May 17, 2004
ENT MISBEHAVIN' (via Brian Boys):
Regulators stymie 'human trees' (AFP, May 13, 2004)
A SCHEME by two London artists to take DNA from a dead person and insert it into apple trees to create a living memorial of that individual's "biological essence" has run headlong into problems.Royal College of Art graduates Georg Tremmel and Shiho Fukuhara want to insert a stretch of genetic material from a dead loved-one into the genome of an apple tree.
If it weren't so dangerous, the naivete of those technophiles who think science can be trusted to behave responsibly in the area of bioengineering would be touching. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 17, 2004 2:10 PM
Too late: it's already been done.
Where do you think John Kerry came from?
Posted by: Mike Morley at May 17, 2004 2:37 PM"Come along, Dorothy, you don't want any of those apples."
"Are you hinting my apples aren't what they ought to be?"
"Oh, no! It's just that she doesn't like little human genomes!"
"Oh, you!!!"
Posted by: Just John at May 17, 2004 2:49 PM(Insert obligatory Kerry-as-Treebeard joke here.)
Posted by: Gideon at May 17, 2004 3:09 PMWould such an apple be kosher?
Posted by: mike earl at May 17, 2004 3:17 PMThey are "artists" inserting mamallian genes into a plant is not going to create art. or monsters, its going to create gunk on the bottom of a test tube.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at May 17, 2004 5:46 PMNah. Look, given the large number of bases in the human genome and the apple tree genome, and that there are some basic encodings common to all life, there are going to be identical sections. Moreover, they'd only be inserting a section anyway, so why not find already existing identical sections and claim it's already done?
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at May 17, 2004 7:27 PM...And if this madness doesn't stop, soon enough we'll be swamped by lumbering, evil tree-people, and they will take over the Earth!
Won't somebody please think of the children?
Let's go and burn every copy of The Origin of the Species, so that this will never happen again!
Posted by: Brit at May 18, 2004 4:31 AMHey, everybody, how about we take some DNA from a dead tree and insert it in Brit?
Posted by: Peter B at May 18, 2004 6:25 AMI think we share two-thirds of our DNA with cabbage anyway so this seems a bit pointless.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at May 18, 2004 7:21 AMM Ali
Well, it does give a whole new emotional significance to tree-hugging.
Posted by: Peter B at May 18, 2004 8:10 AMOak-ay Peter. I know yew don't mean that.
Your bark is worse than your bite.
Posted by: Brit at May 18, 2004 8:47 AMYou beat me to it, Brit - I was going to indulge in some terrible pun like "Ent misbehavin', saving my love for yew", but propriety forbids.
Posted by: John Barrett Jr. at May 18, 2004 9:57 AMYes, leaf it to those of us without such a sense of propriety.
I've always been a shameless son-of-a-beech.
Posted by: Brit at May 18, 2004 11:16 AM