Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
And yet I've managed to not kill anyone, and you've managed to not kill anyone and most people don't kill anyone. We tend to say 'hi' to one another instead.
Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
I have to think infanticide occurs when mating opportunities are scarce, and adult murder occurs when territorial resources are instead scarce, because now the adult's very existence is the problem.
But I don't know anything about the habitats of primates to back that up.
ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, ModeratorMod Emeritus
I know enough about crispr technology to a) be extremely skeptical that this is legitimate and b) be extremely skeptical that this anything remotely resembling a good idea to attempt on germline human DNA.
Crispr is some potentially awesome stuff, but we aren't anywhere fucking near the point where we should feel confident in fucking around with the DNA of kids for a science experiment. If it's real, this is a lot more horrifying than it is impressive.
I dunno about the ethics thing, but otherwise this is my feeling. "No they didn't." I think CRISPR is still in its infancy and will be for some time, and frankly I don't see anyone pulling this off in human trials yet. It's probably not far off, but it's not there. Equally, "HIV resistance" seems like an odd first step to me, and something that should maybe be saved for a little bit down the road. There are a ton of things you could change by manipulating a single allele, at least one of them must be easier to test with a more obvious result that doesn't ultimately involve exposing a child to HIV. Altering alleles related to disease resistance seem varsity-level while we're still playing little league tee ball.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
According to the BBC, some doubts about the story are beginning to emerge. For one thing, the hospital where all this is supposed to have taken place denies any involvement.
It could be that it was all done so secretly that it makes it much harder to verify, but right now all we seem to have is this guy’s word and nothing else.
Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
And yet I've managed to not kill anyone, and you've managed to not kill anyone and most people don't kill anyone. We tend to say 'hi' to one another instead.
This is a more recent thing though. Pre-civilization, humans would live in small communities and mostly would avoid killings by not venturing out much. If you met a rando on the road in the old days (and I mean really old days, before any kind of centralized society or agriculture) it was probably 50/50 whether you talked it out or threw down, depending on things like whether you could understand each others language, whether you knew someone in common and could figure it out, whose homelands you were in, etc.
Missionaries and anthropologists still have problems with this interacting with remote tribes to this day, there was recently an American killed that got the bright idea he would drop in on a protected precivilizational island tribe in India.
Edit: this sounds extreme, but in a traditional society with no government a killing a lone wanderer has basically no consequences- his family might seek revenge if he has one and they figure out what happens, but that is probably unlikely. There are significant downsides to just letting someone go, though, they could be a scout from another tribe seeking to raid or displace you from your lands, they could be a theif seeking to steal goods from you you need to survive, etc. There’s a lot of anthropological evidence for violent behavior in this manner.
Now, if there’s even a basic government authority (even if it’s just, say, Negan the warlord) the calculus changes a lot and it gets much safer relatively to travel). Lets say you are a tribal village, one day Negan decides to include you in his burgeoning empire (basically a protection racket). Some guys come in in force greater than you can handle so you don’t fight, you spend a few days working out some basic terms of Neganese to communicate simple concepts, and they basically say they’ll be coming by every couple of weeks to collect some tax from thr food you collect and that you agree to give them some fighting age men to be in their gang. This was obviously a pretty common arrangement in ancient times as well as now in anarchic areas. Well now when you meet that traveling stranger you have some options - you can try talking in Neganese rather than your local language, you can hold him until they come by to see if they know him, etc. Also the downsides are a bit less bad. If he is scouting for raiders or a theif you can appeal to Negans gang for help, etc. so a peaceful outcome is much more likely.
Generations later when its the kingdom of Negan XI it may be that things are safe enough and the roads are well patrolled enough the stranger may not even be challenged at all.
Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
I have to think infanticide occurs when mating opportunities are scarce, and adult murder occurs when territorial resources are instead scarce, because now the adult's very existence is the problem.
But I don't know anything about the habitats of primates to back that up.
Two adults of a species are likely to be fairly similar in physical ability, so I think fighting to the death is just generally too risky in the wild. It would be very easy for the winner to sustain permanent or fatal injury in the process. Fighting, but allowing the loser to retreat un-murdered is usually the better deal for both sides. On the other hand, infanticide has a lot less risk. Humans are probably an exception here because thanks to social structure and technology it's a lot easier to make a fight between adults very lopsided.
Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
I have to think infanticide occurs when mating opportunities are scarce, and adult murder occurs when territorial resources are instead scarce, because now the adult's very existence is the problem.
But I don't know anything about the habitats of primates to back that up.
Two adults of a species are likely to be fairly similar in physical ability, so I think fighting to the death is just generally too risky in the wild. It would be very easy for the winner to sustain permanent or fatal injury in the process. Fighting, but allowing the loser to retreat un-murdered is usually the better deal for both sides. On the other hand, infanticide has a lot less risk. Humans are probably an exception here because thanks to social structure and technology it's a lot easier to make a fight between adults very lopsided.
Ants are an interesting exception.
For what its worth chimps when they fight tend to fight very dirty and very human.
Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
I have to think infanticide occurs when mating opportunities are scarce, and adult murder occurs when territorial resources are instead scarce, because now the adult's very existence is the problem.
But I don't know anything about the habitats of primates to back that up.
Two adults of a species are likely to be fairly similar in physical ability, so I think fighting to the death is just generally too risky in the wild. It would be very easy for the winner to sustain permanent or fatal injury in the process. Fighting, but allowing the loser to retreat un-murdered is usually the better deal for both sides. On the other hand, infanticide has a lot less risk. Humans are probably an exception here because thanks to social structure and technology it's a lot easier to make a fight between adults very lopsided.
