Is transforming humans into animals possible via genetic eng

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So what do you think? Will it be possible in the future for humans to transform into animals via genetic engineering?

Last edited by RichardBB on 31 Aug 2009, 3:43 pm, edited 3 times in total.

The shape of your body is controlled mostly by embryonic processes that happen as you grow in the womb. It would impossible for that shape to be changed once out of the womb as a working lifeform. The only way you could turn a human into another animal would be to alter the DNA of both the egg and the sperm somehow, without taking the egg outside of the womb. Then a very unpleasant experience would probably follow for the host woman.

So probably not going to happen.

What silverpikmin says is correct. In fact, a russian scientist bread and selected Arctic silver foxes for tameness, and the result was morphological changes.. color, shape, size. The selection caused gestational changes, causing the effects. DNA was not modified(at least not in the sense you mean).

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues ... experiment

Track down a batch of that Peyote and Datura chex mix Don Juan Matus allegedly fed to Carlos Castenada and there's no telling what you'll turn into. Castenada thought he turned into a crow and flew over the desert all night. Woke up naked, many miles from where he was when he got high. With feathers in his hair.

Okay, I made the feather part up. But it's still a fascinating story.

Dogs flew spaceships!

The Aztecs invented the vacation!

Our forefathers took drugs!

Your brain is not the boss!

Yes! That's right! Everything you know is wrong!

- Firesign Theatre

Your funny

I personally think it would be to dangerous to go through with experiments to make humans transform in2 animals as someone b4 me said. We'd be making shape shifters. I did read in National Geographic (can't remember what month but an 09 issue) about ideas to clone wooly mammoths using elephants in multiple forms & putting tasmanian devil DNA in2 mice (which I believe was successful). Another issue but I would prefer cloning would be limited to cloning organs for organ transplants & blood for blood banks rather than entire live organisms. Get what is needed to save lives w/o invoking many moral dilemmas. To EVERYONE: But your opinion is your opinion, not trying to change it.

This may come as a shock, but we are already animals. We are of the genus homo in the primate order, which we share with the great apes.

ruveyn

I know that. I was just using the word "animal" in the everyday use of the word, not the scientific use of the word.

Seeing as how the embryo begins like a fish, turns into a reptile, then a mammal and then a human, it could be possible to halt the process and produce another being, perhaps.

Very, very unlikely. Most DNA errors that occur during fertilization result in an unviable fetus that is spontaneously aborted.

DNA errors induced during childhood or adulthood (from exposure to radiation, for instance) result in sickness or death, not superpowers.

But I'm sure someone will give it a go sooner or later.

Transforming humans into animals ... how about with brain transplants?

[obscure reference]My apt-get has supercow powers. [/obscure reference]

Very little information is available on this subject, but one might easily imagine why.

HUMAN-NONHUMAN CHIMERAS: A REGULATORY PROPOSAL ON THE BLURRING OF SPECIES LINES

If the understanding of genetics reaches the point where we could identify and had the techniques available to alter a humans genes to the point where they would exibit characteristics of another species, the process used to enact such a change would likely be lengthy. Dependent on which portion of the human body we are discussing. Our bodies are continuously replacing lost cells, and have a typical cycle in which most every cell will be replaced in a given amount of time. The time scale by which any significant genetic alterations would/should take place is likely to be governed by this time scale.

That's all conjecture, at this point, no one knows the limit of what will be capable with genetic alteration in the future. It is but speculation.

~NS

PS. Ruveyn, you sly devil, you beat me to that glaringly obvious point! >.<

Not so. A human embryo is human the entire interval of development. One genome is set at the instant of fertilization.

ruveyn

He was refering to how an embryo is simiar in form to the above mentioned critters. The formation of an embryo has several stages with inherant similarities to other types of animal, even though they are mostly cosmetic and an embryo is always human, just in a transitory phase of development.

I think, at least, he didn't mean it literally.

Although, you are right in saying that halting it's development wouldn't enable some other animal form to be realised. This would likely just cause the embryo to be nonviable and die.

~NS

Did anyone even read my link? It is already being done. No conjecture or speculation needed.