June 25, 2004
The Science of Baby Supermen
One of my favorite science bloggers, PZ Myers, discusses the mutation relating to the child's condition.
I'm pretty disturbed that this stuff is already being used to engineer freakish animals to enhance meat production. The greatest thing that's been said so far about this was by a poster over at SensibleErection, who pointed out that this kid is the first (openly acknowledged) X-Man. He's literally got mutant super-strength. Sadly, the implication in some of these articles is that he'll likely have the opposite of Wolvie's healing factor - a short, though superpowered life.
"This stuff"? The linked article says nothing about engineered animals, just ones that have been selectively bred. It's not like they're tampering directly with the animals' genes to cause the mutation; it's just a natural outcome of breeding for that particular trait that the mutation is likely to be seen.
Plus, I don't think most Americans care to eat mice, no matter how strong they are.
My bad, jumping to conclusions. I'm actually surprised there haven't been succesful engineering efforts already.
Maybe there have. I don't know, but there wasn't any mention of it in that post.