https://www.livescience.com/64829-hachimoji-dna.html
INTRO: The brains of two genetically edited girls born in China last year may have been changed in ways that enhance cognition and memory, scientists say. The twins, called Lulu and Nana, reportedly
had their genes modified before birth by a Chinese scientific team using the new editing tool
CRISPR. The goal was to make the girls immune to infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Now, new research shows that the same alteration introduced into the girls’ DNA, deletion of a gene called CCR5, not only makes mice smarter but also improves human brain recovery after stroke, and could be linked to greater success in school. “The answer is likely yes, it did affect their brains,” says Alcino J. Silva, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose lab uncovered a major new role for the CCR5 gene in memory and the brain’s ability to form new connections. The simplest interpretation is that those mutations will probably have an impact on cognitive function in the twins,” says Silva. He says the exact effect on the girls’ cognition is impossible to predict, and “that is why it should not be done.”
MORE (details):
https://www.livescience.com/64829-hachimoji-dna.html
I saw that. Interesting, isn’t it? Have you read "Beggars in Spain"?
Quote:The experiment has been widely condemned as irresponsible, and He is under investigation in China. News of the first gene-edited babies also inflamed speculation about whether CRISPR technology could one day be used to create super-intelligent humans, perhaps as part of a biotechnology race between the US and China.
There is no evidence that He actually set out to modify the twins’ intelligence. MIT Technology Review contacted scientists studying the effects of CCR5 on cognition, and they say the Chinese scientist never reached out to them, as he did to others from whom he hoped to get scientific advice or support.
"As far as I know, we never heard from him,” says Miou Zhou, a professor at the Western University of Health Sciences in California.
Although He never consulted the brain researchers, the Chinese scientist was certainly aware of the link between CCR5 and cognition. It was first shown in 2016 by Zhou and Silva, who found that removing the gene from mice significantly improved their memory. The team had looked at more than 140 different genetic alterations to find which made mice smarter. [source]
(Feb 24, 2019 02:18 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]I saw that. Interesting, isn’t it? Have you read "Beggars in Spain"?
Recall the review ripples it made and the awards lists it was on, but yet another prescient one from a silver anniversary span of time that I missed (among many) back when reading fiction. (Or did I? The more I ponder the more I wonder if I read it after all, faint details wriggling up...)
Quote:The experiment has been widely condemned as irresponsible, and He is under investigation in China. News of the first gene-edited babies also inflamed speculation about whether CRISPR technology could one day be used to create super-intelligent humans, perhaps as part of a biotechnology race between the US and China.
"Under investigation in China" at least sounds good in a global public appearances context, and of course the government would crack down on any rogue, fringe research that it hasn't officially/secretly approved. But when it comes to overall transhuman progress, China's past
doping of its athletes to produce superior competitors indicates that behind the scenes it won't be stymied by the ethical constraints, activism, and unpredictable mob-virtues which dog the West.
The engineering of a class of geniuses might seem to conflict with the financial equality that old school communists were fixated with. But China has long since acclimated to the side-effects of its (post-Mao) socialist market economy -- with wealth disparity and lay-offs being among those. Plus, it's not like the mental Ubermensch would ever be more than a fraction of the population, just as the doped athletes were a ludicrously insignificant minority. The sufficient quantity of enhanced elite to guarantee a Chinese advantage in creativity, problem-solving, planning, etc.
OTOH, would such actually be needed? East Asian countries already lead the world in psychometric scores without genetic and technological augmentations even entering the picture yet. But just as China is gung-ho for dominating the world in terms of AI by 2030 and wistfully targeting itself as the birthplace of the singularity, it will probably want to lead in smarter people projects, too.
Improving brain-based intellects may turn out to be irrelevant if ever more useful machine learning routinely starts outputting results surpassing human efforts. An idle population then continuing to swell with NEETs and cyber-troglodytes, depending on basic income handouts from the beneficent elements of the mega-rich or the governments taxing them and their industries.
###