Ants are an interesting exception.
For what its worth chimps when they fight tend to fight very dirty and very human.
Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
I have to think infanticide occurs when mating opportunities are scarce, and adult murder occurs when territorial resources are instead scarce, because now the adult's very existence is the problem.
But I don't know anything about the habitats of primates to back that up.
Two adults of a species are likely to be fairly similar in physical ability, so I think fighting to the death is just generally too risky in the wild. It would be very easy for the winner to sustain permanent or fatal injury in the process. Fighting, but allowing the loser to retreat un-murdered is usually the better deal for both sides. On the other hand, infanticide has a lot less risk. Humans are probably an exception here because thanks to social structure and technology it's a lot easier to make a fight between adults very lopsided.
Ants are an interesting exception.
For what its worth chimps when they fight tend to fight very dirty and very human.
Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
I have to think infanticide occurs when mating opportunities are scarce, and adult murder occurs when territorial resources are instead scarce, because now the adult's very existence is the problem.
But I don't know anything about the habitats of primates to back that up.
Two adults of a species are likely to be fairly similar in physical ability, so I think fighting to the death is just generally too risky in the wild. It would be very easy for the winner to sustain permanent or fatal injury in the process. Fighting, but allowing the loser to retreat un-murdered is usually the better deal for both sides. On the other hand, infanticide has a lot less risk. Humans are probably an exception here because thanks to social structure and technology it's a lot easier to make a fight between adults very lopsided.
Ants are an interesting exception.
For what its worth chimps when they fight tend to fight very dirty and very human.
That's some ancient-Greece style fuckery right there.
Thomas Hobbes was right! :surprised:
He also has the distinction of being denied membership in the Royal Academy of Science more than any single person.
He spent longer than I've been alive trying to show that you can square a circle, so hard even Newton shook his head at the man, and he was an alchemist and apocalypse predictor.
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
I know enough about crispr technology to a) be extremely skeptical that this is legitimate and b) be extremely skeptical that this anything remotely resembling a good idea to attempt on germline human DNA.
Crispr is some potentially awesome stuff, but we aren't anywhere fucking near the point where we should feel confident in fucking around with the DNA of kids for a science experiment. If it's real, this is a lot more horrifying than it is impressive.
I dunno about the ethics thing, but otherwise this is my feeling. "No they didn't." I think CRISPR is still in its infancy and will be for some time, and frankly I don't see anyone pulling this off in human trials yet. It's probably not far off, but it's not there. Equally, "HIV resistance" seems like an odd first step to me, and something that should maybe be saved for a little bit down the road. There are a ton of things you could change by manipulating a single allele, at least one of them must be easier to test with a more obvious result that doesn't ultimately involve exposing a child to HIV. Altering alleles related to disease resistance seem varsity-level while we're still playing little league tee ball.
I don't think they did it and I think this is another in a long line of "Chinese Science" fakes with mishandled data of not complete forgery.
Also presenting the achievement in the context of a "twin study" has some additional horrific undertones.
However, (limited*) genetic HIV resistance has been heavily studied and the genes for it have been almost entirely figured out in the decades it has been studied. So, it's not a huge leap for someone to go with that if they're targeting something for modification. It's flashy and has a lot of data behind it.
Also they wouldn't have to give the child HIV, they'd have to study the effects of HIV on harvested tissue.
*resistance to specific strains of HIV, and repeat exposure can still result in getting it.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
crispr baby stuff looking increasingly like lots of weird stuff associated with it. scam likelihood increasing
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ElJeffeRoaming the streets, waving his mod gun around.Moderator, ClubPAMod Emeritus
Every time i see a reference to the "CRISPR baby" I imagine a special drawer in your refrigerator that keeps your babies fresh.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
crispr baby stuff looking increasingly like lots of weird stuff associated with it. scam likelihood increasing
Seeing as crispr is most likely nowhere near that kind of use and would lead to CANCER babies instead of CRISPR babies currently, I think it's the best we can hope for that this is a scam
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
crispr baby stuff looking increasingly like lots of weird stuff associated with it. scam likelihood increasing
Seeing as crispr is most likely nowhere near that kind of use and would lead to CANCER babies instead of CRISPR babies currently, I think it's the best we can hope for that this is a scam
broadly theres not much evidence this is the case yet - the worry about mass offsite edits that was raised a while ago has turned out to be probably false, for various reasons, and there have been limited (albeit contested) results showing that it mostly works as expected in human cells in vitro. there was initial worry about high human antibody response to some variants - but when replicated the rate of this response was much lower than initially found. some worry about p53 problems which could lead to malignancy, but again not confirmed or demonstrated. so its not that its "definitely safe" but it wouldnt be odd if somebody got reasonably lucky and got something done without causing huge consequences - the empirical evidence does not weigh particularly heavily towards "likely damaging" if delivered in a sensible way etc (one advantage of doing babies is that you have much less of a problem with trying to figure out a delivery method that is super specific to a tissue or organ)
Harvard biologist and genetics pioneer George Church said the claims were “probably accurate.
“I’ve been in contact with the Shenzhen team and have seen the data,” he said by email from Indianapolis. “The sequencing assays used are generally unambiguous especially when done in multiple cell types at different developmental stages and in two children.”
