Word: embryos
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...chicks' identity crisis was a scientific coup, demonstrating convincingly how instinctive ("hardwired") behavior can be shuttled from one species to another. The feat, moreover, was accomplished not by crossbreeding or genetic engineering but through the artful replacement of selected brain cells in a chicken embryo with those from the embryo of a Japanese quail, a fowl of a completely different sort...
...Balaban brushed off the concerns. Human brain transplants would not work, he explains, because the early mammalian embryo is far too fragile for any sort of cell manipulation. Besides, much of human behavior is learned, not hardwired. So what practical results might come from his work? Balaban sees it as a first step toward a very different goal: learning enough about the structure and function of the brain so that when human brain cells are damaged, say by stroke, other cells might be recruited to take over...
...really the first time? Is cloning all that different from genetically engineering an embryo to eliminate a genetic disease like cystic fibrosis? Is it so far removed from in vitro fertilization? In both those cases, after all, an undeniable reductiveness is going on, a shriveling of the complexity of the human body to the certainty of a single cell in a Petri dish. If we accept this kind of tinkering, can't we accept cloning? Harvard neurobiologist Lisa Geller admits that intellectually, she doesn't see a difference between in vitro technology and cloning. "But," she adds, "I admit...
...will prevent human cloning--whether of dictator, industrialist or baby daughter--from becoming a reality, it's that science may not be able to clear the ethical high bar that would allow basic research to get under way in the first place. Cutting, coring and electrically jolting a sheep embryo is a huge moral distance from doing the same to a human embryo. It took 277 trials and errors to produce Dolly the sheep, creating a cellular body count that would look like sheer carnage if the cells were human. "Human beings ought never to be used as experimental subjects...
...Lori and I married shortly after. It was a big ticket--three helicopters more than my previous wedding. But we didn't go back into movies. Instead, we chose to dedicate our lives, possibly forever, to fighting embryo poaching. Us and our 10 beautiful children: Cori, Korrie, Corry, Korey, Korrey, Laurie, Lorrie, Laurey, Lorrey and Lorri...