Is science important?

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Three scientists have won the nobel prize for their work that led to a powerful and widely used technique to manipulate genes in mice, which has helped scientists study heart disease, diabetes, cancer, cystic fibrosis and other diseases. The $1.54 million prize was awarded Monday to Capecchi, 70, of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City; Oliver Smithies, 82, a native of Britain now at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and Sir Martin J. Evans, 66, of Cardiff University in Wales. Their "gene-targeting" technique lets scientists deactivate or modifying individual genes in mice and observe how those changes affect the animals. That in turn gives clues about what those genes do in human health and disease. The work has allowed us to understand how genes work. The three prize-winning scientists mostly worked separately, although they exchanged information about their research. Evans identified embryonic stem cells in mice, while the gene-targeting technique used on those cells came from work by Capecchi and Smithies. Capecchi's work has uncovered the roles of genes involved in organ development in mammals. Evans developed strains of gene-altered mice to study cystic fibrosis, and Smithies created strains to study such conditions as high blood pressure and heart disease. To create gene-altered mice, researchers introduce a genetic change into mouse embryonic stem cells. These cells are then injected into mouse embryos. The mice born from these embryos are bred to produce offspring with the changed genes. In 1989, the first mice born with genes manipulated through the technique was announced. More than 10,000 different genes in mice have since been studied this way. That's about half the genes the rodents have. Apart from making mice with altered DNA, the work has also shown how to manipulate genes in human embryonic stem cells for lab research. Such basic studies can help scientists learn how to turn the cells into specialized cells that might prove useful in therapy. And scientists hope that by putting disease-related genes into human embryonic cells for lab studies, they can learn how the diseases develop and screen potential therapies. Ref: Yahoo.com I think it is. For a large part of recorded history, science had little importance on people's everyday lives. Scientific knowledge was gathered for its own sake, and it had few practical applications. However, with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, this rapidly changed. Today, science has a profound effect on the way we live, largely through technology—the use of scientific knowledge for practical purposes.