Church added: “Is the genie really out of the bottle? Yes.”
at a bare minimum that means they have got decent looking data
But He said then that he was able to increase the proportion of edited cells by injecting the very early embryos with CRISPR-Cas9 twice: once when they consisted of only a single cell, and again when they consisted of two cells.
to avoid mosaicism!
surrealitycheck on
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
The scientist who did it is under investigation (Another story I saw claims he was already suspended without pay, but refers to the MIT Technology Review, whose story does not say such a thing anymore if it ever did)
A Chinese researcher who claims to have created the first gene-edited babies, He Jiankui of the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUST), in Shenzhen, is now facing investigation over whether the experiment broke Chinese laws or regulations.
...On Sunday, the Shenzhen City Medical Ethics Expert Board said it would begin an investigation of He’s research and released a statement saying that HarMoniCare “according to our findings … never conducted the appropriate reporting according to requirements.” The former medical director of the private hospital, Jiang Su-Qi, told Southern Capital News he had no recollection of approving He’s research while he was on its ethics committee.
The scientist who did it is under investigation (Another story I saw claims he was already suspended without pay, but refers to the MIT Technology Review, whose story does not say such a thing anymore if it ever did)
A Chinese researcher who claims to have created the first gene-edited babies, He Jiankui of the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUST), in Shenzhen, is now facing investigation over whether the experiment broke Chinese laws or regulations.
...On Sunday, the Shenzhen City Medical Ethics Expert Board said it would begin an investigation of He’s research and released a statement saying that HarMoniCare “according to our findings … never conducted the appropriate reporting according to requirements.” The former medical director of the private hospital, Jiang Su-Qi, told Southern Capital News he had no recollection of approving He’s research while he was on its ethics committee.
wow
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Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
@surrealitycheck I'm curious what sources you have that suggest off-target CRISPR effects aren't a concern?
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
surrealitycheck I'm curious what sources you have that suggest off-target CRISPR effects aren't a concern?
not not a concern (as it were), but that 1) the very high incidence reported in some earlier papers has gradually drifted downwards for various reasons (including the widely reported paper i was implicitly referring to above, that over-estimated by an order of magnitude) 2) methodological improvements have consistently been chipping away at the risks, including most notably simply being more precise in what guide rna sequence you pick and alternative nucleases that are more precise than generic cas9 3) there are various ways to simulate the risks posed by various guide rna sequences and, as in this case (if not a scam) they might well have chosen this particular edit precisely because it poses low offtarget risks (and you could easily do both in silico and in vitro tests beforehand) etc
EDIT: to tie the response back to what i was implying originally: it does not seem absurd based on current evidence that somebody might be able to do a well-executed human crispr edit given current knowledge and technology if they have done good methodological refinement. our default assumption should tend to uncertainty informed by specifics
surrealitycheck on
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, ModeratorMod Emeritus
edited November 2018
I still call "nope." I think we could definitely do it with our current technology, but knowledge? Technique? I'm extremely skeptical. I don't think harm would necessarily be caused by the attempt, but I would be really surprised if this takes.
If it did work though maybe the doctors could use it to cure the cancer the comments on that fucking twitter link gave me.
ceres on
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
crispr baby stuff looking increasingly like lots of weird stuff associated with it. scam likelihood increasing
Seeing as crispr is most likely nowhere near that kind of use and would lead to CANCER babies instead of CRISPR babies currently, I think it's the best we can hope for that this is a scam
broadly theres not much evidence this is the case yet - the worry about mass offsite edits that was raised a while ago has turned out to be probably false, for various reasons, and there have been limited (albeit contested) results showing that it mostly works as expected in human cells in vitro. there was initial worry about high human antibody response to some variants - but when replicated the rate of this response was much lower than initially found. some worry about p53 problems which could lead to malignancy, but again not confirmed or demonstrated. so its not that its "definitely safe" but it wouldnt be odd if somebody got reasonably lucky and got something done without causing huge consequences - the empirical evidence does not weigh particularly heavily towards "likely damaging" if delivered in a sensible way etc (one advantage of doing babies is that you have much less of a problem with trying to figure out a delivery method that is super specific to a tissue or organ)
Harvard biologist and genetics pioneer George Church said the claims were “probably accurate.
“I’ve been in contact with the Shenzhen team and have seen the data,” he said by email from Indianapolis. “The sequencing assays used are generally unambiguous especially when done in multiple cell types at different developmental stages and in two children.”
Church added: “Is the genie really out of the bottle? Yes.”
at a bare minimum that means they have got decent looking data
But He said then that he was able to increase the proportion of edited cells by injecting the very early embryos with CRISPR-Cas9 twice: once when they consisted of only a single cell, and again when they consisted of two cells.
to avoid mosaicism!
I'm going to have to read these articles because I'm a tad confused about how you could end up with a proportion of edited cells that's not 0 or 1 after you inject the editor into a single celled embryo (or zygote at that point?). Either the editor hits and sticks or it doesn't, but it's still the only cell with the only DNA in the organism, so a gamish of DNA seems unlikely to happen.
I still call "nope." I think we could definitely do it with our current technology, but knowledge? Technique? I'm extremely skeptical. I don't think harm would necessarily be caused by the attempt, but I would be really surprised if this takes.
If it did work though maybe the doctors could use it to cure the cancer the comments on that fucking twitter link gave me.
