A recent article claims Chinese military scientists increased the radiation tolerance of human cells by inserting tardigrade DNA -- did this really happen?
Hi Andrew, thanks for covering this story, well written and dissected. I was wondering if you have the original paper? It does not matter that it is in Manderin!
Worth mentioning that Ref [8] in the Chinese paper, by Hashimoto et al, published in 2016, already reported increased tolerance to radiation by human cells which had received a tardigrade protein (not a gene)
First, sending humans out to explore the universe seems stupid, when probes are far cheaper and less dangerous. So we can solve that radiation challenge without DNA modification.
Second, who in their right mind wants to survive a nuclear war?? So we either avoid such wars, or pray a nuke lands on our house instantly converting us in to atomic particles. No radiation challenge here either.
If we just have to dive headlong in to genetic engineering, how about this?
The marriage between violent men and an _accelerating_ knowledge explosion may be the most significant threat humanity faces. If there were no violent men, or maybe no men at all, that would remove what may be the biggest obstacle to the further progress of the knowledge explosion.
So if we're going to re-engineer the human condition at a fundamental level, why not take a look at that? Here's one such attempt....
Hi Andrew, thanks for covering this story, well written and dissected. I was wondering if you have the original paper? It does not matter that it is in Manderin!
Thanks again
Worth mentioning that Ref [8] in the Chinese paper, by Hashimoto et al, published in 2016, already reported increased tolerance to radiation by human cells which had received a tardigrade protein (not a gene)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12808
Hmm.... Let's see....
First, sending humans out to explore the universe seems stupid, when probes are far cheaper and less dangerous. So we can solve that radiation challenge without DNA modification.
Second, who in their right mind wants to survive a nuclear war?? So we either avoid such wars, or pray a nuke lands on our house instantly converting us in to atomic particles. No radiation challenge here either.
If we just have to dive headlong in to genetic engineering, how about this?
The marriage between violent men and an _accelerating_ knowledge explosion may be the most significant threat humanity faces. If there were no violent men, or maybe no men at all, that would remove what may be the biggest obstacle to the further progress of the knowledge explosion.
So if we're going to re-engineer the human condition at a fundamental level, why not take a look at that? Here's one such attempt....
https://www.tannytalk.com/p/world-peace-table-of-contents