Super-murine
for a moment I thought we were talking Spitfires barrel-rolling over the crowds
Topflight biology brains say they have identified a key protein, the furtling of which could allow massively increased muscular development and strength in human beings. Genetic manipulation of the "Grb10" compound has already been tried out in mice, producing "hyper-muscular" rodents capable of almost super-murine feats. "By …
"Researchers examined the properties of the muscles in both adult and newborn mice and discovered that the alterations caused by loss of Grb10 function had mainly occurred during prenatal development."
So no muscles-in-a-pill from this research (or restoration of muscles for people with degenerative diseases, sadly).
So no muscles-in-a-pill from this research
*****
No, but 16 years from now, Russia and China are going to have some extraordinary athletes who, when given genetic tests, all seem to have Grb10 set to an unusual state, purely from good selective breeding by previous generations of athletes and nothing to do with genetic manipulation.
Novel idea as in "idea for a novel", not necessarily as in "good idea". Here goes:
Scientists breed race of super-murines in the lab. The US-Murines break out of their cages, escape into the wild and eat all the cheese. Pizza shops go out of business resulting in famine all over the western world because the only remaining fast food must be bought from American Fried Chicken. People flee to Mars but on arrival there are almost wiped out by a laser wielding nuclear tank. The tank is quickly defeated by a successful patent infringement lawsuit because it uses round wheels. Mars is found to be orbiting two suns.
*Sigh* ... back to my regular day job.
<<< Off to Saturn.
... news reports of mouse (or other rodent) plagues in the Outback. Holt and her team want to make these critters stronger?
Also, the Biscopea implant does the same in a GW Space Marine. Now I see it: Space Murines in powered armour.
Errr ... I think it's time to go. Mine's the one with the Rogue Trader (the only proper version of 40K) rulebook in the pocket.
Colin
All this means is that Pinky is going to start having to be more careful not to aggravate Brain.
But in reality: this is a gene alteration. It needs to be in effect in the womb to cause excessive muscle development. It's not going to be a pill you take, or a shot you get, to [b|h]ulk up.
This Gene hack will probably only be useful for people on a genuinely healthy diet because growing muscles often requires higher quality and higher overall food intake; the poor quality, manufactured, high carbohydrate diet which causes Type 2 Diabetes and other metabolic disorders will work against this.
The Mice probably ate much better than many people do, and this needs to be repeated in the more complex environment of a whole, modern, human body before we know for sure!
Type 2 Diabetes is probably a man created disease, and like many Modern Diseases, best fixed by eating proper food, not artificial drugs or the over-manufactured, adulterated and poisoned rubbish too many people have been told is food e.g. Corn Flakes, ready meals, MSG, High Fructose Corn Syrup etc...
Corn flakes are bad???
Nooooooooo...
One of life's little pleasures is a bowl of CF in the morning, using a new bottle of cold milk (with all the cream on top), and some sugar sprinkled over.
And now you've ruined it. You bastard.
The mice will play indeed.
So, if this method can be used to reverse the effects of muscle wasting in humans, one assumes that the recipients of such gift would have to do real and continuous exercise to keep the new muscle in a state of usefulness, right? In which case won't many 'Merkin couch taters simply continue to atrophy, but with a larger amount of mass?