Reprogrammed Skin Cells Turned Into Baby Mice 284
InfiniteZero writes "According to this WSJ story, 'Two teams of Chinese researchers working separately have reprogrammed mature skin cells of mice to an embryonic-like state and used the resulting cells to create live mouse offspring. The reprogramming may bring scientists one step closer to creating medically useful stem-cell lines for treating human disease without having to resort to controversial laboratory techniques. However, the advance poses fresh ethical challenges because the results could make it easier to create human clones and babies with specific genetic traits.'"
others trying to force their morales on us (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:others trying to force their morales on us (Score:5, Interesting)
but that's got nothing to do with stem cell research - you can kill other people to harvest their organs right now. and it does happen. so that's adding nothing to the discussion.
the point is, we should be given the freedom to get to the point where we need to answer such moral questions like "when is an cloned organ donor human?" for ourselfs, and not have that taken away by the moralist right.
Re:others trying to force their morales on us (Score:5, Insightful)
the point is, we should be given the freedom to get to the point where we need to answer such moral questions like "when is an cloned organ donor human?" for ourselfs, and not have that taken away by the moralist right.
Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean its not right. Or are you ok with the "moralist right" saying that we were created because they have the right to answer it for the world? You see, the problem is, you end up possibly killing someone else if you are wrong. And really, the least you can say is that its not human even though it is A) living B) has human DNA and C) if developed would be a functioning human being. But I'm sure you also believe that each parent can choose what to do with their kid including abusing or even killing them right?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
your talking about a functioning child there, while i'm talking about less then a dozen cells in a test tube. i appreciate you need to muddy the waters to try discredit my point but lets atleast compare apples and apples ok?
i guess your next argument is that those cells MIGHT become a child, but by that logic i'm a murderer everytime i jack off since every sperm MIGHT have bee
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:others trying to force their morales on us (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm also somewhat skeptical of your math regarding birth control, because I know too many people with active sex lives who have somehow managed to have neither abortions nor babies over the years. It might work out in theory, but in practice...not so much.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Cows are a ridiculous example, since they've long made the evolutionary choice of serving as human's food.
For them (well ... for their genes), there has never been a better decision. There is no single large mammal, anywhere in history, that had numbers that even approach the number of cows alive today.
Unfortunately, there is also another side to your question. A human, 2-year-old child is perfectly able to not become sentient, or at least lose the ability to respond in what we'd consider a sentient way to
Re: (Score:2)
Anyway, I really don't see what the evolutionary choices of the cow have to do with its rights - while we can perhaps draw the origins of our moral prejudices from our evolutionary background, I really don't see how you can determine what they should be from it.
Regarding your argument about losing sentience, I would love to see some source for that, because I don't really buy it. Perhaps I'm missing
Drawing the line (Score:5, Interesting)
> Where do we draw the line?
I'm sure most of us agree we'll have to draw the line somewhere.
The first problem as you say is "Where?".
Whatever we choose will seem rather arbitrary, stupid and unsatisfactory to most people, but it's going to be even more stupid to not draw a line. Or worse- to draw many lines on a case to case basis.
Analogy: when you invent cakes, sooner or later someone has to draw the line and decide what can legally be considered a cake. It be seem silly, and the line may be redrawn later, but it will still have to be drawn. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Cake_or_biscuit.3F [wikipedia.org]
Once we give ourselves a "power", it becomes our responsibility.
Which brings us to the next big problem. To me it seems like the scientists etc are merrily giving us "powers" way before we are ready.
To me, certain areas of research should be postponed till we are ready to draw the relevant lines.
Right now scientists and many other people keep saying stuff like "do it because we can", "don't stop progress", "don't be a luddite".
BUT this is NOT the same as being luddites or sticking our heads in the sand, this is in fact the opposite. This is seeing a potential issue in the horizon, and choosing to not charge at it, until we have a more well thought out plan of what to do when we get there.
The power to make "Jaffa Cakes" and biscuits is not a real biggie, but what should we do with human/animal/machine hybrids?
What makes you legally human? Killing a stray aka "free" dog and unplugging a brain dead human are considered different things legally.
At what points do we consider something human? Be very careful where and how the line is drawn, or many of us may end up not being legally considered human. If we draw the line another way, we might have to stop eating pigs, dogs, etc. The pigs might be happier (or not - since pig farmers will just close down their pig farms and leave them to fend for themselves aka die). It is no trivial matter. We already have enough problems convincing people what can and cannot be done with human embryos, imagine the problems with hybrid human-animal embryos.
