Genetic Modification.
Before we start, this is going to be one LONG post, and there will be no TL:DR warning, so if you don't care, then don't read and don't post.
I think this is a very important thing so I'll provide some information about this.
So what is Genetic Modification?
Every organism has a 'coding' called DNA, biologists are able to 'read' this coding.
There's a different coding in every organism, but the coding of separate species look a lot like each other.
Biologists are able to 'change' organisms by changing the DNA of them.
They first isolate the gene they need, modify it if needed, and then they put it in the cell they want and combine the original genes with the new gene.
This is only possible when an organism is just 1 cell, like bacteria, zygotes or even White blood cells.
For example, if I change one cell of my body now then I won't grow another toe, my body will probably just ignore that cell or destroy it.
So what can we do with it?
- Gene Therapy.
Imagine a family where every man is diagnosed with prostate cancer at the age of 40.
Since every man in that family has it, it's most likely caused by a gene.
With Gene Therapy, we can remove, modify or replace this gene of a zygote.
So therefore the next man in that family won't get prostate cancer, and probably will have a better life.
If someone got a disease that makes someone lack a healthy immune system, then it's possible to take some white blood cells out of that person's body, let it grow in a lab and put the missing genes into it. Then put it back in the body and the person's immune system will increase with 40%. The white blood cells will die in 4 months so the process haves to be repeated after that, but it's kind of like a cure for this disease.
We can do amazing things with this, but there aren't much people who can afford this kind of cures (It costs like $15.000 to look if a zygote got any genetic diseases).
-Genetic Selection.
Like I said, biologists are able to read DNA.
So it's possible to take some sperm cells and some egg cells and put them together, form a zygote and then you can see what kind of person the zygote is going to be.
We can see a lot about a person, if this person haves any genetic diseases, hair eye and skin colour, how tall this person can become, etc, etc..
Seeing what genetic diseases the 'kid' is going to have is the most important part, since the parents can decide whether it's going to be placed back in the uterus or not.
So they decide if the zygote lives or not.
There's a bad side about this though, since if parents want a kid with blond hair and the zygote got the genes for black, then they can decide that the zygote won't be placed back because it haves black hair.
But every living being deserves to live, right?
There's a discussion about what can be considered life, is a zygote living or not?
There's also a discussion going on about how far you can go by selecting, blond hair isn't really necessary to have a good life.
- Cloning
You can clone animals or humans by taking a female egg cell , take the DNA out of it, and then put a stem cell in it.
Stem cells are cells that can still become any other cell, so therefore the stem cell will grow to an egg cell, having the same DNA as the mother.
The egg cell with the same DNA as the mother is then putted back in the uterus and will grow to a clone of the mother.
We've already cloned a lot of animals, like sheep and rats.
People claim that we've already cloned humans, but there isn't any evidence that we've ever cloned a human being.
The con about clones is that clones have a shorter life and have more chance of getting diseases.
Cloning can't really help people now, since there's still a lot of research to be done about this aspect.
But the final goal of this is that they want to clone certain organs of a person, like when my liver is having serious injuries then they can take some cells of me, clone a liver and replace my 'old' one by a 'new' one.
- Changing plants and animals.
Food also can be changed by genetic modification.
We can modify plants to make them resistant against certain bugs, and rotting.
Potatoes can be made bigger by selecting the certain genes that makes them big.
New species can be created by genetic modification, like new apple species.
They're now trying to combine an apple that hardly rots and an apple that's resistant against certain bugs.
They modified rice specie, now the rice contains more Carotene.
Many people in third world countries became blind because they didn't eat food with Carotene.
So because of this genetically modified rice, a lot of people were helped.
The only problem with this is that you're 'playing' with nature.
You'll never know what happens if the new species reproduce themselves, you might get really strange plants that will ruin the harvest.
Examples of genetically modified plants: soybean, corn, canola, and cotton seed oil.
Animals can be modified as well.
We already do this with salmon.
The AquAdvantage-salmon is made by a gene of an eel and the growth hormone of a certain Salmon.
This makes the salmon grow twice as fast as the normal salmon, but the end size of the salmon will remain the same.
This salmon also keeps growing in low temperatures, something that the normal salmons can't.
So the modified salmons can be bred twice a year and the normal ones just once.
The modified salmons also need 30% less food to grow.
All this stuff is helping the salmon herders.
There's also this bull called 'Herman' which has some human genes.
The bull reproduced, and the calves got human genes too.
Cows with this human gene create milk with the protein lactoferrin.
This protein is in mother milk, babies need this protein to develop their bodies.
So cow milk could be used as mother's milk because the cow milk contains this important rotein.
Sounds like a great plan to help baby orphans in Africa, right?
Most people didn't think so, because this was 'against certain rules'.
So they castrated the bull after it reproduced a few times, and they killed his calves.
But animals can be 'tortured' by genetic modification, there's a bad side on this too.
They've modified bulls so they can grow extremely much muscles in a very short time, making these animals look very unnatural.
The bulls can barely stand on their legs and look horrible, but the meat production has increased a lot.
They do the same with chickens, most chicken that you eat have a lifetime of 7 weeks, since they grow a lot of muscles really fast.
So basically they're 'improving' the animals for the human kind.
Still, the animals are living beings too, so is it right to modify them?
I know that America is against most of this kind of stuff, since Bush is a Christian and they think that you can't mess with DNA because god created us this way and that's why we aren't allowed to change it ( or something like that, I'm not Christian myself).
This probably won't be allowed for 4 more years, since Obama and McCain are both Christians too.
I hope that this was educational for you!
I know plenty more about this, I just tried to write down the most important parts.
I'll give my opinion about this later, since I first want to inform you people and then I'll debate about this.
Discuss
Foolish are those who fear nothing, yet claim to know everything..
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