Dunno, CRISPER is supposed to be easy-peasy as far as gene editing tech goes. If you're aiming at a well studied chunk of DNA and are breaking enough rules that I have to wonder how many failures there were prior to this, then I can see this being a thing that happened.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited November 2018
the short answer iirc is that you have two possible uncertainties: you dont know the dna state of the embryo necessarily - where it stands in cell division - and you cant guarantee when the edit occurs, as you dont know absolutely when its going to get lucky and the find the spot
add those two together and you can end up with an initial cell division that ends up with two cells, one with edited dna the other with unedited
surrealitycheck on
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
the short answer iirc is that you have two possible uncertainties: you dont know the dna state of the embryo necessarily - where it stands in cell division - and you cant guarantee when the edit occurs, as you dont know absolutely when its going to get lucky and the find the spot
add those two together and you can end up with an initial cell division that ends up with two cells, one with edited dna the other with unedited
So even then you could potentially end up with mosaicism? And the second edit just further reduces the chances?
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
the short answer iirc is that you have two possible uncertainties: you dont know the dna state of the embryo necessarily - where it stands in cell division - and you cant guarantee when the edit occurs, as you dont know absolutely when its going to get lucky and the find the spot
add those two together and you can end up with an initial cell division that ends up with two cells, one with edited dna the other with unedited
So even then you could potentially end up with mosaicism? And the second edit just further reduces the chances?
Could, though I guess if you watched very carefully and did the second dose immediately after the cell divided, then you'd probably have a good chance of getting the edit done. Per my light Googling there is a 15 hour gap between the first and second cell divisions of an embryo.
Fun fact I got from the intertubes: The gene edit that was done protects against AIDS at the cost of increased susceptibility to Influenza and West Nile. This may or may not have been communicated to the parents.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, ModeratorMod Emeritus
I think a lot of people don't take those things very seriously anymore just because you don't see the huge mortality rate people once did. I know I didn't take the flu very seriously until I had it a couple years ago and ended up with a lower respiratory infection that was one of the more painful things I'd experienced. I came pretty close to full-blown pneumonia. Now I get flu shots like it's religion and drag my son in too.
He is not on board with this.
So I can definitely see parents deciding that getting the flu is better than getting HIV, although the flu is certainly more common it's less likely to kill you in the long run as long as you're on top of that.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
Maybe I am just way out of the loop here but had this kind of stuff already been done in model organisms? I mean where is the SIV resistant chimpanzee? This just seems like a really big step out of nowhere to me but I am quite possibly not up to snuff in this area anymore.
Gamertag: KL Retribution
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
Maybe I am just way out of the loop here but had this kind of stuff already been done in model organisms? I mean where is the SIV resistant chimpanzee? This just seems like a really big step out of nowhere to me but I am quite possibly not up to snuff in this area anymore.
first primate live births with crispr gene edits was 2014
Maybe I am just way out of the loop here but had this kind of stuff already been done in model organisms? I mean where is the SIV resistant chimpanzee? This just seems like a really big step out of nowhere to me but I am quite possibly not up to snuff in this area anymore.
first primate live births with crispr gene edits was 2014
high failure rate but things have moved on since then and there are a wide range of successful crispr edits in chimpanzees
And which one is resistant to SIV or something else that pervasive? Where is the proof that something like this would even work? Not the edits themselves, but the increased resistance.
Gamertag: KL Retribution
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Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
Until the researcher publishes his methods and his results we're in somewhat of a limbo, analysis wise. But from the way he announced this and the way he brushed off the ethical concerns I'm not holding my breath.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
Maybe I am just way out of the loop here but had this kind of stuff already been done in model organisms? I mean where is the SIV resistant chimpanzee? This just seems like a really big step out of nowhere to me but I am quite possibly not up to snuff in this area anymore.
first primate live births with crispr gene edits was 2014
high failure rate but things have moved on since then and there are a wide range of successful crispr edits in chimpanzees
And which one is resistant to SIV or something else that pervasive? Where is the proof that something like this would even work? Not the edits themselves, but the increased resistance.
the hiv resistance is quite an easy edit: they are simply trying to null - render unexpressed - the ccr5 receptor. the classic way this happens in humans is through a 32bp deletion leading to an early stop codon (known as ccr5 delta 32), and this allele is widely found in people of european origin. so the question of the mechanism of resistance is already solved; they are simply trying to replicate an already-understood mechanism by which some people are more resistant to hiv infection
as a technical question, this particular choice of edit is simply easier than many others
Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
And yet I've managed to not kill anyone, and you've managed to not kill anyone and most people don't kill anyone. We tend to say 'hi' to one another instead.
This is a more recent thing though. Pre-civilization, humans would live in small communities and mostly would avoid killings by not venturing out much. If you met a rando on the road in the old days (and I mean really old days, before any kind of centralized society or agriculture) it was probably 50/50 whether you talked it out or threw down, depending on things like whether you could understand each others language, whether you knew someone in common and could figure it out, whose homelands you were in, etc.
Missionaries and anthropologists still have problems with this interacting with remote tribes to this day, there was recently an American killed that got the bright idea he would drop in on a protected precivilizational island tribe in India.
Edit: this sounds extreme, but in a traditional society with no government a killing a lone wanderer has basically no consequences- his family might seek revenge if he has one and they figure out what happens, but that is probably unlikely. There are significant downsides to just letting someone go, though, they could be a scout from another tribe seeking to raid or displace you from your lands, they could be a theif seeking to steal goods from you you need to survive, etc. There’s a lot of anthropological evidence for violent behavior in this manner.
