Genetic engineering for military purposes?, page 1

reply to post by TortoiseKweek

Huh, I thought Hitler gave his troops methane phetamines... you know to cover those longer shifts (a day or two without sleep, staying awake and energized)

Originally posted by Doc Velocity
Well, there's this angle to consider... Through genetic engineering, we could custom tailor weapons to function ONLY for specific users. So, your rifle would physically become your rifle, with your DNA encoded into the weapon's firing mechanism.

When you pick up the rifle, it samples your perspiration or sebaceous oils in your skin, identifies you as the proper owner, and the firing mechanism is enabled. If anyone else picks up your rifle, they cannot fire it, no matter what... Well, unless they have a specimen of your bodily tissue handy.

... pretty sure I just saw this in an old sci-fy movie that a friend has been nagging me to see, in reality it is fairly impractical. your DNA is constantly changing as you are exposed to radiation (all the time in not-to-harmful, hopefully, quantities), or diseases (yet again all the time), and mutations occur in duplication of cells (oh yah, all the time again). Hypothetically you could inject a genetic tracker into your troops that the gun reacts to, but than your guns become way overpriced, and they could be modified to override this, and any allies you are sharing guns with would have access to your tracker gene and be able to produce more (yes not everyone in allied military personal are your friends.)

I also just as a blanket statement don't think that we are quite "that good" at GM to do half this stuff. Though I will admit that morals is a big part of what we don't do. creating bio-viruses we have had and kept in storage for decades now, each more deadly than the last, as for our delivery system, we just take dna fragments (genes) and attach them to (I believe it was lead balls though there are likely others used) and than fire them randomly at your tissue hoping that enough of the lead balls will hit their mark. Than we use some good old fashioned trial and error to determine what it dose, than we keep in mind that when we apply it to humans it may have entirely different outcomes, than you attempt to discern the use of individual genes and safety concerns, and there is the problem that you would need to wait until the affected area of the subject's tissue has been replaces to the point at which your little experiment has worn off before you do it again. Not to mention that you would need a pretty big gene gun to effect a whole human (and are better off just going with a zigot), than you are back to waiting a generation or two before you know that it worked correctly, not to mention that you guys are talking about much more than one gene, honestly 40% dog would take a century or two if you wanted only the most adventitious of traits, and even than your best off giving it quite a while longer for eugenics in order to get the best out of your doggieboys. (generally it would be better off sticking to a base species that we know can at least fend for it's self and work our way up than start from scratch making humans with 4 paws and a tail.