Genetic Engineering: Giving Animals Consciousness

I was never the type of person to wake refreshed. When I saw the commercials on TV as a kid about adults struggling to get up in the morning, then bragging about how they woke up alert, refreshed, and the like when they got a new mattress, pill, pillow, or candle, I thought it was something out of the ordinary. Only this past week have I been able to wake up refreshed but even so. At no point have I been able to wake up feeling like I could run my usual three miles. (To be technical, yes it was when I was late to a class, but that's a tangent.) Awakening So what would an animal feel or think? I realize in the last post I made there was a definite decision on the matter of modifying from birth versus adolescent or late life, but let's still play around here. What sort of awakening would it be? Let's be realistic for a second and not take a cue from the movies. The recent 2011 movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes , contained a scene, where SPOILERS , the lead ...

Fun Fact: Did you know that according to Live Science , FOXP2 is the gene responsible for human speech. Summarily, it is the differences within this gene across chimpanzees and humans that according to researcher Daniel Geschwind allows for the different abilities to communicate, and as I hinted to in the previous post, requires development of cranial muscle movements; something the gene has the full capacity to talk. Interestingly enough, the article concludes with the hyoid bone, a sliver of bone shaped like a U developed within our throats that gives us the ability to talk. Is this fun fact a big detail? Yes. Did I include it because I forgot to mention in the previous article? Absolutely. Now on to other matters... How Can It Start Try to picture the first time you had pizza. Surely the hot steamy vapors of gooey cheese, succulent juicy sausage (or pepperoni) with that fluffy buttery crust. If not, then consider the last time you had pizza. How would you rate the quality...

The idea of a genetically engineered organism is hailed as a sci-fi creation is, to the general population. To others more aware, the consensus is that GMO's, or genetically modified organisms in our food, are an 'experiment on the masses.' Regardless, it's happening. Whether individuals like it or not. I won't get into the debate of whether GMO's are good for us or not. So what's the likelihood an animal can receive consciousness? What are the chances of this happening? Realistically, probably really low. The amount of information stored in our DNA that we don't know yet is truly remarkable. We all know that the four defining molecules in DNA giving the actual information are adenine, which pairs with thymine, and  cytosine, which pairs with guanine. We can assume that one single base pair can hold 4 bytes, as demonstrated below. DNA Data Possibilities There are 6e9 base pairs in a human cell according to bitesizebio.com. Divide that in hal...