Now, if there’s even a basic government authority (even if it’s just, say, Negan the warlord) the calculus changes a lot and it gets much safer relatively to travel). Lets say you are a tribal village, one day Negan decides to include you in his burgeoning empire (basically a protection racket). Some guys come in in force greater than you can handle so you don’t fight, you spend a few days working out some basic terms of Neganese to communicate simple concepts, and they basically say they’ll be coming by every couple of weeks to collect some tax from thr food you collect and that you agree to give them some fighting age men to be in their gang. This was obviously a pretty common arrangement in ancient times as well as now in anarchic areas. Well now when you meet that traveling stranger you have some options - you can try talking in Neganese rather than your local language, you can hold him until they come by to see if they know him, etc. Also the downsides are a bit less bad. If he is scouting for raiders or a theif you can appeal to Negans gang for help, etc. so a peaceful outcome is much more likely.
Generations later when its the kingdom of Negan XI it may be that things are safe enough and the roads are well patrolled enough the stranger may not even be challenged at all.
I will note that that island although has minimal contacts with the outside HAS had interactions in the past and often wound up with massive disease outbreaks/death. It is small wonder the islanders shoot first ask questions later. Letting outsiders interact with them has proven to be deadly to them in the past so they don't take chances.
Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
And yet I've managed to not kill anyone, and you've managed to not kill anyone and most people don't kill anyone. We tend to say 'hi' to one another instead.
This is a more recent thing though. Pre-civilization, humans would live in small communities and mostly would avoid killings by not venturing out much. If you met a rando on the road in the old days (and I mean really old days, before any kind of centralized society or agriculture) it was probably 50/50 whether you talked it out or threw down, depending on things like whether you could understand each others language, whether you knew someone in common and could figure it out, whose homelands you were in, etc.
Missionaries and anthropologists still have problems with this interacting with remote tribes to this day, there was recently an American killed that got the bright idea he would drop in on a protected precivilizational island tribe in India.
Edit: this sounds extreme, but in a traditional society with no government a killing a lone wanderer has basically no consequences- his family might seek revenge if he has one and they figure out what happens, but that is probably unlikely. There are significant downsides to just letting someone go, though, they could be a scout from another tribe seeking to raid or displace you from your lands, they could be a theif seeking to steal goods from you you need to survive, etc. There’s a lot of anthropological evidence for violent behavior in this manner.
Now, if there’s even a basic government authority (even if it’s just, say, Negan the warlord) the calculus changes a lot and it gets much safer relatively to travel). Lets say you are a tribal village, one day Negan decides to include you in his burgeoning empire (basically a protection racket). Some guys come in in force greater than you can handle so you don’t fight, you spend a few days working out some basic terms of Neganese to communicate simple concepts, and they basically say they’ll be coming by every couple of weeks to collect some tax from thr food you collect and that you agree to give them some fighting age men to be in their gang. This was obviously a pretty common arrangement in ancient times as well as now in anarchic areas. Well now when you meet that traveling stranger you have some options - you can try talking in Neganese rather than your local language, you can hold him until they come by to see if they know him, etc. Also the downsides are a bit less bad. If he is scouting for raiders or a theif you can appeal to Negans gang for help, etc. so a peaceful outcome is much more likely.
Generations later when its the kingdom of Negan XI it may be that things are safe enough and the roads are well patrolled enough the stranger may not even be challenged at all.
I will note that that island although has minimal contacts with the outside HAS had interactions in the past and often wound up with massive disease outbreaks/death. It is small wonder the islanders shoot first ask questions later. Letting outsiders interact with them has proven to be deadly to them in the past so they don't take chances.
Yes, in particular the extreme hostility seems to have begun after an incident in the 1800s, where a British ship took an old man and wife and their kids off the island to introduce them to the local authorities in an effort to open the island up to explorers and missionaries. The old man and wife died from disease on the ship, so they returned the children to the island. The islanders probably figured out what caused the epidemic that must have inevitably followed.
Prior to that the islanders had a reputation as hostile but there were recorded instances of non-hostile contact.
There have also been a handful visits by Indian archeologists over the years who managed to convince the islanders not to attack by repeatedly making gifts to them over periods of months.
There's also the aspect of maybe leaving people alone who've made it more than clear that they wish to be left the fuck alone.
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Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
He Jiankui gave a talk at a Hong Kong genome sciences conference where he discussed the recently-revealed efforts to perform gene editing in live-born humans. I'll work up a more detailed review in the next few days, but the long and short of it is that he is a fraud. Cursory review of his sequencing data suggests that neither baby is fully edited for CCR5 disruption, at best they're mosaic. But more alarming than even that are his views and behavior pertaining to medical ethics, IRB oversight, and the meaning of informed consent.
Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
And yet I've managed to not kill anyone, and you've managed to not kill anyone and most people don't kill anyone. We tend to say 'hi' to one another instead.
This is a more recent thing though. Pre-civilization, humans would live in small communities and mostly would avoid killings by not venturing out much. If you met a rando on the road in the old days (and I mean really old days, before any kind of centralized society or agriculture) it was probably 50/50 whether you talked it out or threw down, depending on things like whether you could understand each others language, whether you knew someone in common and could figure it out, whose homelands you were in, etc.
Missionaries and anthropologists still have problems with this interacting with remote tribes to this day, there was recently an American killed that got the bright idea he would drop in on a protected precivilizational island tribe in India.
