The Apple computer was invented in a garage. Same with the Google search engine. Now, tinkerers are working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself.
Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering — a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories.
So there is the encouragement of learning and discovery, but then there’s also this:
Jim Thomas of ETC Group, a biotechnology watchdog organization, warned that synthetic organisms in the hands of amateurs could escape and cause outbreaks of incurable diseases or unpredictable environmental damage.
"Once you move to people working in their garage or other informal location, there’s no safety process in place," he said.
But then again, it’s great for mad scientists.
What do you think?
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Wasn’t it supposed to be the same such hubris they were playing with that sunk Atlantis? Lotsaluck with that one!
So frankenfoods were not enough, only countries too poor to say no are the remaining market for US agricultural products. Nice one there, who could have known. What is it like to live in a country that is chemically, biologically, politically and morally contaminated? Inquiring minds want to know.
Awww, if only I were a mad scientist…
My favorite Mad Magazine from when I was a kid – in the late 1950s -had the Mad Nuclear Chemistry Kit. The headline above the story, with a picture of Alfred E. Neuman pushing a detonator plunger, and a mushroom cloud coming up down the block, read:
“Be the first kid on YOUR BLOCK to rule the world!”
George HW Bush’s boy saw that too and had dad buy one for him. Look at how that turned out. What? me worry? /s
The idea that scientists can get very rich with patents is moving science in a very different direction. Corporations like pharma were behind all these patents and monopoly control for… profit and now they are bitching that “scientists” are doing “it” without sharing it with a corporate master. The old deal was that all the gear made it prohibitive to go it alone. But things like software design doesn’t require capital and so guys can do it on their basement and grab market share (with their own corporations). Google is said to be a rather progressive one, but it is clearly the exception and not the rule. Patents are always about cashing out much more than spreading new ideas – you don’t need patents for that, but then you will be eaten by the corporations who DO control the market and the marketers who sell with lies.
The Guardian commenting (and some good comments as well)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comm…..government
hahahahaha
like monsanto has a safety process in place to prevent environmental damage?
that’s a great one. thanks for the laugh this morning.
And when there is and it goes wrong there is no accountability for any of it. The lawyers step in and the suffering and assault goes on unabetted.
the “new life forms” bit is a clue that the writer is trying to scare the reader. so what if people doing the work don’t have a phd? or works in a corporate or university lab? that’s not what makes the work potentially dangerous – it’s the nature of the work, not who does it.
it’s important to have appropriate regulations – regulations that should apply to everyone.
this article makes me think the industry groups don’t like the idea of private research that’s not under their control.
“The man-made viruses came first for the silicon-based, And I didn’t speak up because I was carbon-based”
If you thought malevolent computer viruses were bad, just wait until some clever biohacker, imitating CSI, snatches a sample of your DNA, splices in a little Musca domestica and, with a small smear on your car door handle, infects you with the result. Soon you’ll be feeling and looking like Seth Brundle.
Mornin’, gang -
FYI – “Persons of interest” [*g*] on Washington Journal today:
8am – Joshua Marshall, Talking Points Memo, Founder
9am – Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, Reporter
Fingers crossed that Josh gets the full hour (no indication on the C-Span site that there’s one of those “read news articles/caller response” segments between him and Lichtblau).
Re. opening comment right now, Josh will be”Talking about his blog and future of news casting”.
Anthrax in the hands of government…
Good morning all, Hopr everyone had a great Holiday. Fortunately GWB kept us safe from Achmed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go
This is OT (I apologize) but I’ve been waiting to see this mentioned in the blogs and haven’t had any luck. What is this all about?
Is this nothing or another attempt to sabotage the Obama administration?
thanks. i’d love to see someone call in and ask lichtblau about his crappy reporting on fisa. both hugh and glenn commented on it, i’ll go look for their posts…
ahhh Boxing Day, morning!
Attaturk, to answer your question, “it’s great for mad scientists.”
I *think* the host mentioned lichtblau is supposed to talk about the holden nomination but was mainly trying to find out Josh’s focus so unsure whether that’s true or no.
Yeah, I saw that one also and had the same reaction. Iirc the article came on-line either yesterday or day before so even the blogs are running behind…..Christmas holiday dump = Friday news dumps. :-(
Trooper Says Election Delayed Alaska Drug Case
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..c-politics
Hmmmm……
So the secret service was supposedly “protecting or surveilling” an alleged drug dealer? WTF?
Alas, such an artificial virus has already been created.
Symptoms include complete loss of mental abilities,
including memory and logic;
delusions of grandeur;
and the perception of living in an alternate reality.
The virus is called TNR, and victims include Marty Peretz,Michael Kelly,
Charles Krauthammer, Fred Barnes, Morton Kondracke, Mickey Kaus,
Andrew Sullivan, Jacob Weisberg, and Peter Beinart.
Please join me in praying for them, their families, and their readers.
per the radio schedule:
8:00-8:40 JOSHUA MARSHALL Uplink Talking Points Memo
Founder http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com
Topic: A look at the future of newsgathering and dissemination.
