We have explored two of the three topics required for English 115. And we touched on the third when examining the vampire mice of Stanford University.The research at Stanford using parabiosis
(the
anatomical joining of two individuals, especially artificially in physiological
research) focused on cognitive regeneration and stem cells. Specifically they were interested in how younger blood would affect older stem cells and genetic makeup.
I hope you've noticed that the common thread of this Blog assignment has been that it focuses on Portland Oregon;1) entertainment businesses,2) myth and legend and now 3) research and development.
I
want to be cloned. No, I need to be cloned.Then my clone shall be cryogenically
frozen until such time the technology to download, my personality, my
identity or dare I say, my soul is not only possible but normal. Why? Well, who
doesn't want to live forever? Huh?... UH.... Right. You and me both.
It’s
a cool 60 degree Portland morning, August 13th, 2015... You're walking Sparky,
your Dachshund/Ausie mix. He’s happy. You’re happy. Sparky believes HE takes
YOU, for YOUR morning constitution, while he takes care of his all - important
morning business. You stop three houses down from your place. Bob Johnson’s
place; A 3500 square foot ranch-style, three bedroom two bath family home, with
a Winnebago squeezed into a too small single vehicle carport on the right side
of an overfull garage.You scratch your crouch, stretch, yawn and think to yourself,
“Gee, last summer Bob sure did have the greatest Bar-B-Q.” Sparky religiously pops a squat under Bob’s
mailbox as he does every morning around 6AM. And every morning you think to
yourself. “Dam, I should just leave it. That would teach him to borrow tools
and not return them. But no…”Bob does Q a mean sturgeon burger after all”, you
grumble, as you reach down with your blue bagged covered left hand and cradle Sparkies
steaming hot log of delight freshly deposited beneath Bob’s American
Confederate flag mailbox. And then you
hear it… The deafening time-stopping life-altering mind-blowing…
SCEEEECH! Brakes!
The last thing you remember is seeing
Sparky getting wedged up under the front bumper of a 1973 Ford Pinto and a license
plate that reads Born to Breed.
No white light, No Angels singing Hotel
California, not even a glimpse of the Pearly Gates.
Thank the lord you haven't used up all of your
Genetic stem cells. Last month you made a fresh deposit and you should have
enough to clone yourself for the next 500 years. Not to mention the cells
you've preserved for Sparky, Smittens (your cat), your wife Bunny and your two lovely kids.
As you wake in the ICU you look around
dazed and confused and mumble
"Poor Thparkles, Ohhh….. Bunny
is going to kill me."
And then you remember the stem cell/cloning/genetic
research you've been a part of for the last 35 years and all your worries about
life and death fade away into the blissful afterglow of the anesthesia-induced
cloning procedure that has just been completed at OHSU. It is now December
13th, 2050 and the genetic research of today has reached its predestined and
perfected conclusion.
Clone -”a cell, cell product, or organism that is genetically
identical to the unit or individual from which it was
derived.”
A healthy rhesus monkey, born at Dr.
Mitalipov’s lab in Portland after the nucleus of the mother’s egg cell was removed and
placed in the egg cell of another female that is healthy.
The genetic research done here in
Portland Oregon boarders on science fiction and we God fearing, morally
upstanding citizens of the American experiment don’t quite know how to deal
with it. Though I truly believe we Portlanders are secretly proud of the, what
some say is clandestine and possibly nefarious, research taking place at OHSU (Oregon
Health Science University) and the Beaverton primate research center (BPC).The
man, whose name most Americans have never heard, Shoukhrat Mitalipov (American
biologist) has kicked the proverbial scientific hornets’ nest with his ground-breaking,
controversial stem cell, gene and cloning research at OHSU and BPC( The Primate Center is part of OHSU)
Click on link to watch monkeys at primate center.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGzvewAfys0
Please take some time to help shape the future and respond to this simple Yes or No three question survey...Just click on the link.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V2YX3F7
