I am looking for an existing forum or discussion platform specifically for amateur synthetic biology. Synthetic biology is offtopic here, because this is a wanking platform.

I have looked around the web and not found anything good, but one of you may have found something. I am looking for a site where high knowledge individuals with low ethics can communicate. A forum where techniques and data can be shared and topics like the one below are discussed. Either on the clear web or Tor, Freenet, or other dark web locations.

Bioethicists are trying to keep the genetic experimentation genie in the bottle for both professionals and amateurs. This will impede medical research and of course, progress towards Real Furries™ and Anthros™.

Researchers urge lifting of NIH funding restrictions on chimeric research

This story only applies to federal funding, but if scientists start pursuing uplift,) hybrids, or anthros, they will be surveilled by the FBI and other three letter agencies.

More info:

https://e621.net/forum/show/140169
https://e621.net/forum/show/158245

:( i find it sad that a friend i was arguing with the other night on skype simply refused to believe me when i kept saying how, while they aren't now, there is definitely potential for furries (anthros or other types of creatures we've yet to encounter outside of anime/video games/cartoons) to exist so long as the necessary research continues.

it might still be a while but it's anything but impossible and what may be fictional currently likely won't given enough time and R&D work.

treos said:
:( i find it sad that a friend i was arguing with the other night on skype simply refused to believe me when i kept saying how, while they aren't now, there is definitely potential for furries (anthros or other types of creatures we've yet to encounter outside of anime/video games/cartoons) to exist so long as the necessary research continues.

The genes that turned us into bipeds didn't make us into "hairless apes".

It will not be long before "anthro" genes start to make their way into human embryos (which could be synthesized from scratch and incubated in an artificial womb or animal). Adding "animal" ears, fur, different shaped noses, and changing a vestigial tail into a full tail will be easier than putting a fish gene in a tomato. Speaking of vestigial, nature keeps on trying to give us multi_nipple.

The biggest issue could be the reliability of CRISPR or a next-gen editing technique. The Chinese team that modified human embryos created a lot of off-target mutations and failed embryos. Thousands of scientists will improve on the reliability of CRISPR. Anyone wanting to make an anthro will not have to lift a finger in that particular area, and can instead focus on finding or creating the appropriate genetic code resulting in the desired phenotypes.

On the opposite end, we already have successful examples of human neural cells being grown in mouse brains, resulting in improved intelligence. Or human genes.

http://www.nature.com/jhg/index.html

Relevant

If we develop the technology to create uplifted organisms and shit like that how do you suppose people would react to it

i mean there are tons of people who can't even deal with someone being coloured differently so what makes you think this'll ever be approved

There are so many issues with this.

First of all:

Lance_Armstrong said:

Adding "animal" ears, fur, different shaped noses, and changing a vestigial tail into a full tail will be easier than putting a fish gene in a tomato.

This is... just, so opposite of how things work. Putting a fish gene in a tomato is simple. The gene is simply a protein coding gene. That is easy to transplant.

Giving a human a non-vestigial tail would require a change in bone structure, a change in musculature, a change in the nervous system... Structural changes are way more complicated than simply adding the code for a protein.

Let me see if I can think of a good analogy to describe the magnitude of the difference...

Okay, here. Say, you have a video game. It's an action game. Adding a new protein is like adding the code for a new monster to fight. Adding a tail is like adding a leveling system to the game. You have to create an entire set of "character stats" which change with levels. You have to overhaul the system of monster progression - your character is now getting stronger, the monsters have to as well. You have to balance exp rates and decide how much grinding should be required. There are so many things that could go wrong in that scenario.

So no. It is far harder to add or change an existing structure than an existing protein.

But still, even if we had the technology, the biggest obstacle would still be there - the social obstacle. Doing this to a fetus would be illegal. Without question.

Imagine the uproar that would occur if some parents were having scientists guarantee their children turned out gay. Yeah. That would be nothing compared to the uproar of someone making a furry baby.

I'm not going to say that these things are impossible. Just that I expect the debate about "should we make furries" will occur at about the same time as the debate about whether or not it's moral to dyson-sphere stars other than our own to meet our growing energy needs.

Edit:

I just realized how much of a buzzkill I'm being. Oops. Sorry about that. I just, I find this sort of thing to be... Ah whatever. Sorry for being a buzzkill.

Clawdragons said:
But still, even if we had the technology, the biggest obstacle would still be there - the social obstacle. Doing this to a fetus would be illegal. Without question.

Imagine the uproar that would occur if some parents were having scientists guarantee their children turned out gay. Yeah. That would be nothing compared to the uproar of someone making a furry baby.