8:40-9:00 Newspaper Articles/Phones
9:00-10:00 ERIC LICHTBLAU New York Times
Reporter http://www.nytimes.com
Topic: Department of Justice – the fourth in a series of segments on the cabinet appointments & the departments they oversee. Today, we’ll focus on the Department of Justice. Pres.-elect Obama has named Eric Holder as his nominee to be Attorney General.
background for lichtblau on fisa article from june 10:
hugh: Another Adventure in Reading the New York Times
glenn: NYT circulates fear-mongering claims on FISA debate
i guess 6 months makes it old news. but i’m still holding a grudge *g*
lol!
Good morning, pups. As a belated Christmas gift the Times tells us that David Brooks is off today. Happy Boxing Day! Mr. Krugman, in “Barack Be Good,” says President-elect Barack Obama has said that he wants to “make government cool again.” Before Mr. Obama can make government cool, however, he has to make it good.
Here he is. (Why does WordPress still thick “Barack” and “Obama” are misspelled?)
The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got French toast with warm Vermont maple syrup. If anyone wants a little book that’s absolutely laugh-out-loud funny consider “They Call Me Naughty Lola,” a collection of personal ads from the London Review of Books which Santa left for me. The first paragraph of the introduction had me howling:
How can you not howl? Happy Boxing Day.
Will be seeing my computer guru in the next couple of weeks and hope to find out why I can’t get in to see that radio schedule.
no.
and appointment to the “Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” doesn’t affect obama in the slightest. it is just one more payoff to bushco’s cronies – at the expense of the rest of us. i probably should be up in arms, but the multi-trillion dollar rip off has jaded me.
One of the sad (but also fortunate) aspects of an aging memory is the difficulty *remembering* grudges. *G*
LOL.
i feel a case of the giggles coming…
that’s odd, isn’t it? And it gives way more info than the regular WJ page.
I hit it from the front page left hand side, schedules.
And I can’t believe I’m listening to this guy telling us that Obama would have roundly defeated McCain but for the nomination of Palin, which was such a huge boost for McCain’s vote totals. Dude Gizzi must have had a kool-aid implant.
good point. but the flip side of grudges is the debt of gratitude – i would not want to forget to be grateful for any kindnesses (although i’m sure i have, i just can’t seem to remember which ones..)
Yup, that’s the one I keep trying that won’t work. As for the gizzi creep, my tolerance for listening to the crazies is now completely nonexistent [thanks to scar for the cure].
how many boxes are in a case of giggles? *g*
Gizzi stands out as, perhaps, the most inane, idiotic, unqualified of all the right wing talkers/writers I’ve endured. His primary attribute seems to be an appearance and manner of speech which is very similar to those of actor Tom Bosley. Bosley’s roles, however, were always those of intellectual giants, when compared to Gizzi.
which is very similar = which are very similar
In order to not unduly alarm you,
I should have mentioned that there is
one known survivor of TNR
I developed the crazy aversion syndrome from faux news many many years ago
Came to political news relatively late in life thus fortunately having plenty of warning to avoid the primo crazy source.
he must be called “Gizzi” because he has gizzards for brains.
Good heavens this guy Gizzi is really a Palin devotee. What was his site called – Notes from the funny farm?
If so, “Zippo” would have been more appropriate.
Can you imagine what an interview/conversation between him and Palen would sound like?
hehe. not sure, still working my way through, one box at a time..
now my brain hurts.
Morning Swim: The Day After is up!
This is laissez-faire capitalism at its purest. The “mad scientist” entrepreneur invents a microbe that wipes out half of New Jersey. The “wipe out,” in turn, creates a new market opportunity for another mad scientist to invent a cure or vaccine. Nirvana for Rush and Sean. . .
Teh Obama is self sabotaged, tehy beat tehm to it. ;-)/s
nice cover for a govt-initiated outbreak of some biowarfare agent they’re developing.
Ask the people around Grandy NC (just south of Blackwater’s HQ) about the SARS-like illness that felled about thirty of them three months before the SARS outbreak. Same symptoms, same lack of specific diagnosis. Many locals blamed it on the farm.
I just do eyes!
Reminds me of the movie Blade Runner where the urban marketplace is littered with little genetic engineering shops:
Fish scales for exotic dancers, artificial snakes, etc.
Life imitates art, as usual.
Geez. There is a real anti-science tone at this site sometimes I’ve noticed.
Amateur scientists have created many of the great advances in human history, working out of their homes or personal laboratories. Yes, sometimes it’s dangerous, and sometimes they even pay the price (the Curies for example). Still, we’d live in a much poorer world without such experimentation.
It’s especially ironic that we’re fretting about this on a website, since the telephone, alternating current and the computer were all invented by talented ‘amateurs’ operating on their own, and the World Wide Web as a personal side project (using company computers no less).
Tesla was a mad scientist if ever there was one (earthquake machine!). I’m glad no one stopped him from doing his thing.
Finally, can we please stop the ‘frankenfood’ nonsense? It’s reactionary and insulting to a lot of hardworking people in the biological sciences. It’s also a bad literary reference; Frankenstein worked with anatomy and reanimating the dead, not genetics. Moreau-foods might be better, as he actually altered and spliced together living creatures for ‘desirable’ traits, but he was a vivisectionist, for that matter.