If we are not prepared to draw certain lines yet, "don't go there yet" then. If we charge into things, the judges may not have enough understanding when they draw the first line, could then be a long and troubled wait till it is next redrawn.
There are plenty of other areas to do research in first (and limited resources anyway). Areas without such problems.
Lastly, even if a human embryo isn't much in the early months (or weeks), for symbolic reasons we could draw a more cautious (early) line. After all we for various reasons have chosen to elevate humans and human life above all other creatures. If we are going to value humans so highly, giving special value to a near brainless human embryo doesn't seem that stupid to me.
Plus if we don't, it might be harder to convince the future AIs or advanced hybrids to value humans and their embryos as highly ;).
Re:Drawing the line (Score:5, Interesting)
At what points do we consider something human? Be very careful where and how the line is drawn, or many of us may end up not being legally considered human. If we draw the line another way, we might have to stop eating pigs, dogs, etc.
This is the fundamental problem of performance-based definitions of sentience. You're never going to find a set of purely performance-based criteria that simultaneously allows all genetic humans, and disqualifies all non-genetic humans, and let us be perfectly clear - what we're trying to do is find a functional excuse for 'speciesism' that lets us justify treating some animals as livestock while retaining the concept that other animals are special.
It will be a long hard fight for equality when we finally do meet or engineer sentient life from non-human stock. And of course, we'll then have to face the moral question of what rights are 'inalienable' to humans, and what rights should be granted to subhuman but still sentient creatures. Sooner or later we're going to have to face and deal with the fact that *not* all men (of whatever gender and species) are created equal. It's going to be interesting watch people try to decide whether they are all created with equal basic rights to life, liberty etc.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The target of "equality amongst humans" has produced a fair amount good even if we don't get full marks on it. I daresay it's produced more good than harm, so it's a good target.
> It will be a long hard fight for equality when we finally do meet or engineer sentient life from non-human stock.
The sooner we engineer sent
Hamburger IS murder! (Score:2)
Re:others trying to force their morales on us (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, the essential part that makes humans different from animals, the "software" that when running on the brain constitutes a human IS running. The mind is active, and starts exploring it's surroundings.
Can you outline how the behaviour of a human foetus in utero is any different to that of an animal foetus ?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The moral side of me agrees with you.
The "I'll do whatever the fuck I wanna" side thinks you should go to hell. How dare you infringe my right to do as I please?
Sadly, people think that free sex is a god given right and don't give a shit about the consequences.
I dare say that if sex were more restrained, we could cure AIDS in a heartbeat, along with every other STD out there.
Re:others trying to force their morales on us (Score:4, Insightful)
Um... no... First of all at the 18th day of pregnancy fetuses have a rudimentary nervous system, they have no provable manner of sentience. Furthermore any attempt of a baby of that age to "fight off" an abortion has never been shown to be a conscious action and is much more likely to be reflex loop. Finally statistics don't work like that, in reference to the pill. Now, please don't refute it as a moral argument without any shred of supporting evidence. Please read "Principles of Biomedical Ethics" by Beauchamp before wasting other peoples time.
Thanks!
Biomedical Engineer
Re: (Score:2)
Can the thing survive if the mother dies? If not then, it's just another parasite to be killed at the mother's whim.
Ants fight back when you try to kill them too, doesn't stop me not caring when I squish one.
Re: (Score:2)
That higher brain functions and analytical capacities develop very, very early on can be illustrated in a manner so dramatical to disgust even the biggest proponent of abortion in a very simple way : a 6-week old baby that's getting aborted FIGHTS the scissors inserted to rip it to shreds [youtube.com], meaning a baby of that age realises what is happening, or at the very least realizes that those scissors are there for a very bad reason, and is capable of enough coordination against those scissors to convince a human (s)he's fighting her abortion.
that sounds interesting, I looked over the internet for what you said but couldn't find anything. the video you linked said nothing about what you claim, do you have a better one? I looked on wikipedia and found that a fetus can't make a fist with it's hand until 10-12 [wikipedia.org] weeks in, most of the bones and muscle tissues have not even developed yet. how can a fetus that can't even make a fist yet be trying to rip scissors into shreds? and plus are you aware that they usually dont use scissors to abort fetus that
Re:others trying to force their morales on us (Score:5, Informative)
Just so you the human nervous system activates on the 18th day of pregnancy. You know, about 10 days before even a very attentive woman would realise she's pregnant. At that point the nerves fire, they move the muscles, they register the impulses coming from the sensory organs. It is not just active, but it starts learning about it's environment (for example, many stick their thumbs in their mouths, even if the mouth is but a little bump in the face at this point).
