World's biggest medical experiment gets go-ahead

[951-Riverside]

:eyes:

LONDON - A project to collect DNA samples from 500,000 Britons to unpick the genetic basis of killer diseases including cancer got the go-ahead on Tuesday, marking the start of the world's biggest medical experiment.

A team of international scientific and medical experts said the success of a local three-month pilot phase, involving 3,800 participants around Manchester, meant the UK Biobank project could now be rolled out nationwide from the end of 2006.

Over the next four years, blood and urine samples will be collected from volunteers aged 40 to 69, to help scientists unravel the genetic foundations of common diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia and joint problems.

"For decades to come, the UK Biobank resource should provide researchers around the world with vital insights into some of the most distressing diseases of middle and old age," principal investigator Professor Rory Collins said in a statement.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=204&ObjectID=10397457

[AX10]

1. Uber Alles. This is part of the scheme to get people's DNA...

into a database so that the government can have more control over us.

[soothsayer]

3. bingo! expect more weaponized diseases like SARS and AIDS

targeting ethnic groups (SARS was for Asians? AIDS for those of African descent?)

[Ohio Joe]

9. SARS and AIDS are weaponized diseases?

I've never heard that before.

[Bridget Burke]

21. They aren't....

You obviously hang out with people who've had at least one year of Biology.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

55. Where did you learn your "science?"

From a fucking secret decoder ring?

[Chemical Bill]

74. In one of my advanced chem classes...

there was a vet who claimed to have been in the army chem/biological weapons school. He said he was told there that HIV was absolutely man-made. Quien sabe.

Bill

[arwalden]

4. OMG!! -- But How Would That Work Exactly?

[Lerkfish]

8. would not be hard to genetically engineer a deadly virus keyed to an

ethnic group. and withold the andidote unless they obeyed.

[arwalden]

11. OMG!! OMG!! --- Really?

:scared: :cry:

How would they do that? And why? What would be gained from doing such a thing?

[Lerkfish]

17. what is ever gained from doing such a thing? power.

look, here's how it would work: there already are diseases, like sickle cell anemia, that are keyed to an ethnic group because of DNA signatures. All it would take is understanding the genome enough to make designer viruses that do the same thing, one for each ethnic group.
And only those who pony up the dollars or capitulated would the antidote, or the vaccine.

[arwalden]

20. Absurd!

How does blackmailing an ethnic group with disease/death translate into "power"?

<< And only those who pony up the dollars or capitulated would the antidote, or the vaccine. >>

And then what? How does this work?

I don't think that Dr. Evil's plan for "power" has been thought through very well.

[Lerkfish]

22. If the race was arab and other semitic races, and

certain semitic friends were preemptively vaccinated against it....

it would be easy to see how such a thing would be a powerful weapon.

what? you are acting like biological warfare is fictional....wake up, dude. We've been working and planning biological warfare since we gave anthrax blankets to the american indians.

[arwalden]

25. I Choose Reality Over Fantasy.

<< If the race was arab and other semitic races, and certain semitic friends were preemptively vaccinated against it.... >>

And how exactly does this benefit us? :shrug: What's the plan?

<< it would be easy to see how such a thing would be a powerful weapon. >>

Probably disseminated in contrails chemtrails, eh? :eyes:

<< what? you are acting like biological warfare is fictional....wake up, dude. >>

You still haven't explained how such a thing would serve any practical purpose? How does it work? Who benefits? How do we "pre-emptively" vaccinate the ones we choose to be deserving?

Do we just infect everyone and move into their oil fields after they all die?

This paranoid science-fiction fantasy you're describing is utterly absurd (but it might make a good series on the Sci-Fi channel).

[Lerkfish]

32. If you'll note, *I* did not suggest this danger in this thread

someone else did, and then third party asked how it could be possible. I thought about it and suggested a way it could.

of course, why that entitles you to assess my sanity is beyond me.

[arwalden]

33. Oh, Brother!

<< If you'll note, *I* did not suggest this danger in this thread someone else did, >>

Oh this ought to be good...


