The British government Tuesday licensed the creator of Dolly the sheep to clone early-stage human embryos for a study of degenerative diseases, re-igniting a sharp debate in the United States about the future of stem cell research. (http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsclon0209,0,2485639.story?coll=ny-health-headlines)
Why have mad scientists almost disappeared from our movies now? Why indeed: because they're madly working away at their nefarious schemes right here, right now. They live! There are still a few mad scientists in film: in The Re-Animator, or in Sam Raimi's Darkman for example. On the whole, however, the mad scientists are a cliché, and they are disappearing.
Real life mad science is in full bloom in the 21st century. It's not all that different from what the mad scientists were doing in those 30s and 40's movies! Doctors can transplant organs and limbs from one body to another, and even among mammals--we harvest pig organs for spare parts now. The basic programming of life is being mastered. We cloned Dolly the sheep. She was not perfect, but they did clone her. The very code of the human genome has been cracked.
Robots of all sorts have been manufactured, and people now buy them as toys, or even pets. Nanomachines the size of molecules have been created and some of them combine biological and mechanical parts. What once was heresy is now business as usual. We won't know where all this is leading until it is too late. Maybe we're on the right path...we used to burn people at the stake for thinking the world was round. Maybe one of these cloners and modern day Victor Frankensteins is the Copernicus of our time?
---o0o---
2 comments:
MADNESS I SAY! MADNESS! You're right though, all these scientists are working away on these projects i think I even overheard a conversation where they are trying to make a computer run with human DNA.
The one thing that puzzles me as that scientists much like us game folk are pretty much consist of "nerds" and "geeks". What is it that we nerds and geeks are pretty loyal to? Science Fiction. Comics, movies, books we love the stuff. We memorize it, we dissect it.
Yet in every science fiction movie these experiments end up BADLY. The clones or computers or frankenhookers ALWAYS kill their makers and destroy humanity. The Terminator, Hal , The Matrix..All bad. Yet even though they have seen all this science fiction they still move forward, bringing us closer to the fiery end of humanity.
Can't someone tell these guys the COLD still dosen't have a cure!
-Tony
Tony - that is great. I never thought of that...that these guys grew up in geek mode. They thrive on this stuff. Yeah, I wish they'd just fix colds and cancer and a few of those other nasty problems first... /jack
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