Frankenscience? Inter-species brain transplants carried out

A first small step toward who knows what...

SOURCE

Researchers have transplanted sections of embryonic quail brains into the brains of chick embryos; when they hatched, five of the chicks crowed like a quail. The researchers, who reported their work in the current issue of Science, said they believed it was ''the first demonstration of cross-species behavioral transfer brought about by neuronal transplantaion.''

What could this lead to, maybe creating prodigies, curing criminals of all types including sexual predators or maybe making sheeple out of all of us?

What do you think they will eventually do with this?

Originally posted by happykat39
A first small step toward who knows what...

SOURCE

Researchers have transplanted sections of embryonic quail brains into the brains of chick embryos; when they hatched, five of the chicks crowed like a quail. The researchers, who reported their work in the current issue of Science, said they believed it was ''the first demonstration of cross-species behavioral transfer brought about by neuronal transplantaion.''

What could this lead to, maybe creating prodigies, curing criminals of all types including sexual predators or maybe making sheeple out of all of us?

What do you think they will eventually do with this?

edit on 14-12-2012 by happykat39 because: forgot to add source link

Hopefully nothing, because this is just all kinds of wrong.

reply to post by happykat39


All they did was switch their brains at an early stage in development where their brains are only a handfull of cells. Like you could give a tiger the brains of an aligator... which would make for some strange behaviors....

The best concept is to switch the brains of less social animals, with those of a more social species.

The most potentialy disturbing thing is using human brain cells and making any animal as potentialy smart as a person. Of course depending on how much physical space a logical mind needs...

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by happykat39

 

All they did was switch their brains at an early stage in development where their brains are only a handfull of cells. Like you could give a tiger the brains of an aligator... which would make for some strange behaviors....

The best concept is to switch the brains of less social animals, with those of a more social species.

The most potentialy disturbing thing is using human brain cells and making any animal as potentialy smart as a person. Of course depending on how much physical space a logical mind needs...

Sounds harmless enough (not really) with a few cells, but it was what people do when they move that technology to the next level, and if this works, they will eventually. Think GMO foods, think about the effect cloning has on the animals that are cloned. Modifying a species like this is not the same as say, breeding a golden retriever with a labrador retriever. This is truly frankenscience, yikes.

I'm guessing it would only work between very similar species. Like a quail and a chicken. There's a slight chance it could be successful if you used a chimp and a human.

reply to post by artnut


You just have to trust that compassion is logical. That knowledge and wisdom creates empathy.

And at the end of the day should you create something that lothes its own existance the creator should be held responsible.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


Well we ALL pretty much share some common ancestry.

Given what we know about neural plasticity, the substitution of brains from say mammal to reptile might not work perfectly... but there is reason to assume it would function.

I guess I just don't think this is a good idea. Yes, there maybe helpful implications with this type of thing, but once we know how, somebody somewhere is going to do bad things with this. It never fails.

reply to post by happykat39


imagine a wolf spider brain put into a bunny rabbit??

It is unlikely to be possible across wildly different species. The example being beacuse say two different breeds of dogs can bare offspring, doesn't mean that if a dog and a cat attempted to bread that a viable embryo could be produced, quite the opposite. Though the creation of a fertilised egg might occur, genetically it would be unviable and would die.

What about in the lab you ask?

Well it is the same, modern day organ donation is risky, the body can quite often detect the foreign flesh and this is what causes the body to reject organs and even have the body attack the new organ.

What this shows is that if tissue is transplanted between two animals of very similar genetics during very very early stages of development is possible, because the brains are not 'wired' so to speak, to do this to a fully developed brain would be impossible with current technology,

I believe head transplants have been performed with dogs back in the 60s? (maybe i am wrong) and they basically failed because although hooking up major blood vessels and major nerve groups were ok, it wasn't like plugging in a few components and Boom, you can go and play fetch with your new dog.

Originally posted by prevenge
reply to post by happykat39

 

imagine a wolf spider brain put into a bunny rabbit??