What thumbs?
Embryonic age: Week nr 3. 2 weeks old. 15-21 days from fertilization.
* A notochord forms in the center of the embryonic disk. (day 16 of fert.[2])
* Gastrulation commences. (day 16of fert.[2])
* A neural groove (future spinal cord) forms over the notochord with a brain bulge at one end. Neuromeres appear. (day 18 of fert.[2])
* Somites, the divisions of the future vertebra, form. (day 20 of fert.[2])
* Primitive heart tube is forming. Vasculature begins to develop in embryonic disc. (day 20 of fert.[2])
It takes a few more weeks for thumbs to appear:
Embryonic age: Week nr 6. 5 weeks old. 36-42 days from fertilization.
* The embryo measures 13 mm (1/2 inch) in length.
* Lungs begin to form.
* The brain continues to develop.
* Arms and legs have lengthened with foot and hand areas distinguishable.
* The hands and feet have digits, but may still be webbed.
* The gonadal ridge begins to be perceptible.
* The lymphatic system begins to develop.
Re: (Score:2)
Since "you" share identical neural hardware with all humans, and the difference between you and anyone else is encoded in a very large number of what are essentially chemical integer storage tanks, I'd rethink that one.
But that's not the issue. You're saying that an infant six weeks after conception has human "software", and should thus be treated as a human. What people are objecting to is your assumption that the "software" that infant has and the "software" you or I have is the same for purposes of ascribing rights. I don't think it is. I think that self-aware consciousness of the sort humans seem to have and animals seem to lack is the only justifiable basis for calling something sentient, and thus capable of being mu
Re: (Score:2)
It takes a unique type of idiot to lack the ability to distinguish conceptually between an embryo and a gamete
Actually, no, that distinction's not the one at issue here. He's not talking about the nature of the thing aborted, he's talking about the prevention of a potential human life. If we allow (as some pro-life types do) that embryos are not people, we might still claim that they are "potential human beings", in that they will develop into people if left to their own devices. Timmarhy's point is actually relevant to that, since a sperm cell can be considered a "potential life", that you just haven't bothered t
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
So given that they just managed to reprogram skin cells into an embryo and have it mature into viable offspring, it would be immoral for me to cut away live skin while cleaning off a wound because it could develop into a functioning human being? Please... if it isn't neurologically advanced enough to be aware it is a human being, it does not deserve to live over a person.
Re: (Score:2)
You see, the problem is, you end up possibly killing someone else if you are wrong.
No, the identity of your "victim" doesn't change simply because some busy bodies in a church decide they know what the definition of a "human" is.
Whether something is human or not human describes a lot about it/them, but sometimes the word is just not useful other than to say it's ambiguous.
The actual facts you're discussing can easily be discussed in terms everyone agrees on (e.g. "cells" or even "human cells" are both conventional phrases (which in itself proves nothing BTW)). Anyone who shows up insis
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, you have it backward. It changed when a busybody outside the church decided that it was NO LONGER a human being, because they cared too much about their selfish lifestyle to care about killing another person.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
[quote]the point is, we should be given the freedom to get to the point where we need to answer such moral questions like "when is an cloned organ donor human?" for ourselfs, and not have that taken away by the moralist right.[/quote]
So the ends justifies the means? Welcome to the scientific worldview of Nazi Germany.
As is rather obvious, both sides of the stem cell debate tend to be rather myopic point of view. The proponents of embryonic stem cell research tend to emphasise the source of the material, a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:others trying to force their morales on us (Score:5, Insightful)
this is exactly what i'm talking about - i don't agree that a couple of cells constitutes a human being, so why should someone like yourself who this has zero impact on get to deny 100,000's of people potentially life saving treatments? i'd like to see these people against stem cell research look a kid dieing from organ failure in the eye, and tell him they don't believe cloned organs are worth looking into.
i think part of the problem is a lot of people have romanticised the idea of conception, if they were to actually go to a lab and see what they are protesting about they might alter their views.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Well, let's take this a step further. Hypothetically, let's say that there isn't a sanctified right to life for fully grown humans. Those who are a drag on society (the homeless and mentally ill, the generally useless) should be resources for those that are contributors. Let's say a CEO is suffering from a failing liver. If he gets a replacement, he can continue to run his company for years to come. He can generate a great deal of money for a great many people. His blood matches a homeless man who is
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that if the big CEO gets his way with the congress critters in his pocket, he COULD take the homeless guy's liver.
