the ethics of GMO "bioluminescence animals" and humans?

[caveman]

I don't see a practicable purpose for having glowing monkeys.

[Isard]

Originally Posted by caveman

I don't see a practicable purpose for having glowing monkeys.

Glowing monkeys isn't the point. It's the fact that we can place desirable traits into a species at will that's important.

[Raiden]

Originally Posted by Isard

"Super wheat" has already been bred and has taken over. The US bread a strain of wheat resistant to a local disease. (wheat rust or something like that) "Normal" wheat is all gone.

Yeah, I knew about that one, I meant something even better.

Or worse, in this case...

And yeah, as HNM pointed out, retroviruses, lysogenic viruses, and all other viruses are also limited in their ability to alter our DNA because they use RNA, which uses Uracil instead of Thymine for base pairs. (So instead of GTAC it's GUAC), which makes it impossible for a virus to reliably carry a specific allele for a trait over to another organism.

[auroraglacialis]

Well, human genes can end up in bacteria for example:
Opportunity and Means: Horizontal Gene Transfer from the Human Host to a Bacterial Pathogen
And from viruses they can end up in humans and passed on to offspring:
Genes from Chagas parasite can transfer to humans and be passed on to children : Not Exactly Rocket Science

According to new research from Mariana Hecht and a team of Brazilian scientists, T.cruzi has the ability to inveigle its DNA rings into the genomes of those it infects. Once inside, the parasite genes can hop around, hitchhiking from one chromosome to another and leaving genetic chaos in their wake. They can even be passed on from one generation to the next. Hitching a ride aboard sperm and eggs, they can add themselves to the genomes of children, who've never been in direct contact with trypanosomes.

or the original article:
PLoS ONE: Inheritance of DNA Transferred from American Trypanosomes to Human Hosts

In this report we show that T. cruzi minicircle sequences integrated into the genome of Chagas patients in five families from different ecosystems of Brazil. The specific integration sequences were obtained using a modified tpTAIL-PCR, ...
The transfer of minicircle sequences from T. cruzi to humans, an occurrance provoking genome growth and mosaic recombination, had the unexpected consequence of increasing genetic diversity, while generating resident gene knockouts by the primary integration or subsequent hitchhiking.
...
This demonstration of contemporary transfer of eukaryotic DNA to the human genome and its subsequent inheritance by descendants introduces a significant change in the scientific concept of evolutionary biology and medicine

So there is some evidence that things can happen, but this is a relatively new field of research, most possible viruses and parasites (like Flu/cold or ticks/mosquitoes) have not yet been looked at. We simply do not know yet, but I think it cannot be excluded.

Another study for example found lactose tolerance in the Hadza who never drink milk or keep cows but are purely hunter-gatherers. One theory is that they got that genes from HGT.

But this is getting off topic

[Human No More]

Genetic drift happens in all species anyway - if a species was capable of reliably (emphasis on reliably) transferring DNA and that caused it to be expressed, then the risk would be far higher in modification of already existing sequences, as well as the fact that the vast majority of DNA is essentially junk, and does not code for anything (this is how genetic profiles used for identification of individuals from DNA samples are created). The 'risk' would most likely involve some slight change to those regions, which are different for every being thanks to mutation and crossing over of chromosomes.

As for equality of opportunity and that improvements should be available to all who seek them, that is an important point which I agree on, and economic reform is an important point, but what is equally important is a change in perception of what is important on an individual basis.

[Raiden]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

or the original article:
PLoS ONE: Inheritance of DNA Transferred from American Trypanosomes to Human Hosts

......

Okay, that was really interesting, although it was actually based off of a much more correct and thorough research journal.

And, again, like others have pointed out, even if some unusually frequent horizontal transfer is occurring, it hasn't done much to change us.

The lactose intolerance thing was already known, and beyond that, there isn't much that can change us dramatically enough through horizontal transfer that we would look, live, or act terribly differently.

If someone really wanted to get blue skin, a tail, insect wings, scales, gills or whatever crazy things they want to try and genetically engineer, even if they are miraculously successful, it would take large numbers of microorganisms, coordinated perfectly, to take the entire gene and give it to someone in just the right way to have them actually start displaying the phenotypes that the gene codes for.

There is no animal that can do this right now. The protist in the journal article is doing something pretty unique, but it isn't giving people red eyes or blue hair, or even something easy to reproduce like cancer genes. It's even tied to an intermediate host; a clever but rather delicate Hemipteran insect, which doesn't bite specific people, only whoever is presenting an opportunity for a meal.

The parasite is mostly passing genes around that code for genetic garbage and wind up being inactive anyway.
.

[Human No More]

Exactly.

Humans carry a huge amount of genetic data that is not visible even other than in non-coding regions as I previously mentioned - atavism is a common example of this and is not particularly rare - it is not caused by transfer of genetic material, but by certain combinations, by mutation and by chance. Humans still contain DNA for a tail, but humans do not have them. That is part of the reason that genetic engineering is not as simple as 'isolate sequence foo and insert it anywhere into the DNA of any target cell'