Science!: Jurassic (Goat) Park, Mind Reading and Pimp-Slapping Fish

[cynicalandbored]

The goat story sounded lazy to me. If they already had said genetic sample from the extinct goat, then wouldn't it be easier to alter DNA of existing goats to replicate the extinct one than to try and clone it? I admit I am a little in the dark about the mechanics of genetic reconstruction versus cloning.

No, that would be much much harder, and probably have less chance of success. Altering DNA of an already living creature is messy at best, so altering embryos is the only option. And why go through that fiddly altering when you can just clone with a genetic blueprint you already have anyway?

Goat cloning: Scientists just need to let by-gones be by-gones and not bother cloning a dead animal. Mother Nature obviously wanted it dead! Why else would she drop a tree on the last known goat breed of that kind?

To be completely fair, most species are only dying out at the moment due to human activity and they'd be perfectly fine otherwise. I'm not sure it's the case with this ibex, but it's a bit unfair of you to blame the poor animal when it could easily be our fault.

About the brain thing, that scares the bejesus out of me. I don't want anyone to be able to see what's in my head. It's mine and it's all I've got that's really private and my own. It should stay that way.

I like fish. Fish are fun.

 

[Vortigar]

Mind reading:
The test they've done pairs one brain with a number of images. They read the response of the brain and then double checked if that reading comes out the same every time, and apparently it does. Useful to know but not as useful as one might think.

Different people's brains differ in amount of tissue, number of pathways, general activity of certain parts etc etc. So the activity pattern the same image would make on your brain will quite probably be very different from the activity pattern it would cause in someone else.

And then I assume we're talking pretty simple images here as different people focus on different parts or in different ways on the same images. People always seem to notice different things in photographs right?

To me this seems like the beginning of a field of research that might well be 20 years underway before delivering anything that could be useful in a practical sense. But it's nice to imagine anyway.


Loved the last article, shows how messed up our minds really are.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Now cleaning fish have well established laws of behaviour, join me in a rousing rendition of;
"We, as a human species, are DOOOOMED!"

Every day, that which we define ourselves as a species gets a little smaller as we realise most animals out there are every bit as smart as us.

 

[The Random One]

Now cleaning fish have well established laws of behaviour, join me in a rousing rendition of;
"We, as a human species, are DOOOOMED!"

Every day, that which we define ourselves as a species gets a little smaller as we realise most animals out there are every bit as smart as us.

Yeah, has anyone else noticed that every other SCIENCE! includes an animal doing something that we thought was only the realms of humans, chimps and dolphins? Not long now before a hedgehog writes a novel.

I'd read about the brain picture thing before, and I still can't believe how good the pictures look. Illustrators will be out of a job by the time this becomes widespread.

The last thing is just... wow. Just how subjective are our perceptions.

 

[Cargando]

Everyday, just when I think that something can't be done just yet, some scientist goes and proves me wrong. Reading minds, cloning goats... just a few years ago the best we could do was hook someone up to an EEG machine. Astounding.

 

[Latinidiot]

I CAll SAVAGE RESERVATE!

but you're all welcome