For this week, blogger Erik decided to write about superpowers and what it would look like if countries had the opportunity to genetically modify their military forces. Erik goes in depth about the pros, and mostly the cons, of global militaries being able to create “super soldiers.”– Editor-in-Chief Roman Rickwood
By Erik Bearman, Science Editor
Surprisingly, not every superpower is ludicrous. The idea of a Captain-America-type-serum-injected man turned into a weapon is actually one of the most accurate superhero-origin stories out there. The technology to achieve this exists today. In the near future, world superpowers such as China and the U.S. may have their own superpowered soldiers.
Myostatin is a biochemical in our DNA that inhibits muscle growth. So, it stands to reason that inhibiting this inhibitor would cause us to bulk up rapidly. We’ve already seen it with the Belgian Blue cattle. Belgian farmers have selectively bred a breed of cow with a depletion of myostatin, causing them to be born with muscles that are nearly twice as developed then normal.
Occasionally, this also happens in children. Liam Hoekstra, a child from Grand Rapids, Michigan, was born with a mutation to the myostatin gene and “could do a pull-up… [by] 8 months old”(ABC News). I can’t even do eight pull-ups at 18 years of age. If scientists altered the human genome in order to cease myostatin production, we could have our very own army of Belgian Blue Hoekstras.
Speaking of armies, approximately five months ago, NBC News reported that China has used CRISPR to conduct biological experiments in order to engineer their own super soldiers (msnbc.com). If China makes a move towards dominating the world technologically, economically, and now, militarily, who is to say that other countries won’t fight back using their own enhanced armies?
What do you think? If you were offered a super serum, would you take it to impress your friends and partners, or to defend your country?
Third Editor-in-Chief: Roman Rickwood
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