<< and then third party asked how it could be possible. >>

"Third party"?? :eyes:


<< I thought about it and suggested a way it could. >>

Yeah, right! :rofl: It was all hypothetical, eh? :eyes:


<< of course, why that entitles you to assess my sanity is beyond me. >>

Please show me where I assessed your sanity. :rofl:

[Lerkfish]

34. "This paranoid science-fiction fantasy"

[arwalden]

36. Try Again...

... that describes the science fiction fantasy, not you.

For the record... here's the ENTIRE quote: "This paranoid science-fiction fantasy you're describing is utterly absurd".

[rman]

53. It's not scifi nor fantasy - see PNAC

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0910-15.htm

Published on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
The Genetically Modified Bomb
by Thom Hartmann


Imagine a bomb that only kills Caucasians with red hair. Or short people. Or Arabs. Or Chinese.

Now imagine that this new bomb could be set off anywhere in the world, and that within a matter of days, weeks, or months it would kill every person on the planet who fits the bomb's profile, although the rest of us would be left standing. And the bomb could go off silently, without anybody realizing it had been released - or even where it was released - until its victims started dying in mass numbers.

Who would imagine such a thing?

Paul Wolfowitz, for one. William Kristol for another.

<snip>

Thus, anybody who's part of a group with a shared genetic profile may be at risk in the future, suggest the authors of The Project for a New American Century's (PNAC) report titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century." http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf (pdf)

<more>

[arwalden]

61. Dr. Evil's Moon-Based "Laser" Beam Is More Convincing.

[Jawja]

72. These are some

sick bastards, aren't they? Wolfowitz and Kristol.

[krispos42]

51. You think BushCo hasn't thought of that?

You need people to make a nation, otherwise you're just a glorified groundskeeper.

Pandemics and such can cripple a country, wiping out people and vital resources. And if done discretely, the population might not know it is under attack from anything other than a natural event.

For example, Iran is getting paranoid about a US attack (gee, I wonder why?) and developing nuclear weapons. Iraq, which was a secular Sunni counterbalance to Iran's religious Shia government, is falling into anarchy and civil war after being steamrollered by the US twice. Iran is now the sole power in the region, US ground forces are bogged down in Iraq, and in a fear response to Bush's hamhanded cowboy diplomacy the Iranians have now elected a Persian version of Bush: fundamentalist, slightly mad, big on rhetoric, and using fear to his political advantage.

Sure would be a great time for a Persion pandemic to maybe put some salt on their tails, wouldn't it?

Hell, if I put on my extra-shiny tinfoil hat I might think that that massive earthquake that struck Iran a couple of years ago was one such attempt!

The thing is that once it can be done, people with clever minds will start looking at political pictures and economic forecasts and start figuring out where a regional epidemic will work out to their advantage. If you make a new tool you WILL find a use for it at some point!

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lerkfish]

31. personal attacks not withstanding,

there is some validity for the idea of differing alleles based on ethnicity and how viruses interact with them...I point you to:

http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v6/n9/full/nm0900_951.html

The C-terminus of the HIVA protein is designed as a multi-CTL epitope. Previous mouse and macaque immunization studies using polyepitope immunogens established the validity of this vaccine approach22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33. The CTL epitopes included in HIVA were identified in patients infected with HIV-1 clade A strains circulating in Kenya, are 8- to 10-amino acid long and originate from the gag, pol, nef and env proteins9, 34. Many of these epitopes are immunodominant and relatively conserved among other HIV-1 clades (Table 1). They are presented by 17 different HLA alleles, which include frequent African alleles as well as alleles common in most ethnic populations. Optimally selected epitopes presented by the nine commonest HLA alleles may cover a general population irrespective of ethnic descent. Thus, given that the majority of HIV-infected donors make good CTL responses to gag p17/p24, each vaccinee should have the potential to respond to at least two or three CTL epitopes present in the HIVA protein.

note that in order to make vaccine broad based over more ethnicities, more HLA alleles needed to be included.

I am not a microbiologist, but I certainly think this is an area worthy of more interest.

[XemaSab]

39. This assumes that the concept of race has any scientific validity

which it pretty much doesn't.

