Download or read book GMO Sapiens written by Paul Knoepfler and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2015-11-26 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ' Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) including plants and the foods made from them, are a hot topic of debate today, but soon related technology could go much further and literally change what it means to be human. Scientists are on the verge of being able to create people who are GMOs. Should they do it? Could we become a healthier and ''better'' species or might eugenics go viral leading to a real, new world of genetic dystopia? GMO Sapiens tackles such questions by taking a fresh look at the cutting-edge biotech discoveries that have made genetically modified people possible. Bioengineering, genomics, synthetic biology, and stem cells are changing sci-fi into reality before our eyes. This book will capture your imagination with its clear, approachable writing style. It will draw you into the fascinating discussion of the life-changing science of human genetic modification. Contents:An Introduction to Playing GodThe Birth and Explosive Growth of GMOsHuman CloningBuild-a-Baby Better via GeneticsDIY Guide to Creating GMO SapiensEugenics and TranshumanismCultural Views on Human Genetic ModificationGMO Sapiens Today and Tomorrow Readership: Undergraduate biology majors, graduate biology majors, non-experts interested in GMOs, biologists and teenagers interested in cloning and human genetic modification. Key Features:Books on this hot new topic of creating GMO people are rare, tend to be out-of-date, or have narrow topic rangesThe goal of this book is to educate and entertain an educated lay audience about human genetic modificationKeywords:GMO;Genetically Modified Organism;GMO Sapien;Cloning;Genomics;Designer Babies;Mitochondrial Transfer;Stem Cells;Infertility "What I find troubling, exciting but scary, is that I find myself agreeing with an undertone, I do not support human germline genetic modification but with all the new information and perspectives available to me I have found myself questioning my own views and will be watching any developments with a fascinated interest I would rather not admit to." The NODE '

Download or read book Gmo Sapiens written by Paul Knoepfler and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2015-11-26 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) including plants and the foods made from them, are a hot topic of debate today, but soon related technology could go much further and literally change what it means to be human. Scientists are on the verge of being able to create people who are GMOs. Should they do it? Could we become a healthier and 'better' species or might eugenics go viral leading to a real, new world of genetic dystopia? GMO Sapiens tackles such questions by taking a fresh look at the cutting-edge biotech discoveries that have made genetically modified people possible. Bioengineering, genomics, synthetic biology, and stem cells are changing sci-fi into reality before our eyes. This book will capture your imagination with its clear, approachable writing style. It will draw you into the fascinating discussion of the life-changing science of human genetic modification."--

Download or read book Biotechnology Scientific Advancement Versus Public Safety written by Conrad B Quintyn and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2022-10-07 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Dr Quintyn considers whether genetic engineering will exacerbate social injustices and/or lead to public safety issues. As designer babies mature, will they feel a sense of superiority or pass on mutations that negatively affect future generations? Should we ignore the risk of zoonotic (animal) diseases because they offer potential benefits for reducing organ shortages? Scientific advancement, if not guided responsibly and with public input, can be detrimental to public safety.This book is unique as it encompasses many biotechnologies within the definition of biotechnology. It gives a balanced view of biotechnology: its promise as evidenced in repairing mutations (i.e., genetic editing) and its dangers evidenced in creating (unintentionally) dangerous microbes or unregulated germline editing and cloning. Additionally, this book includes animals in biotechnological research because the success, advances, techniques, and science of genetic engineering could not have occurred without using animals (and microorganisms, insects, plants) as model organisms. A comprehensive description of the CRISPR system in bacteria and the exploitation of this knowledge in creating the CRISPR/Cas9 technology is also incorporated in this read.The author's overall goal is to discuss other biotechnology that is being used to improve and put at risk the health, environment, and safety of humans, giving the book a competitive edge. Furthermore, the book provides a provocative side in challenging scientists to consider the current belief governing research and development, which is that scientific advancement and public safety create a false dichotomy.

Download or read book The New Eugenics written by Conrad B. Quintyn Ph.D. and published by Archway Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The specter of early twentieth-century eugenics—with its goal of preventing the “unfit” from reproducing through forced sterilization—still haunts us in this era of genetic engineering. Conrad B. Quintyn, an associate professor of biological anthropology at Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, calls this the new eugenics era because geneticists have begun to explore ways to prevent and repair defective genes in all humans. In this book, he considers whether genetic engineering will exacerbate social injustices and/or lead to a public safety issue. For instance, in 2012, virologists in the U.S. and the Netherlands genetically engineered avian (bird) flu to be more transmissible between mammals. These scientists argued that virus transmission between mammals enables us to make vaccines to prevent pandemics. They never considered what would happen if the virus accidentally escaped the laboratory. Meanwhile, some scientists are experimenting with “designer babies,” altering genes to remove diseases and even programming certain traits. Join the author as he considers whether scientists are playing God as well as the risks we face by altering genetics in The New Eugenics.

