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> If you take those genes and put them into organisms like bacteria and yeast, which normally do not have these proteins, they actually become much more desicca
by zwkrt 3y ago
> If you take those genes and put them into organisms like bacteria and yeast, which normally do not have these proteins, they actually become much more desiccation-tolerant
Well I have a newfound fear of humans creating a bacteria as hard to kill as a tardigrade…
- aetherspawn 3y agoI mean all we need now is to find out how to make a prion that forms TDPs so we can glue it to the outside of COVID-19 in some twisted gain of function research.
- noduerme 3y agoThis is such a sad exemplar of where we've gone as a technological society. Thirty years ago, you could have suggested releasing a virus that destroyed cancer, and people would have cheered.
- Guthur 3y agoAnd after 30 years many of us have seen enough corporate propaganda to weary of any so called technological promises.
- animal531 3y agoI think people have just had to become a bit more realistic after having their eyes opened. Right now my imagination says that this virus might destroy cancer, but who knows what else it's going to do?
- bboygravity 3y agoClinical trials know what else it's going to do. This reasoning is like the fear of a some random TESTED C++ code destroying the internet, because "it might do things that you don't expect in the long run". Well yeah... it might... but...
- amelius 3y agoThere is even a worse example: imagine a protein that locks onto pieces of DNA that are only present in people of a certain race, etc. The worst part is, we can stop building the foundations of this type of technology, but our geopolitical opponents will not.
- jacquesm 3y ago> our geopolitical opponents Who are they?
- TechBro8615 3y agoPretty sure OP is referring to the Chinese.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoAustralians. Argentina? Could be anybody.
- TechBro8615 3y agoCould be the NIH too, I suppose!
- tcmart14 3y agoI don't know. My neighbor has been acting pretty sketch lately...
- bboygravity 3y agoThis is actually super trivial with today's technology. It's a little too late to "stop building the foundations". That's like wanting to "stop building the foundations" for the tech that allows governments to spy on civilians. We're about 20 to 30 years passed that.
- xenophonf 3y ago
- barrysteve 3y agoWe did globally coordinate and deploy a vaccine campaign with little spare time.
- noduerme 3y agowhich was the most technologically positive and futuristic thing that's happened in a long time. Thank you for stating it.
- justinclift 3y agoThe real question is, if these genes are spliced into a human do they awaken post-dessication craving human blood? :)
- seanhunter 3y agoCraving for human blood said to be "within acceptable tolerance". Every technological step forward has it's pros and cons.
- AwaAwa 3y agoThis is the purpose of Marketing. Feature, not a bug.
- isk517 3y agoIn the future you will eat the flesh of your fellow man and you will like it.
- jryb 3y agoNature is already doing this experiment, right now, and has been for billions of years. This couldn't cause problems even if we wanted it to.
- vlovich123 3y agoThat feels like fatally flawed reasoning. Nature took billions of years to sequester carbon. It’s taken a few hundred to release an amount that’s permanently altered the climate of the Earth. There’s lots of problems humans can create that “nature” couldn’t precisely because we drastically compress time scales that make adaptation exceedingly difficult.
- nunobrito 3y agoClimate has been changing since the planet exists and you benefit from everything that a modern society has to offer. Better if you become the example of change in society and go live inside a cave to reduce your own carbon footprint.
- circuit10 3y agohttps://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- nunobrito 3y agoInstead of comics, better understand that climate has always changed and will continue to change. Not that long ago that parts of the globe were for centuries warmer up to 5 degree celsius and then fallen into a mini ice-age: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period Reality is quite cold, literally.
- circuit10 3y agoDid you even look at what I posted? It addresses what you're saying, and it shows the Medieval Warm Period on the graph. In fact, even the article you posted has a similar graph as the first image on the page.
- lm28469 3y agoWe don't need humans for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudomonas_aeruginosa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudomonas_aeruginosa Eventually we'll get to a point where nothing will work against these
- COGlory 3y agoP. aeruginosa is an incredible organism. Not only is it antibiotic resistant, but it also is starvation resistant. So even when you have antibotics that work, it's often to difficult to get them to all the cells, since cells at the bottom of a biofilm just shut down completely for weeks on end. End the course of antibiotics, and they pop back up and start growing again. Thankfully, there are major tradeoffs associated with those traits, which makes them not particularly virulent to healthy people.