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UK to allow babies from three people

bbc.com

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Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#151

Post by Cogito »

tosseraccount wrote: post #141
Cogito wrote: post #9

To those wondering, this does not involve gene splicing or anything like that. Instead, defective mitochondria are being replaced with mitochondria from a healthy donor. This technique is only valid for diseases involving defective mitochondria. The mitochondrial DNA is responsible for very very little of the genetic material that defines who a person is, essentially limited to how effective the mitochondria are at t…

"This is around 0.1% of the total genetic code." More like 13% ... check my math ... Most chromosomes have 2 copies per cell. However ... there are many copies of the mitochondria : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mitochondrial_genetics#Qu... Each human cell contains approximately 100 mitochondria, giving a total number of mtDNA molecules per human cell of approximately 500. Mitochondira make about 15% of then gen…

This calculation is looking at the amount of genetic material in a cell by (essentially) weight. Let's take that as the right way to compare these for a moment.

----

Nuclear genome (no sex chromosones): 2,881,033,286 base pairs

Sex chromosones (avg): 262,592,623 base pairs (310,541,120 women, 214,644,126 men)

Nuclear genome (avg): 3,143,625,909 base pairs

Mitochondrion genome: 16,569 base pairs

mtDNA in a cell: 500

----

The proportion of genetic material in a cell that comes from mtDNA is thus:

(total mtDNA) / ((nDNA no sex) * 2 + (nDNA sex) + (total mtDNA))

(16,569 * 500) / (2,881,033,286 * 2 + 262,592,623 + 16,569 * 500)

which is 0.00137, or 0.137%

If we look at just the amount of information encoded, we get:

(mtDNA) / (nDNA + mtDNA)

(16,569) / (3,143,625,909 + 16,569)

which is 5.2710^-6 or 0.000527%

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#152

Post by Tuna-Fish »

recibe wrote: post #106
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World population is not exploding, and overpopulation is not and will not be a major world problem.

Based on what? Your opinion? The U.N. projects world population to increase to 10.8 billion by 2100 from 6.9 billion in 2010. http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publication... The academic laziness of you and those who agree with you is disgusting.

10.8 is not enough to be a major problem, and the UN projects total population to start decreasing soon after that.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#153

Post by _almosnow »

logfromblammo wrote: post #137
adrusi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with freshwater is not that the global supply is limited, rather that supplies in some high-population areas are. The Amazon river sends 209,000 cubic meters into the Atlantic every second[1]. That's 18,100,000,000 per day. A single human drinks about two liters (0.02 cubic meters) every day. There are 7 billion humans, so the global requirement is 140,000,000 cubic meters of water. The Amazon alone conta…

First, 1 L = 0.001 m^3. A liter is one cubic decimeter. 0.1 x 0.1 x 0.1 == 0.001 . Humans use more fresh water than just the quantity that they actually drink. You also have to include the quantity used for sanitation, personal hygiene, and recreation. Even discounting non-household use, a single person can easily clear 100 L (0.1 m^3) per day through their water meter, without even trying. Go read your water bill so…

Also take into account the much bigger amount that is needed to grow crops and feed livestock; you may be able to use graywater for that, but definitely not saltwater.

Also, water needed by industries and water spoiled by pollution.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#154

Post by Houshalter »

recibe wrote: post #148
Houshalter wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So condemning some children to horrible genetic diseases somehow makes the world more fair?

That's both flimsy and a perversion of my logic, which is a direct rebuttal of the logic of the article itself. The article gives an example of a woman who tried 7 times to have children and failed because she is genetically defective in terms of her ability to have children. The government, however, has made special allowances to a 1990 law prohibiting egg and embryonic re-engineering so that this woman can. The Pri…

But the alternative isn't necessarily no children, but unhealthy children who also carry the genetic condition.

In any case reproduction being covered by the government is a separate issue, but I don't see why it shouldn't be.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#155

Post by Houshalter »

recibe wrote: post #150
Houshalter wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is zero-sum thinking. The un-genetically modified kids are no worse off than they would have otherwise been. Second we could easily solve it by making it available to everyone. Third, the world is hardly genetically fair as it is. People are born with all sorts of horrible genetic conditions every day. If anything this will make the world more fair.

Just because you perceive something makes the world "more fair" doesn't mean it should EVER be implemented exclusively on that basis.

