Question: is it possible to genetically enhance a human making them like a superhuman?
Keywords: enhance, genetically, regen, superhuman
Comments
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it would be cool to have a huge amount of strength james
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Alright, so we would need some way of building up your muscles and bones to give you the capacity and then you would have to put in the hard yards in the gym to make them strong. There are already diseases where people have bones or muscles that grow too much so that is where I would start. Working out the genetics behind that might be able to allow me to modify you to to get bigger. Unfortunately you would always be bigger and that would present its own problems. Additionally that much extra muscle would chew through energy very fast so you would have to eat continuously or we would have to slow your metabolism. This could then prevent enough energy making it to the brain and then your in real trouble.
The point I wanted to make is the we are really balanced and the fact that we are capable of all that we are is pretty amazing anyway. We can’t fly or flip cars etc. but we can do a lot. You might have to settle for Iron Man type superpowers 🙂 -
I think you want to be The Hulk?
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ok thnx for that
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You can find more information on human enhancement, gene therapies and regenerative medicine through the TechNyou site too: http://technyou.edu.au/
shaunm
admin_kristin
The closest we can come to that is called gene therapy. This isn’t about making superhumans but instead is about fixing broken genes by using a virus to take in a fixed copy to replace the bad copy. This can help lots of people recover from very nasty genetic diseases.
What superpowers would you want to develop, maybe we can work out how to do that?
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Hi Shaunm,
This is an interesting question.
When discussing different types of science ideas, i often use myths and science fiction to talk about real science. For example, Are mermaids real? By answering this question we need to go through what biological evolution produces and what is possible and what isnt.
Superhuman powers is another of those tools that I sometimes use to discuss real science.
Lets say you wanted to be invisible. This would mean that light wouldnt reflect off you, but instead would pass through you. One problem with this would be that you would then be blind because the cells in your eye do not stop the light and therefore detect it.
So many of the things we call superhuman, like in the comics etc, are not actually possible in that sense.
But there are people working on the sorts of things we might call superhuman, like the growing back of a limb. One day it may be possible through genetic techniques for people to regrow lost limbs.
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Hi Shaunm,
It could maybe be possible one day to do things like make people a bit stronger or more resistant to certain diseases, or to do things like heal wounds quicker, or even regrow lost limbs, but not really to have “superhuman” powers like in movies or comics.
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