I’ve written this before, I’ll write it again now:
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should!
So now they’ve managed to successfully inject human brain bits into mice. Guess what? Just like whole humans, human brain bits generally took over their environment and displaced the existing mouse brain bits. Result? “Smarter” mice. (All things are relative). These humanised mice have memories that are improved by four times.
Yegods… have these scientists never read Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake? She makes a big deal of the stance that her books are not science fiction, but rather speculative fiction. She says everything in the trilogy could very easily happen because all the underlying mechanisms are already in place. One storyline involves implanting human brain tissue into pigs. Result? Pigs that can outsmart humans to deadly effect. Now imagine that in an animal that can breed as prodigiously as a mouse. They’ve got a lot of mouse traps to get revenge for! And just think how smart Jerry already was, when pitted against Tom!
I’m terrified…
The smart mouse with the half-human brain – health – 01 December 2014 – New Scientist.
Quieter Elephant 