(September 18, 2011 at 10:31 pm)popeyespappy Wrote: I don’t think the concept is nearly as farfetched as you’d like to believe Shell.
Sure it is. We're talking about making a virus that changes a fetus into an entirely different species in the mother's womb.
Quote:We are already using viruses in recombinant DNA techniques as biological vectors to carry foreign genes into cells for genetic engineering. The viruses used in this method are disabled so that they do not redirect the host cells genetic machinery to copy the host virus.
Honestly, I don't see what any of that has to do with changing a fetus into another species whilst in the mother's womb, using a virus. I'm trying to see it.
Quote:Technologically speaking it wouldn’t be an insurmountable challenge to engineer a human embryo to grow a tail or perhaps even gills.
I assume you mean producing an embryo with a tail or gills outside of the mother's body. Even if you're not, you are talking about adding or subtracting a step in human evolution in a single swoop, not changing the species of a fetus. Adding a feature is different than changing the species of a fetus, though I would argue that giving a human being gills with a virus is, at this time, insurmountable.
Quote:This could be done without affecting the mother at all. Once there passing the new genetic material to the next generation would be a process we’ve already got covered.
He is talking about a biological weapon, if I remember correctly. The virus would, if it could change anything, affect the mother. There is no way a virus could tell the difference between a fetus and a mother by us telling it to. Therefore, a biological weapon that exposes a mother to a virus would affect both the mother and fetus or neither.