Let's take Africans and African-Americans, for example. Almost all the genetic variation in the human race is found in Africa. So it would be basically impossible to develop a disease to kill only Africans. Similarly, many African Americans have European blood, so you couldn't develop a disease to kill off African Americans without running the risk of the disease mutating to kill off Europeans too.

It's the same for every other ethnic group. The idea of developing a disease that only attacks one ethnic group is firmly within the realm of science fiction.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

56. Ah, so it's the Jews.

It's always the jews, ain't it?

[Kailassa]

58. Funny you should bring that up ...

Israel is reportedly developing a biological weapon that would harm Arabs while leaving Jews unaffected, according to a report in London's Sunday Times. The report, citing Israeli military and western intelligence sources, says that scientists are trying to identify distinctive genes carried by Arabs to create a genetically modified bacterium or virus.

The "ethno-bomb" program is based at Israel's Nes Tziyona research facility. Scientists are trying to use viruses and bacteria to alter DNA inside living cells and attack only those cells bearing Arabic genes. The task is very complex because both Arabs and Jews are Semitic peoples. But according to the report, the Israelis have succeeded in isolating particular characteristics of certain Arabs, "particularly the Iraqi people."

Dedi Zucker, a member of the Israeli parliament, denounced the research in the Sunday Times. "Morally, based on our history, and our tradition and our experience, such a weapon is monstrous and should be denied."

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,16272,00.html

[Lerkfish]

59. It was an example of a large group that is considered an enemy to western

influence -- the arabs. The arabs, its always the arabs. :)


It was a good example because it was a group that might include allies and foes and therefore the vaccination of the allies would make it feasible. I"m discussing the possiblity of how or why a genetically targeted virus might be use. I am not avocating its use, obviously, since I"m a pacifist, but I think its naive to pretend the PNAC is not considering that very thing. That was an example, any race with a genome difference could be a target.




btw: I know you weren't accusing me of anti-semitism, because you'd be wrong, and further its against the rules. So you must have meant something else.

[Tight_rope]

70. "No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are....

"No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine."

[XemaSab]

38. Sickle cell is not "keyed" to an ethnic group

It just happens to be a trait passed down like blonde hair or blue eyes.

I really suggest you take a bit more biology and genetics before you spout this crap all over the internets and scare other people with sub-par educations.

[Kailassa]

41. "Keyed" is an inaccurate term, but the meaning is clear, and correct.

It just happens to be a trait passed down like blonde hair or blue eyes.

Really? We're discussing genes here, and you feel the need to inform us that
genetic traits are inherited?

We all know that. And certain genetic traits are found more often in certain
ethnic groups, because an ethnic group is a group that has been somewhat
isolated from other groups and thus tended to breed together.

Sickle cell Anaemia is much more commonly found amongst people of a particular
ethnic group.

It has long been known that some diseases are not evenly
distributed. For example, a mutation that causes hemochromatosis, a disorder
of iron metabolism, is rare or absent among Indians and Chinese but occurs in
7.5 percent of Swedes. A common mutation that causes sickle cell anemia is
prevalent among Africans and is thought to have originated among Bantu-speakers
before the Bantu expansion 2,000 years ago.

Lactose intolerance, the loss of the ability to digest lactose after weaning,
is the default condition of humankind but among Northern Europeans the ability
is often retained into adulthood. The reason is a mutation that may have been
favored among early cattle farmers.

[XemaSab]

63. There's a big difference between diseases (like sickle cell)

or traits (like blue eyes) that are genetic and passed down and viruses that only attack people of one ethnic group. I think the foil-hat theories being thrown out here are ridiculous and very anti-science.

Race in medicine is a controversial topic that is just beginning to be researched. Gender in medicine is a topic that's barely been approached. Ditto for the effects of an individual genome in medicine.

Did you know that almost all new medicines are only tested on men because women's cycles would screw up the data?

I think the study in question has great potential, and we could learn a lot about the intersection between genetics and health.

For the record, I am also in favor of stem cell research. It's got a lot of potential to cure disease.

[krispos42]

48. This was in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode n/t

[Tight_rope]

66. Are you crazy to ask "Why?...What would be gained from doing such a thing?

You must live in a very sheltered world. Look at the mad man in the White House and his croony friends. The answer you are looking for is call "GREED".