Download or read book The GMO Handbook written by Sarad R. Parekh and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2004-05-15 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive and accessible survey of the best current accomplishments of GMO research in all their complexity and ramifications. The authors introduce the fundamentals of biotechnology as a scientific discipline, show how GMO research is conducted today, discuss the problems that have arisen from genetic technology and the tools needed to resolve them, and describes how GMO-derived technology may impact our lives in the future. On the technical side, the authors examine a wide range of current technologies employed for constructing GMOs, and describe approaches to novel research, appropriate protocols, and the process of constructing and screening a GMO. The discussion of plant and animal cells covers new strategies employed and the large-scale expression and purification of recombinant products in cultured cells. Social political, and legal issues are also discussed.

Download or read book Human written by Karolina Hübner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume investigates what it means to be human. Is there something that makes us distinct from computers, other great apes, Martians, and gods? And what are the ethical and political consequences of how we answer this question? How have our views on this changed from the times of the ancient Greek and Chinese philosophers? What do contemporary evolutionary biologists and advocates of uploading human consciousness onto computers think about it? This volume collects new essays from leading scholars in philosophy, history, and other disciplines to explore these and numerous other questions.

Download or read book Tomorrow s Table written by Pamela C. Ronald and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-08 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the year 2050, Earth's population will double. If we continue with current farming practices, vast amounts of wilderness will be lost, millions of birds and billions of insects will die, and the public will lose billions of dollars as a consequence of environmental degradation. Clearly, there must be a better way to meet the need for increased food production. Written as part memoir, part instruction, and part contemplation, Tomorrow's Table argues that a judicious blend of two important strands of agriculture--genetic engineering and organic farming--is key to helping feed the world's growing population in an ecologically balanced manner. Pamela Ronald, a geneticist, and her husband, Raoul Adamchak, an organic farmer, take the reader inside their lives for roughly a year, allowing us to look over their shoulders so that we can see what geneticists and organic farmers actually do. The reader sees the problems that farmers face, trying to provide larger yields without resorting to expensive or environmentally hazardous chemicals, a problem that will loom larger and larger as the century progresses. They learn how organic farmers and geneticists address these problems. This book is for consumers, farmers, and policy decision makers who want to make food choices and policy that will support ecologically responsible farming practices. It is also for anyone who wants accurate information about organic farming, genetic engineering, and their potential impacts on human health and the environment.

Download or read book Mary Shelley and the Rights of the Child written by Eileen Hunt Botting and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Mary Shelley and the Rights of the Child, Eileen Hunt Botting contends that Frankenstein is a profound work of speculative fiction designed to engage a radical moral and political question: do children have rights?

Download or read book Artificial Life After Frankenstein written by Eileen Hunt Botting and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2020-12-18 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Artificial Life After Frankenstein brings the insights born of Mary Shelley's legacy to bear upon the ethics and politics of making artificial life and intelligence in the twenty-first century. What are the obligations of humanity to the artificial creatures we make? And what are the corresponding rights of those creatures, whether they are learning machines or genetically modified organisms? In seeking ways to respond to these questions, so vital for our age of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence, we would do well to turn to the capacious mind and imaginative genius of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851). Shelley's novels Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) and The Last Man (1826) precipitated a modern political strain of science fiction concerned with the ethical dilemmas that arise when we make artificial life—and make life artificial—through science, technology, and other forms of cultural change. In Artificial Life After Frankenstein, Eileen Hunt Botting puts Shelley and several classics of modern political science fiction into dialogue with contemporary political science and philosophy, in order to challenge some of the apocalyptic fears at the fore of twenty-first-century political thought on AI and genetic engineering. Focusing on the prevailing myths that artificial forms of life will end the world, destroy nature, and extinguish love, Botting shows how Shelley modeled ways to break down and transform the meanings of apocalypse, nature, and love in the face of widespread and deep-seated fear about the power of technology and artifice to undermine the possibility of humanity, community, and life itself. Through their explorations of these themes, Mary Shelley and authors of modern political science fiction from H. G. Wells to Nnedi Okorafor have paved the way for a techno-political philosophy of living with the artifice of humanity in all of its complexity. In Artificial Life After Frankenstein, Botting brings the insights born of Shelley's legacy to bear upon the ethics and politics of making artificial life and intelligence in the twenty-first century.

Download or read book Falter written by Bill McKibben and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out. Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature -- issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic -- was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience. Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control. And then, drawing on McKibben’s experience in building 350.org, the first truly global citizens movement to combat climate change, it offers some possible ways out of the trap. We’re at a bleak moment in human history -- and we’ll either confront that bleakness or watch the civilization our forebears built slip away. Falter is a powerful and sobering call to arms, to save not only our planet but also our humanity.

