sensible.
The GM salmon contains some DNA and some protein from another species of salmon. That is all. There is nothing there that you would not eat if you sat down to a meal that had a little Atlantic salmon and a little chinook salmon.
If you were concerned about the ecological consequences of this new salmon, I would be more sympathetic. However, you are getting paranoid about food that is demonstrably OK. I have no sympathy with views based on superstition and dogma. If you were to think about this more rationally, you would see that is all it is.
Skepticism should be based on something sensible.
The GM salmon contains some DNA and some protein from another species of salmon. That is all. There is nothing there that you would not eat if you sat down to a meal that had a little Atlantic salmon and a little chinook salmon.
If you were concerned about the ecological consequences of this new salmon, I would be more sympathetic. However, you are getting paranoid about food that is demonstrably OK. I have no sympathy with views based on superstition and dogma. If you were to think about this more rationally, you would see that is all it is.
I agree, that is more than likely the case. Which I why I mentioned eating human - call it superstition, but even if human could be bagged and tagged as healthy food alternatives, I'm not eating one! Sure, that's probably superstitious :shrug:
(I'd like to see you make that 'superstitious' argument mid BJer
That rainbow trout looks gross IMO. Even the cow looks yuck.... Yes yes, if I grew up eating it my whole life I'd probably think it was fine. I remember reading that lobster was considered disgusting to eat, I mean, just look at it - but I love lobster!
I know vegetarians who won't eat animals on grounds meat is disgusting - but then turn around and eat fish. So I say: Why eat sea meat but not land or air meat? I don't think they are superstitious, but they don't want to.
So? Maybe we need a new category of vegetarian? Maybe I'm a nonGMtarian?
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