I'm not going to say that these things are impossible. Just that I expect the debate about "should we make furries" will occur at about the same time as the debate about whether or not it's moral to dyson-sphere stars other than our own to meet our growing energy needs.

Ryuzaki_Izawa said:
i mean there are tons of people who can't even deal with someone being coloured differently so what makes you think this'll ever be approved

It's fine to be a buzzkill, but let's go back to my first post:

Lance_Armstrong said:
I have looked around the web and not found anything good, but one of you may have found something. I am looking for a site where high knowledge individuals with low ethics can communicate. A forum where techniques and data can be shared and topics like the one below are discussed. Either on the clear web or Tor, Freenet, or other dark web locations.

Lance_Armstrong said:
if scientists start pursuing uplift, hybrids, or anthros, they will be surveilled by the FBI and other three letter agencies.

I know of the coming shitstorm. That's why it is important to share expertise early before governments try to lock down everything, backed by an angry public. We have anonymous and uncensorable platforms for communication, and the cost of DIY biology is decreasing rapidly, especially with techniques like CRISPR. If someone puts together an "anthro genome" and shares it online, the genome can be copied and shared. Like pirated books, movies, and music, once it's out there, it's out there for good. Then the cheap and effective technologies of the future can be used to synthesize life from scratch. There are already services where you send a company a genetic sequence and get back the real DNA. An amateur will be able to do a lot with a $10,000 budget in the future.

This isn't limited to furry either. There are a lot of outrageous things that can be done with synthetic biology. That includes drug production, life extension, and everyone's favorite scare: genetically modified pathogens (the main reason intelligence agencies are interested).

Clawdragons said:
Giving a human a non-vestigial tail would require a change in bone structure, a change in musculature, a change in the nervous system... Structural changes are way more complicated than simply adding the code for a protein.

I understand that I have oversimplified it, but we are talking about features that have more or less existed in our evolutionary past or in closely related mammals. We even have living examples of vestigial features resurfacing: Carrie Underwood growing an extra nipple according to Wikipedia, small nonfunctional tails, or werewolf syndrome. For everything else that didn't exist in pre-humans, like canine features, there's research, trial and error, and Mastercard.

The ease of creating these changes will be linked to further development of computing power and algorithms that can simulate the effects of genetic code and allow "drag and drop" genome editing.

There is a long shot for getting around ethicists. Gene therapies might allow some changes to be made in vivo. That means transformation. These will be far less effective than editing single-celled embryos, but get around most of the ethical concerns.

Lance_Armstrong said:
werewolf syndrome.]

huh, interesting. so i suppose lycanthropy could possibly be written off as some strange disease and/or genetic mutation like vampirism? though with vampires it tends to be a hard to detect blood related disease iirc.

treos said:
huh, interesting. so i suppose lycanthropy could possibly be written off as some strange disease and/or genetic mutation like vampirism? though with vampires it tends to be a hard to detect blood related disease iirc.

And then there's mermaid syndrome. Disclaimer: It's a strange one also note the cloaca

parasprite said:
And then there's mermaid syndrome. Disclaimer: It's a strange one also note the cloaca

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirenomelia

Basically wow.

If you wanted to make a mermaid you would want better than this mutation.

treos said:
huh, interesting. so i suppose lycanthropy could possibly be written off as some strange disease and/or genetic mutation like vampirism? though with vampires it tends to be a hard to detect blood related disease iirc.

Well, aside from the pale skin and the aversion to sunlight, there's a compelling theory that most traits of vampirism are based on rabies instead of anything genetic (makes sense to me).

Fenrick said:
Well, aside from the pale skin and the aversion to sunlight, there's a compelling theory that most traits of vampirism are based on rabies instead of anything genetic (makes sense to me).

huh, didn't know about the rabies bit as i haven't really looked at the vampire page on wikipedia lately. the disease i was referring to was Porphyria. perhaps, given the symptoms of the 2 diseases, it could be a case of the "vampire" in question having been afflicted with both diseases at the same time in some cases.

Lance_Armstrong said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirenomelia

Basically wow.

If you wanted to make a mermaid you would want better than this mutation.

yeah, that's...wow. another on the list of mythical creatures that may actual be real yet have the folklore/mythology not 100% accurate, i guess. that's quite the low survival rate. :/

i like turtles

Say what now?

(Guess I'll look into it later)

Transgenic Mice Humanized FoxP2 and the Timing of Habits

As the title implies, Schreiweis et al. have tested transgenic mice in which the mouse version of the language-related gene FoxP2 was replaced with the human version. They found that the timing of when repeated behaviors become stereotypic is altered, such that the behaviors become stereotypic earlier in the humanized mice than in the unaltered animals.

Humanized Foxp2 accelerates learning by enhancing transitions from declarative to procedural performance