Download or read book Discounted Life written by Sharmila Rudrappa and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-12-04 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, American Sociological Association Asia and Asian America Section Best Book on Asia/Transnational Asia Finalist, 2015 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems India is the top provider of surrogacy services in the world, with a multi-million dollar surrogacy industry that continues to grow exponentially, as increasing numbers of couples from developed nations look for wombs in which to grow their babies. Some scholars have exulted transnational surrogacy for the possibilities it opens for infertile couples, while others have offered bioethical cautionary tales, rebuked exploitative intended parents, or lamented the exploitation of surrogate mothers—but very little is known about the experience of and transaction between surrogate mothers and intended parents outside the lens of the many agencies that control surrogacy in India. Drawing from rich interviews with surrogate mothers and egg donors in Bangalore, as well as twenty straight and gay couples in the U.S. and Australia, Discounted Life focuses on the processes of social and market exchange in transnational surrogacy. Sharmila Rudrappa interrogates the creation and maintenance of reproductive labor markets, the function of agencies and surrogacy brokers, and how women become surrogate mothers. Is surrogacy solely a labor contract for which the surrogate mother receives wages, or do its meanings and import exceed the confines of the market? Rudrappa argues that this reproductive industry is organized to control and disempower women workers and yet her interviews reveal that, by and large, the surrogate mothers in Bangalore found the experience life affirming. Rudrappa explores this tension, and the lived realities of many surrogate mothers whose deepening bodily commodification is paradoxically experienced as a revitalizing life development. A detailed and moving study, Discounted Life delineates how local labor markets intertwine with global reproduction industries, how Bangalore’s surrogate mothers make sense of their participation in reproductive assembly lines, and the remarkable ways in which they negotiate positions of power for themselves in progressively untenable socio-economic conditions.

Download or read book Hugens written by Jose Tukir and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-06-28 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HUGENS GMO Humans The Handwritting on Hell's Wall! This Erotic Thriller is written as a salacious handbook for futuristic Alien Ranchers to assist and guide them through the process of selecting and cultivating Earth's newest life-form (human-bovine hybrids) called Hugens; and is the first collaborative literary offering of this husband and wife team that may be too sexually suggestive for the average reader. However-the fearless might find this fictional allegory-just the ticket for a bit of SyFy afternoon delight! As the veil of lies and deceptions are lifted and humanity wakes up to their true origins, they become increasingly hard to control and the Anunnaki must once again set in motion their plan to eradicate all life on Earth-this time not by flood! However-there's a slight problem! This Vampiric race finds that their lust for human flesh is based on a need for longevity, and before they kill off the last of mankind, they must create human hybrids to keep up with supply and demand-and the sexually oriented Hugen Race is born to serve the whims of the gods. The downside for this pampered hybrid race of humans-is death at the peak of sexual arousal to maximize release of the much coveted "adrenal chrome" that is necessary for Anunnaki life extension. Oh well-like their predecessor Homo Sapiens Sapiens-what they're too simple-minded to see-can't hurt them! Right?! Lyn and Jose-write for you!

Download or read book Howtobuildadragonordietrying asatiricallookatcutting edgescience written by Knoepfler Paul and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if you could have your own real dragon? While that might seem like just a fantasy, today cutting-edge science has brought us to the point where it might really be possible. This book looks into the possibilities of making living, fire-breathing dragons. The world has been fascinated with dragons for thousands of years. Fictional dragons still have a firm place in pop culture, such as Smaug from The Hobbit as well as the dragons in Game of Thrones and in the How to Train Your Dragon movies. This new book discusses using powerful technologies such as CRISPR gene editing, stem cells, and bioengineering to make real dragons. It also goes through what useful information we can learn from animals such as Pteranodons and amazing present-day creatures in our quest to build actual dragons. The book goes on to discuss the possibility of building other mythical creatures such as unicorns and mermaids. Overall, How to Build A Dragon is also meant as a satirical look at cutting-edge science, and it pokes fun at science hype. Anyone who is interested in dragons or cutting-edge science will enjoy this book! It is written in a humorous, approachable way making science fun and easy to understand, including for young adults.The author is well-known scientist Paul Knoepfler who is familiar to the public for his science, his blog The Niche, and his frequent contributions to lay stories on new science concepts such as stem cells and CRISPR. He also is known for his TED talk on designer babies with more than 1.3 million views, and his two books — . The co-author, his daughter Julie Knoepfler, is a high school student interested in science and writing. She has her own blog on literary and film analysis, and enjoys taking a humorous look at culture through writing.