Edit: this sounds extreme, but in a traditional society with no government a killing a lone wanderer has basically no consequences- his family might seek revenge if he has one and they figure out what happens, but that is probably unlikely. There are significant downsides to just letting someone go, though, they could be a scout from another tribe seeking to raid or displace you from your lands, they could be a theif seeking to steal goods from you you need to survive, etc. There’s a lot of anthropological evidence for violent behavior in this manner.
Now, if there’s even a basic government authority (even if it’s just, say, Negan the warlord) the calculus changes a lot and it gets much safer relatively to travel). Lets say you are a tribal village, one day Negan decides to include you in his burgeoning empire (basically a protection racket). Some guys come in in force greater than you can handle so you don’t fight, you spend a few days working out some basic terms of Neganese to communicate simple concepts, and they basically say they’ll be coming by every couple of weeks to collect some tax from thr food you collect and that you agree to give them some fighting age men to be in their gang. This was obviously a pretty common arrangement in ancient times as well as now in anarchic areas. Well now when you meet that traveling stranger you have some options - you can try talking in Neganese rather than your local language, you can hold him until they come by to see if they know him, etc. Also the downsides are a bit less bad. If he is scouting for raiders or a theif you can appeal to Negans gang for help, etc. so a peaceful outcome is much more likely.
Generations later when its the kingdom of Negan XI it may be that things are safe enough and the roads are well patrolled enough the stranger may not even be challenged at all.
I will note that that island although has minimal contacts with the outside HAS had interactions in the past and often wound up with massive disease outbreaks/death. It is small wonder the islanders shoot first ask questions later. Letting outsiders interact with them has proven to be deadly to them in the past so they don't take chances.
Yes, in particular the extreme hostility seems to have begun after an incident in the 1800s, where a British ship took an old man and wife and their kids off the island to introduce them to the local authorities in an effort to open the island up to explorers and missionaries. The old man and wife died from disease on the ship, so they returned the children to the island. The islanders probably figured out what caused the epidemic that must have inevitably followed.
Prior to that the islanders had a reputation as hostile but there were recorded instances of non-hostile contact.
There have also been a handful visits by Indian archeologists over the years who managed to convince the islanders not to attack by repeatedly making gifts to them over periods of months.
And the dude that kidnapped the old people and kids sure did like to take lots of photos of the natives standing around naked
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
extremely good twitter thread by gaetan burgio describing the method:
Turns out there is definitely one thing the human genome selects for, and that's shittiness to other human beings.
i dunno if that’s true i’m a fuckin delight and clearly an advanced specimen so
There's a small part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book about how bad-ass everyone is.
“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Also, the shittiness aspect of human nature is overhyped. We tend not to murder one another. The non-murdering part is so normal that it's ignored, and the few disfunctionally shitty people are such a tiny minority that they get over-represented in our minds as being the norm.
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
And yet I've managed to not kill anyone, and you've managed to not kill anyone and most people don't kill anyone. We tend to say 'hi' to one another instead.
This is a more recent thing though. Pre-civilization, humans would live in small communities and mostly would avoid killings by not venturing out much. If you met a rando on the road in the old days (and I mean really old days, before any kind of centralized society or agriculture) it was probably 50/50 whether you talked it out or threw down, depending on things like whether you could understand each others language, whether you knew someone in common and could figure it out, whose homelands you were in, etc.
Missionaries and anthropologists still have problems with this interacting with remote tribes to this day, there was recently an American killed that got the bright idea he would drop in on a protected precivilizational island tribe in India.
Edit: this sounds extreme, but in a traditional society with no government a killing a lone wanderer has basically no consequences- his family might seek revenge if he has one and they figure out what happens, but that is probably unlikely. There are significant downsides to just letting someone go, though, they could be a scout from another tribe seeking to raid or displace you from your lands, they could be a theif seeking to steal goods from you you need to survive, etc. There’s a lot of anthropological evidence for violent behavior in this manner.
Now, if there’s even a basic government authority (even if it’s just, say, Negan the warlord) the calculus changes a lot and it gets much safer relatively to travel). Lets say you are a tribal village, one day Negan decides to include you in his burgeoning empire (basically a protection racket). Some guys come in in force greater than you can handle so you don’t fight, you spend a few days working out some basic terms of Neganese to communicate simple concepts, and they basically say they’ll be coming by every couple of weeks to collect some tax from thr food you collect and that you agree to give them some fighting age men to be in their gang. This was obviously a pretty common arrangement in ancient times as well as now in anarchic areas. Well now when you meet that traveling stranger you have some options - you can try talking in Neganese rather than your local language, you can hold him until they come by to see if they know him, etc. Also the downsides are a bit less bad. If he is scouting for raiders or a theif you can appeal to Negans gang for help, etc. so a peaceful outcome is much more likely.
Generations later when its the kingdom of Negan XI it may be that things are safe enough and the roads are well patrolled enough the stranger may not even be challenged at all.
I will note that that island although has minimal contacts with the outside HAS had interactions in the past and often wound up with massive disease outbreaks/death. It is small wonder the islanders shoot first ask questions later. Letting outsiders interact with them has proven to be deadly to them in the past so they don't take chances.
Yes, in particular the extreme hostility seems to have begun after an incident in the 1800s, where a British ship took an old man and wife and their kids off the island to introduce them to the local authorities in an effort to open the island up to explorers and missionaries. The old man and wife died from disease on the ship, so they returned the children to the island. The islanders probably figured out what caused the epidemic that must have inevitably followed.