[asthmaticeog]

13. This exact sort of thing was on a "Star Trek: TNG" rerun last night!

Tell me more!

[arwalden]

16. Nanobots!!!!

:scared:

[krispos42]

49. ah, crap, didn't see your post lol

[TheWraith]

23. It wouldn't be "hard," it would be IMPOSSIBLE.

I don't know what tinfoil world you live in, but you can't target a disease to a specific population. There's no known, specific gene or marker for being black, or asian, or gay, or left handed. Traits like race are a hell of a lot more complex than that. And even if there were a single identifiable gene, you can't target a virus to attack only people with a certain specific gene. The idea of a ethnicity-specific virus is bunk, and suggesting otherwise is extremely paranoid.

[Kailassa]

29. Many studies were published at the time showing Asians

could be more susceptible to Sars than people of other ethnicities.
The genetic differences between different ethnicities are minor,
but they do exist, and I have read of work being done in America
and Taiwan to understand the relevance of such genetic differences
to disease.

TAIWAN - New research released yesterday reveals that some Asians may be more likely to contract the SARS virus than caucasians and Africans.

The Mackay Memorial Hospital announced yesterday the discovery that people whose body hosts the HLA-B46 (human leukocyte antigen) gene are more likely to contract severe acute respiratory syndrome.
...

According to Professor Lin's results, 13.2 percent of Chinese Singaporeans, 15.4 percent of southern Chinese and 13.2 percent of Vietnamese host this element which indicates their vulnerability to the SARS virus.

However, zero percent of the indigenous people in Taiwan carry this particular antigen - most host a different antigen HLA-B13. Caucasian and African people also have this gene in their body. Professor Lin said that it is believed that the HLA-B13 could actually provide resistance to the SARS virus.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/3-9-25/7350.html

[Lerkfish]

35. thank you.

I also posted a link to similar studies in Africa

[Kailassa]

44. Too many people pick up one piece of information,

and assume they know the whole story.

So I was glad to see you posting some intelligent facts here.

It's a shame about Google. Apparently many computers people
use here are incapable of accessing it. :shrug:

[XemaSab]

40. So you think they're masterminding a plot to kill off

13.2% of Chinese Singaporeans? :eyes:

[Kailassa]

43. Would you like to show me where I have suggested that?

I guess if you can't argue with the facts I present,
it makes sense to ridicule them by creating a straw-man.

:sarcasm:

[XemaSab]

62. You're supporting the idea that this British genetic study

is being done in order to target people of different ethnicities, which I think is a total crock.

[Kailassa]

67. You have a great imagination, don't you?

I have not said one word against this study being done.

I have merely pointed out a few facts which you appeared not to know.

If you think those facts mean the study should not be done,
that is your interpretation, not mine, and I would have to disagree with you.

[Tight_rope]

69. "Total Crock"?

The mind set of a man who wants ultimate "POWER" has no limitations.

[Xithras]

76. You're forgetting about the haplogroups.

It's actually fairly simple to identify someones haplogroup if you know what you're looking for. It gets tricky when you get into specific sub-races (Arabs and European Whites are both part of the caucasoid haplogroup as an example), but if you just want to break people into the major groups (caucasoid, negroid, mongoloid, australoid) it's fairly simple.

Now, figuring out how to trigger a disease on a specific genetic signature is another story. You would need to find a trait that was 100% dependent on that haplogroup which ALSO provided some sort of resource to support a virus AND which wasn't available anywhere else in the body. No small feat, but certainly possible.

[TheWraith]

24. Deleted, duplicate. NT

[Jawja]

71. In fact, isn't that

idea in the PNAC plan? Diseases targeted genetically?

on edit: Yep. I knew I read that somewhere. See post #53 by rman and #45 by FormerOstrich.

[Matariki]

14. SCIENTISTS SEEKING CURE FOR CANCER IS REALLY A GOV'T PLOT!!

be afraid, be very afraid.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

54. So... don't VOLUNTEER. n/t

[soup]

57. .

