I was just reading in my Psychology book that scientists back in 1999 genetically engineered a “smart mouse” that showed “superior learning and memory ability”. All mice can pretty much be conditioned to certain stimuli, but I guess these rodents learned quicker and recognized more challenging cues of impending electric shock (because that’s how we teach mice … we shock them).

Yeah, yeah … big deal, right? Good for them.

Well this was a genetic alteration accomplished by inserting an extra gene into their genetic make-up. This “modification” was passed onto the next generation of super-mice too.

What if the scientist kept adding an extra gene to each generation. I’m pretty sure at some point the next generation wouldn’t live (extra genes can do that). But what if they could? What if we got a Super Mouse 5.0 and then a 6.0 with each generation being progressively smarter and smarter? How many generations before they started breaking out of their cages to try and get free?

Do you think they’d try and take of the world? … or would they be nice, like Master Splinter?

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