Daddy Would You Like Some Sausage?

As per request from many of my friends I have decided to do a post on penis enhancement pills. I know that these pills are more pharmaceutical biochemistry than biotechnology, but it is such a popular topic I think it will be ok. I want to break down the pills ingredients and talk about their safety and effectiveness.

First up is L-Arginine. L-Arginine is one of the 20 common amino acids in humans. It can stimulate human growth hormone, cell division, and wound healing. It also has an important role in the immune system. Sounds nice right, even if does not make your penis bigger. But more then enough L-Arginine can be ingested through common foods such as oatmeal and dairy products.

Zinc Gluconate is often used as a zinc supplement. Zinc can help to reduce colds. As far as function down below  zinc is essential for prostate health. Many males actually do not get enough zinc in their diet, but zinc supplements are much cheaper and more effective than penis pills.

Crataegus is a plant that is used to strengthen the heart, possibly important for those who want to have sex and have a weak heart. But it is also used a sedative. I don't know about you but I would like to stay awake through sex, but thats just me.

Muira Puama is a plant clinically proven to remedy sexual ineptitude. It is also thought to induce anxiety and increase stress, which is not so good.

My suggestion is to pass on penis pills and take a daily supplemental vitamin. You will not only get better results for overall health, but also skip on all the dangerous ingredients added to penis pills both intentionally and unintentionally. If you want to know about some of the less common ingredients link here.

 

GATTACA

I recently watched the movie GATTACA, a look at one possible outcome of an advanced eugenics driven world. Eugenics is just a fancy word for improving the genetic population,usually used only for humans populations. This can be done through selective breeding, or other high tech methods like designer babies.

Alright so back to GATTACA, in the movie children are primary genetically superior test tube babies and the entire application process to jobs, schools, even dates has been replaced by a simple genetic code reading to test for aptitude. So the plot of the movie is that a child born by normal conception fakes his identity and genes to get a high profile job and he excels at it proving that hard work and determination are better than superior genes. A point I agree whole heartedly with.

So can this future really happen? First of all can your genes really determine aptitude? Many studies are coming out that determine the cause for mental handicaps and what in our genes cause them, but I do not see this drastically improving intelligence for those without handicaps. If you know of any studies that say differently please let me know. Secondly the eugenics done in GATTACA does not make super-humans, it just takes the best traits from each parent and applies them to the child. Even the parents best attributes combined could make a below average human. Finally humans have been practicing eugenics since their existence. We natural strive to find the best mate possible. This ensure that other half of the genes our child receives are the best possible and our progeny will excel. And even after 25000 years the human species has not broken itself into classes.

Right now we have no idea why people like Albert Einstein and Descartes were so smart. Did their genes predispose them to their genius or was it events in their life drove them genius? I feel that genes may have played a small role in their success but the majority came from their persistence.

One Man's Disease is Another Man's Cure

In my life I have broken quite a few bones and torn out nearly every ligament in my right elbow. Needless to say I have spent considerable time in casts and braces, and it is not a fun time with the itching and the constricted movements and just generally not being able to do any thing fun. A team at Harvard Med School feels my pain and have developed a way to amp up the bone and connective tissue healing process.

Lets start with a little background as to how bones heal. Bones heal in a process called endochondral ossification where the chondrocytes in your hyaline cartilage (a cartilage found by your bones) rapidly divide, grow, calcify and die forming new bone. This process also occurs in the muscles of people with a disease called fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva causing bones to grow in and from muscle tissue.

The researchers at Harvard have found the gene that causes this disease and are using it to increase healing rates of bone by harvesting muscle and fat cells from the patient, infecting them with this disease and then introducing them to the fracture site. The cells congregate at the fracture site and form into bone knocking off a little less then a month of cast time. Meaning you can get back to doing whatever it was that broke your bone the first time!

Would You Like to be Sacrificed on the Alter of Science?

Everyday animals are used for testing often resulting in death and mutilation in my field of bio-materials. I personally feel that this has been a necessary evil for the development of new biotechnologies, but I am not happy about it. Mice bear the brunt of the testing but rats, rabbits, dogs and other animals are often used as well. But there is good news for our involuntary volunteers. Dr. Gefen has been working to create isolated tissue outside of the subject that can be used instead of an entire animal. Early estimates predict that as much as 95% of lab animal population could be spared with this new method.

            This is not only good news for the lab animals, Dr. Gefen and others believe that these isolated tissues will actually work better for research. Tissues not associated with the rest of the body is much more controllable meaning that researchers can change variables and view results with more accuracy. This is due to the fact that other systems in the body are not interfering with and mucking up results in the system being tested.     

Self Evaluation

I feel I deserve a B because I do the expected number of posts and comment on at least two other blogs a week. One thing I am really good about is getting back to people that post comments on my blog. I usually am able to reply within about a day. I know my posts started out somewhat deficit modely, but I think I have improved greatly recently especially with my last post, D&G Babies, where I asked a lot of semi rhetorical questions hoping to stimulate some reader response. In conclusion I have not gone above and beyond what was expected, but I have done my posts and comments and I feel I have done them well, and I would say that is a B effort.

Dolce and Gabbana Babies

This post topic as you may have guessed is designer babies, and I am not talking about the ones that wear Louis Vuitton. Designer babies must undergo genetic engineering before they are even conceived, commonly called germline manipulation. The egg and sperm that the child will eventually be made from are altered to add or remove genetic traits. For example if the parents carry a genetic disease such as hemophilia (a blood disorder) this can be removed from the genetic code before fertilization. This can also be use to add a gene that encodes for beautiful green eyes or increases the babies V02 max to make them a better athlete. Many people disagree what constitutes ethical behavior here. Some say this is all unethical. Who are we to mess with natures plan? Some say this is a multi billion dollar industry and there is no reason not push forward with the proper safety precautions. But the majority of people that I have met are somewhere in the middle believing that germline manipulation is ok if it makes the child more "normal". Then the question is what constitutes normal? For example is extreme shortness normal or should it be corrected by genetic engineering.