And it's not. There are massive benefits to genetic engineering. That it makes the world more fair is just a counter argument. The parent comment argued that it makes the world more unfair.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#156

Post by Houshalter »

orblivion wrote: post #138
Houshalter wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can just imagine our distant descendants reading through this thread, thinking how horrible we are for condemning our children to genetic diseases and inequality. Just like we look down at the people who fought against the smallpox vaccine because it was unnatural.

> our children What does this phrase mean?

Children? As in the next generation, descendants, kids, etc? What do you think it means?

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#157

Post by one-more-minute »

recibe wrote: post #147
one-more-minute wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one's ability to reproduce should not be guaranteed by the state, and therefore the state should not create laws that overtly or inadvertently sanction ... Ok, but even taking the first part of that as given I don't understand why the second part follows. I don't think one's ability to go on holiday should be guaranteed by the state, either, but that doesn't mean plane travel should be illegal.

From the article: "The method, which was developed in Newcastle, should help women like Sharon Bernardi, from Sunderland, who lost all seven of her children to mitochondrial disease." Reasoning: Sharon Bernardi hasn't been able to reproduce naturally without this "method". But the UK is going to make this method legal - and because its healthcare system is publicly funded the UK government (and thus the public) will…

Ok, I think the issue must be a misunderstanding of how the UK health system works, then. The NHS definitely won't fund all medical procedures just because they're legal, and whether or not it is publicly funded / guaranteed is still moot at this stage – that decision will happen entirely separately.

What you're saying is equivalent to "botox shouldn't be publicly funded, therefore it shouldn't be made legal". Botox is legal in the UK, of course, but you definitely won't be able to get it on the NHS, so your "therefore" doesn't follow.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#158

Post by andyjohnson0 »

maratd wrote: post #139
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I mean, that's what evolution is. The smart get smarter, the fast get faster, the strong get stronger, and the inferior disappear from the gene pool." That's not "what evolution is". See [1] for why this is a fundamentally wrong way to think about it. [1] http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq....

Thanks for mis-quoting me. This is the actual quote: > genetically gifted individuals having children together ... which is already happening and has been happening for eons ... I mean, that's what evolution is. That is exactly what evolution is. The fit only mate with other fit individuals, accelerating the spread of traits which make them fit. With regard to my other statement: > The smart get smarter, the fast get…

I didn't mis-quote you. I quoted verbatim two linked and adjacent sentences from your comment. What you claim to be the "actual quote" was the second sentence (which I quoted) and the one that followed it (which I didn't). I didn't misrepresent what you wrote.

I'll say it again: "...genetically gifted individuals having children together" and "The fit only mate with other fit individuals" is not what evolution is. Forms of life (including humans) have sometimes evolved strategies that try to allow them to select mates based on fitness, but the emergence of these strategies also allows those that use bluff and deception to gain an advantage by deceiving fitter mates into mating with them. "Fitness" here isn't some linear value, its multi-dimensional.

Also, the very idea of individuals being "genetically gifted" is fairly meaningless. In a sense, every living human is genetically gifted because we possess genes that allowed every one of our ancestors over the last 2.4 million years to survive long enough to successfully reproduce. Most of the ones that tried didn't manage that.

Survival of genes (not individuals) is what counts. Evolution doesn't have a purpose and it doesn't result in progress ("accelerating the spread of traits which make them fit", as you put it). I just tried to point that out.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#159

Post by lkbm »

_almosnow wrote: post #56
tn13 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, a cheap and infinite source of energy is all we need. Nuclear and Solar engergy is sooner or later going to be both cheap and near infinite. That is likely to solve most problems for humanity.

I also believe that nuclear/solar will provide us with our holy grial energy source; but we've been expecting this for the last 50 years so I don't hold my hopes too high.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/US_Solar_... (From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_State... )

There are issues with transmission and storage, but I'm seeing a pretty comforting trend on the solar side of things.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#160

Post by orblivion »

Houshalter wrote: post #156
orblivion wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our children What does this phrase mean?

Children? As in the next generation, descendants, kids, etc? What do you think it means?

Well, I'm trying to highlight the "our" part. Does it matter to you how much the kids have to do with "us"? If so, why?

As I was trying to express above, it seems strange to me to imply somebody is irrational for wanting "natural" kids, but not likewise call someone out for caring about creating "their" progeny at all.

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