Prior to that the islanders had a reputation as hostile but there were recorded instances of non-hostile contact.
There have also been a handful visits by Indian archeologists over the years who managed to convince the islanders not to attack by repeatedly making gifts to them over periods of months.
And the dude that kidnapped the old people and kids sure did like to take lots of photos of the natives standing around naked
In retrospect the policy of shooting visitors on sight seems pretty damn rational.
Posts
This is a related and interesting read:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/human-violence-evolution-animals-nature-science/
Short summary: Animals killing their own kind is pretty rare. Primates have a higher than average rate of killing each other, and humans are very typical for primates. The human exception is that there's a higher rate of adults killing other adults, where other primates are bigger on infanticide.
And yet I've managed to not kill anyone, and you've managed to not kill anyone and most people don't kill anyone. We tend to say 'hi' to one another instead.
Which would place us in the same class as ants: (first result for 'Ant Warfare' from Google) http://serious-science.org/ant-wars-6652
I have to think infanticide occurs when mating opportunities are scarce, and adult murder occurs when territorial resources are instead scarce, because now the adult's very existence is the problem.
But I don't know anything about the habitats of primates to back that up.
I dunno about the ethics thing, but otherwise this is my feeling. "No they didn't." I think CRISPR is still in its infancy and will be for some time, and frankly I don't see anyone pulling this off in human trials yet. It's probably not far off, but it's not there. Equally, "HIV resistance" seems like an odd first step to me, and something that should maybe be saved for a little bit down the road. There are a ton of things you could change by manipulating a single allele, at least one of them must be easier to test with a more obvious result that doesn't ultimately involve exposing a child to HIV. Altering alleles related to disease resistance seem varsity-level while we're still playing little league tee ball.
It could be that it was all done so secretly that it makes it much harder to verify, but right now all we seem to have is this guy’s word and nothing else.
This is a more recent thing though. Pre-civilization, humans would live in small communities and mostly would avoid killings by not venturing out much. If you met a rando on the road in the old days (and I mean really old days, before any kind of centralized society or agriculture) it was probably 50/50 whether you talked it out or threw down, depending on things like whether you could understand each others language, whether you knew someone in common and could figure it out, whose homelands you were in, etc.
Missionaries and anthropologists still have problems with this interacting with remote tribes to this day, there was recently an American killed that got the bright idea he would drop in on a protected precivilizational island tribe in India.
Edit: this sounds extreme, but in a traditional society with no government a killing a lone wanderer has basically no consequences- his family might seek revenge if he has one and they figure out what happens, but that is probably unlikely. There are significant downsides to just letting someone go, though, they could be a scout from another tribe seeking to raid or displace you from your lands, they could be a theif seeking to steal goods from you you need to survive, etc. There’s a lot of anthropological evidence for violent behavior in this manner.
Now, if there’s even a basic government authority (even if it’s just, say, Negan the warlord) the calculus changes a lot and it gets much safer relatively to travel). Lets say you are a tribal village, one day Negan decides to include you in his burgeoning empire (basically a protection racket). Some guys come in in force greater than you can handle so you don’t fight, you spend a few days working out some basic terms of Neganese to communicate simple concepts, and they basically say they’ll be coming by every couple of weeks to collect some tax from thr food you collect and that you agree to give them some fighting age men to be in their gang. This was obviously a pretty common arrangement in ancient times as well as now in anarchic areas. Well now when you meet that traveling stranger you have some options - you can try talking in Neganese rather than your local language, you can hold him until they come by to see if they know him, etc. Also the downsides are a bit less bad. If he is scouting for raiders or a theif you can appeal to Negans gang for help, etc. so a peaceful outcome is much more likely.
Generations later when its the kingdom of Negan XI it may be that things are safe enough and the roads are well patrolled enough the stranger may not even be challenged at all.
Two adults of a species are likely to be fairly similar in physical ability, so I think fighting to the death is just generally too risky in the wild. It would be very easy for the winner to sustain permanent or fatal injury in the process. Fighting, but allowing the loser to retreat un-murdered is usually the better deal for both sides. On the other hand, infanticide has a lot less risk. Humans are probably an exception here because thanks to social structure and technology it's a lot easier to make a fight between adults very lopsided.
Ants are an interesting exception.
For what its worth chimps when they fight tend to fight very dirty and very human.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/2119677-chimps-beat-up-murder-and-then-cannibalise-their-former-tyrant/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
That's some ancient-Greece style fuckery right there.
Thomas Hobbes was right! :surprised:
He also has the distinction of being denied membership in the Royal Academy of Science more than any single person.
He spent longer than I've been alive trying to show that you can square a circle, so hard even Newton shook his head at the man, and he was an alchemist and apocalypse predictor.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
I don't think they did it and I think this is another in a long line of "Chinese Science" fakes with mishandled data of not complete forgery.
Also presenting the achievement in the context of a "twin study" has some additional horrific undertones.
However, (limited*) genetic HIV resistance has been heavily studied and the genes for it have been almost entirely figured out in the decades it has been studied. So, it's not a huge leap for someone to go with that if they're targeting something for modification. It's flashy and has a lot of data behind it.
Also they wouldn't have to give the child HIV, they'd have to study the effects of HIV on harvested tissue.
*resistance to specific strains of HIV, and repeat exposure can still result in getting it.