Or we could just evaluate science without resorting to name calling. Either way.
For a site that routinely criticizes the right’s anti-science tendencies, this is pretty lame. I hope you were only joking, and realize that such a thing is flat out impossible.
– MarkusQ
P.S. In case you don’t, a brief explanation of why it’s absurd.
Your DNA directs the construction of your body in roughly the same way a recipe directs the preparation of food.
If you baked a chocolate cake and someone found the recipe, changed it include parts of a recipe for beef wellington, and then set the revised recipe on the cake, what would you expect to happen?
being in favor of sensible regulations in banking is not being anti-banking.
in the same way being in favor of sensible regulations in the areas of food safety or environmental protection is not anti-science.
the fear mongering in the story is joke – because they’re worried about non-phd types working on their own. i think it’s great that people are able to do this on their own (without working at a corporation, university or gov lab) and i think that sensible regulations should apply equally in all cases – i just think think the risks are far greater from what is being done gov and private labs. and that the risks are real.
oh, and i love the frankenfood label and intend to use it until monsanto et al stop lobbying against sensible regulations.
it’s not absurd.
Sensible regulations would be nice in many walks of life.
I just fail to see why so many on the Left, and on this site in particular, have such virulent hatred of biotechnology. It’s irrational. You get so much vitriol over genetically modifying a plant so that, say, it could grow in more arid soil or use a less dangerous herbicide, and then the very same people will be absolutely livid (correctly, I think) over religiously motivated restriction of stem-cell research.
As for the frankenfood label, you can do as you like of course, but it just looks childish, IMHO. No better than when the right insists on calling doctors ‘abortionists’ or the Pope makes an asinine comment comparing gay rights to burning the rainforest.
It depends on what is being referred to as ‘absurd’
Is it absurd that a talented and very well funded researcher with access to a lot of pricey equipment could, in fact, make a more lethal disease? No.
Is it absurd that a bioterrorist working out of a home lab could turn you into a human-fly chimera? Yes, that’s pretty absurd. People die when they’re given an organ donation from a closely matched subject without huge doses of immunosuppressant. I think your white blood cells would have something to say about the new proboscis you’re growing :D
i don’t hate biotech and i think genetic engineering is great. love molecular biology too. my objection is to stupidity and hubris.
dude, if you had a clue what you were talking about you would know the difference between the development of self tolerance and the immune response to an hla mismatched organ transplant in a mature individual. if you are interested, i suggest one of these.
DIY’ers are already regulated to such extremes that DIY science is virtually impossible to do in some areas. Just getting labware is hard, getting common chemicals, even NaCl or NaHCO3, in a research grade can be impossible.
But MolBio is just the latest science to get Terrorist added to its warning label.
“Garage chemistry used to be a rite of passage for geeky kids. But in their search for terrorist cells and meth labs, authorities are making a federal case out of DIY science.”
http://www.wired.com/wired/arc…..istry.html
excellent point. and very sad – i have fond memories of my mom teaching me to do fun stuff with the chemistry set she got me… and the stories of her chem lab in college were pretty cool too (had to do with the students making illicit amounts of iirc nitrogen tri-iodide crystals).
First off, if you’re trying to establish that a claim is credible citing New Scientist is not a good way to start. Perhaps not as bad as the checkout line tabloids, but it’s a fair bit worse than Fox News.
And in any case the accomplishment claimed in the article you linked (government scientists modifying an extant virus to make it more dangerous) is worlds away from a garage DYIer developing some new form of hollywood fueled cross species evil gene therapy as you originally posited.
And guess what? Government researchers with enormous budgets can make really scary weapons. Using everything from physics to chemistry to psychology to…who knows, maybe even astronomy.
But that doesn’t even begin to be a credible reason for wanting to stifle independent research–in fact, if you think about it, it’s a good reason for wanting to encourage private researchers.
Unless you’re just a Bush-level science-phobe, you may want to rethink your position and learn a little about the subject before you jump on the “private individuals learning how to do things without corporate approval, oh my!” bandwagon.
–MarkusQ
i linked to new scientist only because it gives some of the bigger picture and i thought it would be easier than the original article which is from journal of virology. if you’d like to read it, go for it..
otherwise you have seriously misread my comments. i do not advocate stifling research – independent research especially. i think the article that was linked to in the main post is stupid fear mongering (because of the focus on non-phds etc). i do, however, recognize that there are very real risks involved and i do advocate for sensible regulations. i think that making people eat untested, unlabeled food they don’t want to, or releasing genetically engineered (germline) organisms into the environment without the involvement of and oversight by the public and environmentalists (oops, they’re scientists too!) is just plain nuts.
as for suggesting i’m a science-phobe, i don’t know what to say other than you have it exactly wrong. i madly passionately love science – the process, the intellectual adventure, the thrill of discovery and the joy of making a difference in people’s lives. i’ve loved it to the point of obsession. i suppose there is no reason for you to believe me but there it is.