monkeystrong

    These are gorillas, you say?  Fool, you call me? En garde.

The Times published a serious article about inhibiting the action of myostatin to allow muscles to continue growing in people with degenerative muscle diseases.  Then i09 wisely picked up on the most important part of the article and ran it under the headline Gene Therapy Creates Superstrong Monkeys.  Well played, chaps.

They decided to test whether artificially introducing follistatin to the body would lead to an increase in strength and muscle mass. Using a common cold virus as a carrier, the researchers injected the follistatin gene into the thigh muscles of six macaque monkeys. The monkeys’ thigh muscles grew an average of 15 percent as a result of the treatment, and one monkey experienced an incredible 78 percent increase in strength. The researchers reported in Science Translational Medicine that, after 15 months, the increases remained and that the monkeys experienced no visible side effects.  The researchers hope to start clinical trials on humans next year, with an eye toward helping people with degenerative muscular diseases. But for healthy individuals looking to increase their strength, the treatment would come at a cost: immunosuppressant drugs [Ed.- insert "Hitman monkey with AIDS" joke . . . here.] are a necessary component of the therapy. [i09]

Yeah, sure, eventually this could lead to a treatment for Jerry’s Kids, but let’s not lose sight of a more immediate benefit, supermonkey swordfights:

monkeyswordfight

monkeyswordfight2

But you know what’s even better than a supermonkey swordfight?  Chimps with guns! (Link is very vaguely NSFW, for cleavage and swearing.)