Meet the guy biohacking puppies to make them glow in the dark
By Kristen V. Brown,
Fusion
| 09. 28. 2016
It was after a home invasion almost a decade ago that David Ishee first got interested in breeding dogs. A burglar with a gun had broken into his home in Jackson, Mississippi, where Ishee was asleep along with his wife, 3-year-old-daughter and newborn son. Ishee pulled out his own shotgun and scared the would-be thief off. But he was unsettled wondering what might have happened had he not been around.
Ishee wanted a guard dog, and giant, docile mastiffs are good ones to have around little kids. Like so many carefully bred dogs, though, mastiffs are riddled with genetic disorders. So Ishee decided to start breeding them himself, with plans to increase their genetic diversity and hopefully make them healthier, happier and more fit. Over just a few generations, he saw results. Gone was the sagging skin and oversized head that makes so many mastiffs look goofy. He told me his dogs could jump higher and run faster than most other Mastiffs can.
But because the majority of the genetic disorders dogs suffer from are recessive, Ishee...
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GATTACA was released in 1997, but — remarkably — is even more relevant now than it was then, as the technologies whose social implications it explores have developed considerably.
On Thursday, June 13, the California Film Institute presented GATTACA to a sold-out house at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center as part of their Science on Screen series. CGS Associate Director Katie Hasson offered framing for the film and participated in a Q+A discussion.
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