Download or read book The Accidental Homo Sapiens written by Ian Tattersall and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens now that human population has outpaced biological natural selection? Two leading scientists reveal how we became who we are—and what we might become. When we think of evolution, the image that likely comes to mind is the iconic, straight-forward image of a primate morphing into a human being. Yet random events have played huge roles in determining the evolutionary histories of everything from lobsters to humans. However, random genetic novelties are most likely to "stick" in small populations. It is mathematically unlikely to happen in large ones. With our enormous and seemingly inexorably expanding population, humanity has fallen under the influence of the famous (or infamous) “bell curve.” This revelatory new book explores what the future of our species could hold, while simultaneously revealing what we didn’t become—and what we won’t become. A cognitively unique species, our actions fall on a bell curve as well. Individuals may be saintly or evil, narrow-minded or visionary. But it is possible not just for the species, but for a person to be all of these things—even in a single day. We all fall somewhere within the giant hyperspace of the human condition that these curves describe. The Accidental Homo Sapiens shows readers that though humanity now exists on this bell curve, we are far from a stagnant species. Tattersall and DeSalle reveal how biological evolution in modern humans has given way to a cultural dynamic that is unlike anything else the Earth has ever witnessed, and that will keep life interesting—perhaps sometimes too interesting—for as long as we exist on this planet.

Download or read book Stem Cells An Insider s Guide written by Paul Knoepfler and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2013-07-30 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stem Cells: An Insider's Guide is an exciting new book that takes readers inside the world of stem cells guided by international stem cell expert, Dr. Paul Knoepfler. Stem cells are catalyzing a revolution in medicine. The book also tackles the exciting and hotly debated area of stem cell treatments that are capturing the public's imagination. In the future they may also transform how we age and reproduce. However, there are serious risks and ethical challenges, too. The author's goal with this insider's guide is to give readers the information needed to distinguish between the ubiquitous hype and legitimate hope found throughout the stem cell world. The book answers the most common questions that people have about stem cells. Can stem cells help my family with a serious medical problem such as Alzheimer's, Multiple Sclerosis, or Autism? Are such treatments safe? Can stem cells make me look younger or even literally stay physically young? These questions and many more are answered here.A number of ethical issues related to stem cells that spark debates are discussed, including risky treatments, cloning and embryonic stem cells. The author breaks new ground in a number of ways such as by suggesting reforms to the FDA, providing a new theory of aging based on stem cells, and including a revolutionary Stem Cell Patient Bill of Rights. More generally, the book is your guide to where the stem cell field will be in the near future as well as a thoughtful perspective on how stem cell therapies will ultimately change your life and our world.

Download or read book Oryx and Crake written by Margaret Atwood and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-07-27 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning and provocative new novel by the internationally celebrated author of The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize. Margaret Atwood’s new novel is so utterly compelling, so prescient, so relevant, so terrifyingly-all-too-likely-to-be-true, that readers may find their view of the world forever changed after reading it. This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers. For readers of Oryx and Crake, nothing will ever look the same again. The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece together what has taken place, the narrative shifts to decades earlier. How did everything fall apart so quickly? Why is he left with nothing but his haunting memories? Alone except for the green-eyed Children of Crake, who think of him as a kind of monster, he explores the answers to these questions in the double journey he takes - into his own past, and back to Crake's high-tech bubble-dome, where the Paradice Project unfolded and the world came to grief. With breathtaking command of her shocking material, and with her customary sharp wit and dark humour, Atwood projects us into an outlandish yet wholly believable realm populated by characters who will continue to inhabit our dreams long after the last chapter.

Download or read book CRISPR People written by Henry T. Greely and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does the birth of babies whose embryos had gone through genome editing mean--for science and for all of us? In November 2018, the world was shocked to learn that two babies had been born in China with DNA edited while they were embryos—as dramatic a development in genetics as the 1996 cloning of Dolly the sheep. In this book, Hank Greely, a leading authority on law and genetics, tells the fascinating story of this human experiment and its consequences. Greely explains what Chinese scientist He Jiankui did, how he did it, and how the public and other scientists learned about and reacted to this unprecedented genetic intervention. The two babies, nonidentical twin girls, were the first “CRISPR'd” people ever born (CRISPR, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a powerful gene-editing method). Greely not only describes He's experiment and its public rollout (aided by a public relations adviser) but also considers, in a balanced and thoughtful way, the lessons to be drawn both from these CRISPR'd babies and, more broadly, from this kind of human DNA editing—“germline editing” that can be passed on from one generation to the next. Greely doesn't mince words, describing He's experiment as grossly reckless, irresponsible, immoral, and illegal. Although he sees no inherent or unmanageable barriers to human germline editing, he also sees very few good uses for it—other, less risky, technologies can achieve the same benefits. We should consider the implications carefully before we proceed.