Word: humanizes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that is being tested?" asks Gerald Fischbach, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "That's the problem with mouse behavior. It's not clear that we're talking about the same thing when we talk about learning in a rodent and learning in a human...
Tsien concedes that using the emotive word intelligence in the paper was sure to generate controversy. "We really don't mean to suggest," he explains, "that human intelligence is the same as animal intelligence. But I would argue that problem solving is clearly part of intelligence, and learning and memory are crucial to problem solving. And these mice are better learners, with better memories, than other mice...
...would not disagree--that "intelligence does arise out of biology, at least in part." How much remains the great question. Whatever the answer, little Doogie surely represents an important step in unraveling what role our genes play in constructing not just memory but all the other attributes of the human mind. And clearly he won't be the last...
...from tinkering with other genes to make "normal" children smarter? Technology always adapts to demand; prenatal sex-selection tests designed to weed out inherited diseases that strike one gender or the other--hemophilia, for instance--are being used to help families have the son or daughter they always wanted. Human-growth hormone was intended for children with a proven severe deficiency, but it came to be used on self-conscious short kids--if their parents could afford as much as $30,000 for a year's injections...
...that updates Frankenstein provides a cautionary tale: these experiments may not turn out as we expect. Genetic engineering is more permanent than a pill or a summer-school class. Parents would be making decisions over which their children had no control and whose long-term impact would be uncertain. "Human organisms are not things you hang ornaments on like a Christmas tree," says Thomas Murray, Hastings' director. "If you make a change in one area, it may cause very subtle changes in some other area. Will there be an imbalance that the scientists are not looking for, not testing...