Then add the genes for fangs and venom. It would level the playing field a little between the hunter and the hunted. And that rabbit stew recipe wouldn't be quite so appetizing any longer.

reply to post by happykat39


Maybe those Dulce stories aren't so far-fetched after all, ey?

Originally posted by Cybernet
reply to post by happykat39

 

Maybe those Dulce stories aren't so far-fetched after all, ey?

Since the brain is the behavioral control center of any creature, this just adds one more layer of wrong to what they can already do with genetic engineering.

They have already genetically modified goats with spider genes so that they produce the silk proteins in their milk. How long until they can make major changes to different species, thus creating true chimeras?

Just what horrific combinations of animals, plants and insects will they think up and unleash on the world when the first breading pair of some truly dangerous chimera escapes from the lab? This has already happened by the way. Scientists were experimenting with cross breeding of African killer bees and honey bees to see if they could increase honey production and create better pollinators. The killer bee invasion that is moving up from South America started when they had an accidental release of Africanized bees into the wild.

Imagine what would happen to humanity if they created deadly, and very hungry, spiders the size of a military tank. It would make the worst of the 50's SciFi movies about giant insects mutated from exposure to atomic radiation come true.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by happykat39

 

The best concept is to switch the brains of less social animals, with those of a more social species.

The most potentialy disturbing thing is using human brain cells and making any animal as potentialy smart as a person. Of course depending on how much physical space a logical mind needs...

You are correct, and it's really scary when you think about it.
Why would we lower helpless animals to our level anyway?

reply to post by happykat39


The Nephilim return.

Originally posted by chr0naut
reply to post by happykat39

 

The Nephilim return.

Yes, the biblical aspect. I was planning on bringing that into the conversation at some point if and when it seemed appropriate. Some believe that the Nephilim were chimeric creatures that were incapable of having a human soul and that allowed the chimera to be taken over by the Nephilim or fallen ones from another dimension. There are indications in the biblical flood story that that is the reason God wiped out the entire population of the planet with the exception of Noah and his family who were "perfect in their generations". The "perfect in their generations" statement is widely taken to mean that their DNA was still pure human with no chimeric mix.

I am somewhat suprised that the brain transplant caused a change in the sound of the bird. The sound made by an animal is determined by the physical construction of its voicebox normally speaking. Mind you, I suppose if there is no great physical difference between a quail voicebox and a chicken voicebox, then it makes sense.

However, I am somewhat disturbed that the process was even considered. There seems to be no real reason to do this to the chicks and quails involved. I cannot see the benifit to medicine or science, of performing this action.

Originally posted by happykat39

Originally posted by chr0naut
reply to post by happykat39

 

The Nephilim return.

Yes, the biblical aspect. I was planning on bringing that into the conversation at some point if and when it seemed appropriate. Some believe that the Nephilim were chimeric creatures that were incapable of having a human soul and that allowed the chimera to be taken over by the Nephilim or fallen ones from another dimension. There are indications in the biblical flood story that that is the reason God wiped out the entire population of the planet with the exception of Noah and his family who were "perfect in their generations". The "perfect in their generations" statement is widely taken to mean that their DNA was still pure human with no chimeric mix.

It is more than just not having a human soul. It has been suggested that the "Earth Born" (Nephil) were augmented to be physically stronger, intellectually gifted as well as taller than the average human. They embodied the ideals of the gods in human form.

Unfortunately, the gene mix caused them to be sociopaths. Completely amoral, but stronger and more intelligent. To quote the Bible, "their every thought was evil, all the time".

The normal way to splice complex gene sequences into a living organism is to use a retrovirus, but this particular retrovirus and its payload, escaped containment and began to affect the genome of all species. This is why God had to end all corrupted species, not just humans. The ark carried a 'clean' gene base from which the Earth could repopulate.

In the geneticist Brian Sykes book "the Seven Daughters of Eve" he noted that about 50,000 years ago, the entire human genome came from only a very small number of mitochondrial progenitors. This indicated that the human species was very close to extinction at that point in time. Each of the seven genetic haplogroups had a single "mother" and we are the descendents of these seven women.