"We can manipulate the fundamental aspectsn of life" - scary or what?

[venator]

That's a quote from this article.

http://www.newscienti...rss&nsref=online-news

We don't know what the vast majority of DNA does - should this be stopped now?

[Buenchico]

So we've finally got the potential to prevent or cure many life-threatening diseases and to find a way to solve the problems of inadequate food supplies for the ever-growing population of the world, and you want to STOP it?

We need to divert funding from the NHS and aid programmes to support such research.

[starone]

I'm with Chris. But will this prevent the viruses from mutating? It will be very interesting to see what happens.

[venator]

They're fooling with very complex genetic codes, and don't know what most of them are for.

It's like saying "let's stick a screwdriver in this chap's brain and see if it works better"

[beso]

Randomly fooling around with genetic codes has worked quite well for producing the lifeforms that already exist. Intelligently manipulating it is likely to do a much better job.

We actually know far more about what the DNA does than most people realise. The knowledge and the tools to manipulate the code are increasing very, very rapidly.