posted June 18, 2004 03:45 PM              

Also, lately I've been struck with one of my psychic visions. Would you like to know?

Something is telling me to pay attention to a slow and subtle introduction of technology into our lives. Maybe it has to do with some transit, but nothing pops out at me. Symbolically, I see it as a Cancer soul who prays we don't forget how to feel.

It's just creepy to me all the possibilities of current nanotechnology advancements. Sure, it's fantastic for creating electrical waves to paralyzed muscles, so a message from the brain can reach the muscle. But there's a self-hatred out there which needs to be WHOLLY resolved before we start getting into this, or else we will be going down some paths I cannot even imagine in my wildest dreams!!

To the point where to those future half-organic, half-technically enhanced "people" 100 years from now will view us as fumbling cave people in comparison.

To be able to feel completely, at the expense of a broken heart. How disgusting, they may think. To allow imperfections to pass into the next generation, how fallible and ignorant we were. Do you think?

posted June 19, 2004 10:43 PM              

"Scientific American
June 17, 2004

Gene Linked to Lasting Love in Voles

The manipulation of a single gene is enough to cure the wandering eye of a meadow vole.

According to a report published today in the journal Nature, gene therapy that increases levels of a specific protein in the brain turned the promiscuous creatures into monogamous mates.

Previous research with captive male prairie voles, which form lifelong bonds with a single partner, indicated that the animals had high levels of vasopressin receptors in the ventral pallidum, a brain region closely associated with the reward system. In contrast, captive male meadow voles, which often take multiple partners throughout their lives, lacked vasopressin receptors. In the new work, Miranda M. Lim of Emory University and her colleagues inserted a gene that encodes for the vasopressin receptor protein directly into the brains of male meadow voles. The researchers then observed the animals' behavior as they were introduced to a variety of potential partners

They found that meadow voles treated with gene therapy acted more like their prairie vole counterparts--they spent more time huddling near their original companion. According to study co-author Larry J. Young of Emory University, the results provide evidence “in a comparatively simple animal model that changes in the activity of a single gene profoundly can change a fundamental social behavior of animals within a species.”