:hi: :spray: :rofl:

[Tight_rope]

65. Double Bingo!....It's "Big Brother's" ultimate wet dream...

:freak:

[mccoyn]

73. To get volunteers to help cure disease?

I suppose if you control the world your dreams must be pretty lame.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

2. You know, I'm a huge X-Files fan and...

everyday it seems like world's leaders are using X-Files plots and turning them into real life.

[moondust]

7. Same here.

Where are Mulder and Scully when we need them? :hide:

[Lance_Boyle]

5. At least this one is under public (UK) control, and presumably will

be an opt-in operation (unless there's a newspeak definition of "volunteer" with which I am unfamiliar). Iceland's DNA banking project, although roughly half the size of this one, is wholly owned and controlled by DECODE, and was established on an opt-out-if-you-object basis. http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/bioethics/9902/iceland.dna/template.html

[Vidar]

6. Despite Blair, I think this has a much better chance of being

legitimate under the British, rather than our auspices.

[pinto]

10. What an ambitious medical research project. Another snip:

The mapping of the human genome in 2000 opened the door to the detailed analysis of genes but experts are still grappling to understand how they interact with lifestyle and environment to determine why some people become sick and others do not.

In the long term, scientists believe the project could improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases and help to explain why certain people react differently to medications.

The 61 million-pound project will be funded by the British government, the Wellcome Trust medical research charity and other sources.

Some researchers have expressed concerns about the design, size and cost of the project, but Collins said he was confident it would produce valuable medical breakthroughs.

A total of around 10 million samples are expected to be collected from the half million volunteers. That genetic data will be cross-referenced against information about patients' subsequent health, obtained with their permission.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=204&ObjectID=10397457

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. How dare they!

:eyes:

[GeorgeGist]

15. I'm sure the Freepers will be up in arms...

as well as their DU counterparts.

[kurth]

18. Just a logical progression from government cameras everywhere

It's ironic that the U.K. currently has the most intrusive regime in Western Europe.

[truthisfreedom]

19. hmmph. i thought the world's largest medical experiment was cell phones.

8^|

[Odin2005]

27. I see the anti-science wackos are out in force today.

You guts must be the same people who were calling Luigi Cavali-Sforza's Human Genetic Diversity Project racist when he started getting DNA from Native Americans and Australian Aborigines.

[951-Riverside]

28. --------> Freerepublic is that way

You will find all the anti-science, anti-gay, racists there in full "force".


Sorry but this part really made me *smirk* :)

You guts must be the same people who were calling Luigi Cavali-Sforza's Human Genetic Diversity Project racist when he started getting DNA from Native Americans and Australian Aborigines.

[Odin2005]

30. That should be "guys" not "guts," my bad!

:dunce:

[Kailassa]

47. Yes, anti-science wackos like these ...

BMA warns of arrival of genetic weapons
British Medical Journal, Jan 30, 1999 by Hoang Uy

The BMA has warned that the possibility of developing weapons genetically targeted at different ethnic groups could be just five years away.

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of health policy research at the BMA, said, "It is important to emphasise that we are talking about technology and information that is becoming available now and will be available in the next few years. We have a window of opportunity before such weapons can realistically be manufactured."

The BMA is particularly concerned about the use of information from the Human Genome Project and the Human Diversity Project. These research projects, set to be completed in 2003, aim to unlock the key to the human genome and to determine why certain diseases affect only certain ethnic groups. Such information could be used for targeting biological weapons at particular ethnic groups.

"Scientific advances quickly lead to developments in weapons technology. Biotechnology and genetic knowledge are equally open to this type of malign use," said Professor Nathanson. "It would be `a tragedy if in 10 years' time the world faces the reality of genetically engineered weapons."

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0999/is_7179_318/ai_53984524

[Odin2005]

75. OMG, Science leads to millitary advances? I'm shocked!

Lets go back to the Stone Age so the millitary can't use that technology!!! :sarcasm:

[Kailassa]

77. well, if you can only think of one answer to the situation,

that's your problem.

Some people are capaple of acknowleging the uses certain
leaders would like to put such research to, and the
advances that have been made in that direction,
without wanting to end the genetic research.

