Science Magic or Mishap

ILL the Woolly Mammoth walk again?

Saturday 12th
I think it's a given. I listened to Nova on PBS and so very interesting, wish it had not been at 5 am this morning...maybe I could have read the captions with my glasses on.  

OKAY the whole thing goes way beyond my education...but in a nut shell CRISPR or Cas-9 is a way of splicing DNA.  Ok think old time movie file editing,,,they spliced out the unwanted part by actually cutting it out with scissors..then they tape it back together with that part gone, or they cut a segment out of another piece of film and add that into the splice...that makes it easy to understand right?

If you take the DNA and turn it into an alphabetic sequence then it may look like this...with the same message along it's strand...repeated. 

AACCDDRRSSVVAACCDDRRSSVV and on and on.
But  look at this example..  AACCDDTSSVVAA  There is a problem...the RR is now a T...so in this strand of DNA something is not quite right...so if you could synthesize an RNA which is a genetic messenger in with a correction to splice out that T and replace it with the correct RR then problem solved.  This abnormality could be a disease, a genetic one or it could be a virus...we have talked about how a virus takes over your computer and makes it do weird things if it gets past your virus protection so once in a virus can change your operating system to now include that virus changing the RR to a T

So the RNA duplicates it'self and then carries the original operating system and commands to override the virus...this is sort of how immunity is created.  With the CRISPR-Cas9 system now scientists can replicate RNA use the Cas-9 (a protein) to split out the "bad" gene and then insert the replicated RNA that will carry in a new set of instructions. 

All very above my head and I don't pretend to know how it works but I can understand how it could change the genetic make up of a living organism.  I can also see the potential for a Horror Show and I can see the benefits of it...

The horror show would be the "perfect human race" and the benefits would be to stamp out Cancer and other genetic problems like Sickle Cell Anemia or even deafness.  

...one deaf lady said to stamp deafness out is to deny the diversity that deafness brings to the human existence.  I can see what she means but given how much I love to hear a bird sing I would say she has not heard that and can not speak for all when she makes that assumption.  Meanwhile they are raising genetically altered pigs who will be organ donors for human transplant. Mainly hearts. 

This same science they are attempting to use to create vaccines...I don't think the knowledge is where it needs to be yet to make it work the way they want it to work, in theory yes, but as long as there is the Human Equation involved there will be Mistakes! Like the Atom Bomb...yes it works but at what cost? We created the computer now it is changing us.  We will know in 100 years if it created a Horror Story or not...personally I think it did for our continued life on the Planet.  

Pandora's box is open...and we are forgetting HOW to exist on our own Planet.  Not many could survive outside the cocoon of our present shelter...just look at the people being displaced by fire, they didn't run into the uninhabited wilderness to have their needs met...they ran toward civilization. 

One thing about the splicing of the DNA is, it would not create mutants unless they change the DNA in the egg or the sperm...so we wont have it passed on to our young if the vaccine makes us all into some sort of misfit...it will die with us, unless they go about trying to fix the problem they created and somehow make it even worse into some sort of mutation that does invade the procreation cells...like a blank canvas you start painting and then you don't like it so you add more paint and more paint till it's just a mess and there is nothing to do but scrap it and start over. 

Then the question of GOD of course is raised....okay well if a god created us, why all the mistakes? We come with so many defects.  Some say we're too far from the source to remain perfect but then where did the Original defect come from? It had to be in the sperm or the egg...Evolution creates blind moles, but if they begin to live above ground would they see again...evolution says they will...
So the environment around us can cause our genetics to change and evolve over time, if we put our environment back to "perfection" maybe that will erase the evolution that has made us sickly and changed us??  We changed our environment and in turn it is changing us. 

So much to think about!!

So if they bring back the Woolly Mammoth where it will live? 80,000 out on the plains....the plains of where? South Dakota, Siberia, Africa?  They say a clone has a short life span...so will these transplanted hearts last half as long as they should?  I don't know why I guess because somehow the environment around it knows it's a fake? These are all questions that will be answered in time I'm sure.  I told  you that I never believed man came from Ape..the missing link, were  we brought here some place else?...or the Big Bang theory?...it's not anymore far fetched that this super Energy of some sort who one day went abra-ca-dabra...
And then you go and ask...

"well how did the Aliens get there, before they came here?"

NOW you went and  spoiled it...

How the hell should I know??