Another problem with this germline manipulation is that it can be very dangerous at least to begin with. When a bit of genetic code is sniped or added it can have effects other than those expected. This has been seen repeatedly when engineering plants. Bits of genetic code often encode for multiple traits. For example Lance Armstrong has an incredibly high VO2 max but he also had testicular cancer. The same bit of genetic code that gave him his VO2 max could have given him his cancer. I do not know if these things are actually related this is jut a theoretical example. A more extreme example can be seen in popular culture where genetic engineering to improve humans leads to hordes of zombie like creatures. I find this highly doubtful but genes are tricky things and you can never know the full extent of how they will effect someone without trying. Due to this fact not many parents are willing to be the first to try a new bit of genetic code in their child and those that are probably should not be parents.

Germline manipulation once it is perfected could lead to some great improvements in standard of living and overall happiness of people. People in general could have increased memory and focus, be less obese and naturally healthier, and be able to enjoy life to a greater extent.  

Blog Self Interview

I started this blog to open peoples ideas about bioengineering. Many people think that bioengineering is only concerned with creating super humans through genetic engineering. In reality it is so much more, and I would like for anyone who has preconceptions about bioengineering to be more informed and open minded. Most of my posts so far have concerned some of the amazing medications that have come from bioengineering (except for my last one), but I have not really emphasised the ethics of bioengineering in any of my posts which I would like to start doing more of in the future. Ethics, being such a hot topic button, could also start a positive debate allowing more people to get their opinions out over my blog and increase the number of followers to my blog. I am also curious to see more of the general publics' opinion on bioengineering.

I try to keep the tone very light and colloquial so I don't scare anyone off even when I talk about DNA recombination. One strong point of this blog is the amount and simplicity of the information I provide, but the draw back of this is that I can get a little boring, sorry. I am trying to move away from lectures and the deficit model into more interesting open discussions by presenting ideas in different and fun ways.

I am personally a fan of most advances in bioengineering and I do try to present this view in my blog, but I am very open to discussions from opposing views and I would like for readers of my blog to know this. The real purpose of this blog is to inform and entertain the reader while sparking positive discussion on whats new with bioengineering.

Why Not Spiderman?

Most people would agree with enough time, money, engineers and scientist a semblance of Iron Man or Batman could be built. When the question turns to could we make a Spiderman or a Wolverine most people say thats just crazy. But is it. Iron Man just requires engineering on the outside while Spiderman requires engineering inside the body.

What would it take to build a spiderman? Lets first start with the super strength, agility, and endurance. Genetic engineering has already made leaps and bounds in this department. Ostarine and other substances that increase the effectiveness of natural steroids are already in advance studies. This is a safe way to build lean muscle faster and increase energy and endurance.

Spiders have hairs that branch off hairs on their feet to create Van der Waals Bonds that hold them to surfaces. We could extract this gene from spiders and implant it in humans to grow these microscopic hairs upon hairs all over our hands. Humans would not be able to scale smooth vertical walls but climbing abilities would drastically improve.  

Spiderman's spider sense could be nothing more than sensitive hearing. To accomplish this the sensitivity of the cilia, the tiny hairs in the ear that sway with vibrations, would need to be increased. Sensitivity would increase with more and finer cilia present in the ear. This would also help fine tune balance in an individual since the cilia in the ear acts as gyroscope for the body. So this would again not give as good of results as the comic book Spiderman received when he was bit, but it would help to hear enemies sneaking up on you.

Finally, Spiderman's go to power, the web shooting. Even Stan Lee did not see this a possibility which is why Spiderman has mechanical pressurized canisters that shoot his man made webbing. Spiders spinnerets would need to be absolutely massive to create enough silk to hold a humans weight. Not only that but the muscles needed to shoot the webbing out would just add to the size. So I am with Stan Lee this part of Spiderman would be more easily man made.

The Next Pandemic Might Not Be So Bad

HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) has had researchers stumped for years. They can not figure out how to vaccinate against it. Typically a vaccine ramps up the bodies immunological response to a virus allowing your body to destroy the virus before it can get set up to do some damage. HIV is special because it attacks our immune systems therefore creating a bigger response wont help. That is why this relatively slow spreading virus can not be stopped. HIV is already an epidemic in Africa and has a strong foothold in the rest of world.

But wait, this sounds awful. Everyone in the world getting AIDS, (acquired immune deficiency syndrome i.e. what HIV leads to) isn't the title "The Next Pandemic Might Not be so Bad". How is this not so bad?

Researchers have started put away the old way of thinking about vaccines and have come up with a clever new idea. Forget about exterminating the virus from our body or stopping its replication. What if we just change our immune system so the virus no longer affects us? Researchers now are trying to develop a vaccine that will change our immune system's helper T-cells, the specific cells HIV attacks, so that HIV cannot recognize them but the rest of your body can. So the entire world could be infected with HIV but no one would feel any adverse effects.

A few words of warning this is a vaccine not a cure. This will not work on those already infected with HIV, so  if you have HIV continue to be careful not to spread it, if you don't be careful not to get it. H/T to www.widescreenwallpaper.eu for the pic and ScientistLive for the info.