Seeing as crispr is most likely nowhere near that kind of use and would lead to CANCER babies instead of CRISPR babies currently, I think it's the best we can hope for that this is a scam
broadly theres not much evidence this is the case yet - the worry about mass offsite edits that was raised a while ago has turned out to be probably false, for various reasons, and there have been limited (albeit contested) results showing that it mostly works as expected in human cells in vitro. there was initial worry about high human antibody response to some variants - but when replicated the rate of this response was much lower than initially found. some worry about p53 problems which could lead to malignancy, but again not confirmed or demonstrated. so its not that its "definitely safe" but it wouldnt be odd if somebody got reasonably lucky and got something done without causing huge consequences - the empirical evidence does not weigh particularly heavily towards "likely damaging" if delivered in a sensible way etc (one advantage of doing babies is that you have much less of a problem with trying to figure out a delivery method that is super specific to a tissue or organ)
https://www.statnews.com/2018/11/26/claim-of-crispred-baby-girls-stuns-genome-editing-summit/
huh ok george church is on board
thats.... interesting.
at a bare minimum that means they have got decent looking data
to avoid mosaicism!
wow
not not a concern (as it were), but that 1) the very high incidence reported in some earlier papers has gradually drifted downwards for various reasons (including the widely reported paper i was implicitly referring to above, that over-estimated by an order of magnitude) 2) methodological improvements have consistently been chipping away at the risks, including most notably simply being more precise in what guide rna sequence you pick and alternative nucleases that are more precise than generic cas9 3) there are various ways to simulate the risks posed by various guide rna sequences and, as in this case (if not a scam) they might well have chosen this particular edit precisely because it poses low offtarget risks (and you could easily do both in silico and in vitro tests beforehand) etc
one recent example to show the kinds of things being tried: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0500-9
for an informal discussion of the widely reported overestimation offtarget paper: https://ipscell.com/2017/05/journal-club-review-of-new-crispr-lots-of-off-target-activity-mouse-paper/
EDIT: to tie the response back to what i was implying originally: it does not seem absurd based on current evidence that somebody might be able to do a well-executed human crispr edit given current knowledge and technology if they have done good methodological refinement. our default assumption should tend to uncertainty informed by specifics
If it did work though maybe the doctors could use it to cure the cancer the comments on that fucking twitter link gave me.
I'm going to have to read these articles because I'm a tad confused about how you could end up with a proportion of edited cells that's not 0 or 1 after you inject the editor into a single celled embryo (or zygote at that point?). Either the editor hits and sticks or it doesn't, but it's still the only cell with the only DNA in the organism, so a gamish of DNA seems unlikely to happen.
Dunno, CRISPER is supposed to be easy-peasy as far as gene editing tech goes. If you're aiming at a well studied chunk of DNA and are breaking enough rules that I have to wonder how many failures there were prior to this, then I can see this being a thing that happened.
add those two together and you can end up with an initial cell division that ends up with two cells, one with edited dna the other with unedited
So even then you could potentially end up with mosaicism? And the second edit just further reduces the chances?
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Could, though I guess if you watched very carefully and did the second dose immediately after the cell divided, then you'd probably have a good chance of getting the edit done. Per my light Googling there is a 15 hour gap between the first and second cell divisions of an embryo.
Fun fact I got from the intertubes: The gene edit that was done protects against AIDS at the cost of increased susceptibility to Influenza and West Nile. This may or may not have been communicated to the parents.
He is not on board with this.
So I can definitely see parents deciding that getting the flu is better than getting HIV, although the flu is certainly more common it's less likely to kill you in the long run as long as you're on top of that.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
PSN:Furlion
first primate live births with crispr gene edits was 2014
https://www.nature.com/news/first-monkeys-with-customized-mutations-born-1.14611
high failure rate but things have moved on since then and there are a wide range of successful crispr edits in chimpanzees
And which one is resistant to SIV or something else that pervasive? Where is the proof that something like this would even work? Not the edits themselves, but the increased resistance.
PSN:Furlion
the hiv resistance is quite an easy edit: they are simply trying to null - render unexpressed - the ccr5 receptor. the classic way this happens in humans is through a 32bp deletion leading to an early stop codon (known as ccr5 delta 32), and this allele is widely found in people of european origin. so the question of the mechanism of resistance is already solved; they are simply trying to replicate an already-understood mechanism by which some people are more resistant to hiv infection
as a technical question, this particular choice of edit is simply easier than many others
I will note that that island although has minimal contacts with the outside HAS had interactions in the past and often wound up with massive disease outbreaks/death. It is small wonder the islanders shoot first ask questions later. Letting outsiders interact with them has proven to be deadly to them in the past so they don't take chances.
Yes, in particular the extreme hostility seems to have begun after an incident in the 1800s, where a British ship took an old man and wife and their kids off the island to introduce them to the local authorities in an effort to open the island up to explorers and missionaries. The old man and wife died from disease on the ship, so they returned the children to the island. The islanders probably figured out what caused the epidemic that must have inevitably followed.
Prior to that the islanders had a reputation as hostile but there were recorded instances of non-hostile contact.
There have also been a handful visits by Indian archeologists over the years who managed to convince the islanders not to attack by repeatedly making gifts to them over periods of months.
Useful article from today by STAT News: https://www.statnews.com/2018/11/28/chinese-scientist-defends-creating-gene-edited-babies/
And the dude that kidnapped the old people and kids sure did like to take lots of photos of the natives standing around naked
v serious crispr lad, worth paying attention
In retrospect the policy of shooting visitors on sight seems pretty damn rational.