Ignoring the possibilities is no more intelligent than
cutting off the research would be.

[oscar111]

37. IMMORTALITY..university genetics work on it..

see my OP in Health forum


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=222&topic_id=6770&mesg_id=6770

[skids]

50. That's the cart. Need work on the horse first.

You might want to check out these folks, who track progress of various efforts to remove some of the symptoms of aging by attacking the mechanisms by which age causes physiological damage, rather than the underlying root genomes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_negligible_senescence

The idea being the solutions to many of the stumbling blocks that make up convalescence are a bit less drastic and realizable for a larger population (in fact the crosslink breakers are in FDA trials already.) The folks working on the genetics of it will probably get further if they live to 120 and still have their mental faculties :-)

[w4rma]

42. Great. I wish them luck! (nt)

[FormerOstrich]

45. IT IS NOT TIN FOIL HAT TALK....

It is straight from the Project for New American Century. Read the document.

Who would do that? I bet you know who signed the document.

And advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may
transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf


ooops...on edit fixed the subject line

:tinfoilhat:

[Kailassa]

46. What? a country explore the use of biological weapons? nehvah!!!

I expect everyone here knows about the gifts of small-pox infected blankets to American Indians. In Canada and possibly Australia, tuberculosis-infected bedding has been used in the same way, to kill native children who were taken from their families.

A direct ancestor of mine was transported to the family on a convict ship, and the story passed down in the family was that the ship owners were paid by the number of convicts loaded onto the ships, not by the numbers transported. So it was in their interest to leave the ships at the docks for months, keeping the convicts on meagre rations, and finding people with cholera to mix in with the convicts. This worked in my relative's interests too, as he was to be executed, but all the engineers on the ship died of cholera while still docked, and as he was qualified to do the job, he was given the choice between almost certain death from cholera, or hanging.

So there is nothing new about the idea of using a disease to wipe out a section of the population.

Advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

The document this is from was commissioned by Dick Cheney, and we know how he treats his friends, let alone his enemies.

In 1992 the journal Defense News carried a report which noted a scientist arguing that genetic engineering may enable us to: "...recognize DNA from different people and attach different things that will kill only that group of people...You will be able to determine the difference between blacks and whites and Asians and Jews and Swedes and Finns and develop an agent that will kill only a particular group."

Shown this quotation in February, scientists within the DOD confirmed that defensive research was being done specifically in this area. Thus the threat would appear to slide along the spectrum from the merely theoretical through the potentially possible to the patently workable. Such arguments have been set out at greater length in an appendix to the 1993 Stockholm Peace Research Institute's Yearbook. The most pertinent aspect of the appendix entitled, "Benefits and threats of developments in biotechnology and genetic engineering," reads:

"While modern biotechniques are revolutionizing medicine and agriculture, the possibility exists of their misuse for political ends, for clandestine production and refinement of biological weapons (BW), and for future development of weapons of mass extermination which could be used for genocide.

Particular reference is then made to the possible misuse of knowledge gained from the Human Genome Project and knowledge about genetic diversity. The element of critical significance here is contained in the last sub-section of section VI where the question is clearly stated, "Can't genetic weapons be developed?" The answer is that if investigations provide sufficient data on ethnic genetic differences between population groups, it may be possible to use such data to target suitable micro-organisms to attack known receptor sites for which differences exist at a cell membrane level or even target DNA sequences inside cells by viral vectors."

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/33592

[krispos42]

52. They've been doing this in Iceland for many years now

Iceland has very little immigration or emmigration, no civil war or invasions, and excellent birth and death records going back many generations. deCODE is a company working on studying genetic dieases and such by tracking them down through the ages and employing advanced laboratory technology to study it.

I know a guy who went to deCODE one. It's how I know that Iceland has the world's only Phallus Museum!

[Telly Savalas]

60. THEIR GOING TO MAKE A CLONE ARMY!!!!1111

[The2ndWheel]

64. I'm sure we'll try to cure death one day too, nt

[robcon]

68. This is great news.

There will be tremendous positive results from this study - some of which will be unanticipated - IMO.