Sugar, spice, and everything nice? How did the Powerpuff Girls come to be?
Sugar, spice, and everything nice, or cloning and genetic modification? How did the Powerpuff Girls come to be?
The Powerpuff Girls Title Sequence
The Background Story
Skip to the science if you are familiar with how Professor Utonium created three superhero daughters after his day job as a quantum physics and micro-nuclear fusions instructor at the Townsville Research Center.
A physicist, single dad, and golfer, Professor Utonium did it all but was he onto something?
The Professor sets out to make the "perfect" set of daughters with some sugar, spice, and everything nice. Like scientists sometimes do, the Professor made a mistake and accidentally added “CHEMICAL X” and gave the girls superhuman powers!
The Science
Could these ingredients be used to make actual people? Isn’t that like cloning or some type of genetic editing?
The first answer, kind of…. The second answer, potentially!
Let’s break down each character and determine if we have the technology to make extraordinary kindergarteners.
Can we clone or “create” life with modern technology?
Yes, some scientists are cloning experts. The first animal that humans successfully cloned was a sheep named Dolly (1996-2003). To clone you need a couple of different ingredients:
1. An egg cell from a donor
2. A skin cell from the organism you wish to clone
3. A surrogate or some fancy tech that does not exist yet to mimic gestation
4. A ton of money
These ingredients aren’t sugar, spice, and everything nice but they can hypothetically come together to clone a Blossom, Bubbles, or Buttercup from some sort of a starting template...
I don’t think parents would like to volunteer their children’s skin cells for this type of thing though.
Could we make the Powerpuff Girls without cloning?
Maybe…. Let me think on this one….
If the Professor wanted to try having kids a “tRaDitIonAl WaY” through sexual intercourse, it would be difficult to do any type of “editing” once he found the person who wanted to have superhero kids with him.
Alternatively, the Professor could get a surrogate and do some highly unethical gene editing to embryos prior to their implantation!
Fun fact, researcher He Jiankui, took the sperm and eggs from different couples, edited them with cutting-edge technology, and then allowed the embryos to grow into babies!
He Jiankui now faces repercussions from the science community and his home country.
He Jiankui faced such backlash because even though we have tools in science that can edit, clone, and then some, that doesn’t mean we should use them with the current knowledge we have. Right now, gene-editing technology is far more sophisticated than it was 50 years ago, but we still don’t have it all figured out.
Our genetic code is very complex, and we are only just starting to understand how changes impact different areas of our bodies. It is interesting to think of a future where we can pick what our kids are like but even if the science is there, we can’t throw ethics out the window.
The Ethics (and some more details)
I believe genetic modification of embryos equips homo sapiens with the ability to move beyond Darwinian natural selection and hypothetically allows us to take the theory of evolution one step further as we have in many agricultural species (Darwin, 1859). While the idea of precise and perfect genetic control is ideal, those opposed to genetically modified human embryos have reasonable concerns and fear parents will go on a never-ending “search for the best” (Knoepfler, 2016, p.180).
Those opposed to genetic modification of human embryos are also wary of the social implications’ technology such as CRISPR-Cas9 has. Even though the primary goal of modern human embryo genetic modification is to do no harm, there is a valid fear-based discussion surrounding whether this path will lead our society to a future that resembles Nazi eugenics (History.com Editors, 2018; Knoepfler, 2016, p.164).
In dystopian futuristic movies such as Gattaca and shows like “Black Mirror”, biotechnology is taken out of hand, and society as we know it is destroyed (Knoepfler, 2016). With genetic modification, people will select for the traits they want their children to have … probably.
I guess it is possible we could have some Powerpuff Girls in the future.
Plagiarism is bad, here are my sources!
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Barrangou, R. Fremaux, C. Deveau, H. Richards, M. Boyaval, P. Moineau, S. Romero, DA.
Horvath, P. 2007. CRISPR provides acquired resistance against viruses in prokaryotes. Science 315, 1709–1712.
Cokley, R. (2017, August 10). Please don't edit me out. The Washington Post.
Darnovsky, M. (2016). Societal implications of emerging technologies. The National Academies.
Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/149190924.
Darwin, C. 1859. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. page 162.
Harris, J. (2016). Pro: Research on gene editing in humans must continue. National Geographic. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/08/human-gene-editing-pro-con-opinions/
History.com Editors. (2018, August 21). Eugenics. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/germany/eugenics
Knoepfler, P. (2016). GMO sapiens the life-changing science of designer babies. Hackensack, New Jersey: World Scientific Publishing Company.
Lander, E. Baylis, F. Zhang, F. Charpentier, E. Berg, P. 2019. Adopt a moratorium on heritable genome editing. Springer Nature Limited, 567, 165-168.
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Ahmed, R. Darby, H. Van Dyken, C. Li, Y. Kang, E. Park, AR. Kim, D. Kim, ST. Gong, J. Gu, Y. Xu, X. Battaglia, D. Krieg, SA. Lee, DM. Wu, DH. Wold, DP. Heitner, SB. Belmonte, JCI. Amato, P. Kim, JS. Kaul, S. Mitalipov, S. 2017. Correction of a pathogenic gene mutation in human embryos. Nature. 000.
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technology. Harvard University: Science in the News. Retrieved from http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/from-corgis-to-corn-a-brief-look-at-the-long-history-of-gmo-technology/.
https://powerpuffgirls.fandom.com/wiki/Professor_Utonium_(1998_TV_series)
https://www.cartoonnetwork.com/video/powerpuff-girls/index.html
https://soundcloud.com/danbychoi/sugar-spice-and-everything-nice
Medical Corps Officer at US Navy
2yI loved the post Elizabeth! Fantastic. You did a great job explaining the science and keeping it relatable.
Master of Science in Biomolecular Sciences
2yThis was such an interesting read! I never connected the dots adding the Power Puff Girls like this but it makes so much sense! An interesting way to introduce the topic in general to those may not be familiar with it. I think I was #TeamButtercup too growing up.
I am officially a caregiver for my mom and I get paid for this
2yKeep up the great work and job and just do the best you can
SciCom 🧬 Research 🔬 Service 🤝
2y#TeamButtercup