Re:others trying to force their morales on us (Score:5, Insightful)
I for one find it ridiculous that a single cell would enjoy the same rights as a real person with a personality, experiences, and so forth. The moment a single cell can be a legal human is the moment I'll embrace the concept of 'lesser' humans that can be slain for the convenience of 'superior' humans (where one human would be superior than another one when the cellcount of the former is at least 9 orders of magnitude larger than the cellcount of the latter.
No wait, screw that. Why again does being a 'human being' make something special? Maybe that's worth examining.
Re: (Score:2)
Why again does being a 'human being' make something special?
Because only human beings will attempt to answer that question ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
Why go that far? Let's say sperm is a human being.
Re: (Score:2)
How paradoxical then that the very act required to procreate is itself lethal to sperm?
Have sex? You're killing billions of sperms! Only a few make it inside. You murderer!!!!
On the other hand, we'd have a population problem very fast if every sperm fertilized an egg. Not to mention there are hardly enough eggs to go around for every sperm.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
one persons moral code should never prevent someone else getting medical treatment. bottom line, if you don't believe in that you don't believe in freedom. this kind of research is what will save lives in the future.
So, if Bill Gates needs a liver transplant and there is someone in a database who is a donor match for him, you have no problem with him hiring people to go out and harvest that liver from an otherwise healthy person? After all it is just some people's moral code that murder is wrong.
Or is it that it is only moral codes that you don't agree with that you want to ignore?
Re:others trying to force their morales on us (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you really not see the flaw in this analogy, or are you just trying to make a point to support a belief?
Anyway, in case you really don't see it, the larger point of the original post was that you don't have the right to force something on someone else. Murder is the most sever of the things you could force on someone else, denying medical treatment less so...
This leads to some pretty large topics like health care and abortion--cases where people don't all agree to the terms (Is it the fetus or the mother who is having their rights violated today?), but regardless of other topics, that's what the original poster meant and your post completely missed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That is a nice altruistic view you got there. And I would agree with it. If it had anything to do with physical reality.
Because there, the ideal, is to yourself be the one taking all resources, and be the only one to reproduce. (Where in the realm of ideas, "yourself" is the group of everyone agreeing with your world view.)
It's the ultimate motivation. The only reason we exist. And without it, there is no evolution.
But it's not that bad, if you think a bit further than "that is egoistic". Because in its mos
Re: (Score:2)
If the nazis were experimenting on the jews and that lead to medical data/treatments is it ethical to use it? The experiments themselves were obviously unethical but that's already done, the only thing standing between doctors and taking advantage of it is a moral code. Besides, you talk as if there's only one side that has moral hangups, imagine a mother suffering a life-threatening medical condition due to her pregnancy. How far into the pregnancy can it be terminated before the Hippocratic Oath takes eff
Re: (Score:2)
Simple.
We confiscate the data regarding the treatment and the nazis don't get to patent or profit from their R&D. Instead, it gets turned around.
The IP version of asset forfeiture. Just as we seize drug money and use it to hire cops, we should seize immoral research and turn it around for good.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ethical challenges? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, they freakin' took skin and turned it into another living creature! That is by far the coolest thing I've heard this week, and the only thing you can think of to say about it is something about ethical issues? That's like saying, "I invented artificial intelligence, but I don't know what to do about my ugly computer case, where can I get a nice one?" seriously, this is a problem that, while somewhat interesting, can be solved, is not particularly relevant, and really doesn't need to be discussed here.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Often they have done something (or a series of things) that most people wouldn't do, and that many believe one shouldn't do. It is rarely or ever a simple matter of the ones with the power having been the ones who were merely more capable. Free countries still have social norms, standard ethical codes, and even laws that a few choose to ignore. That those few who choose to ignore the norms, codes, and laws some
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
This is just about as unethical as your parents choosing to conceive you. Why does a scientist not have the right to make a human in his lab but a man and a women do have that right? What can be argued is how that created animal is treated after it is created. If it is neglected/abused/treated badly then you can start bitching.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hear hear! (Score:2)
I have yet to hear an ETHICAL reason why human cloning is wrong. There are certainly genetic issues -- the gene pool as a whole is better off if it's mixed up -- but people seem to freak utterly out at the notion of human cloning. Do they think we're gonna use them for food, or what?
re: Have yet to hear an ETHICAL reason why (Score:2)
Well, it seems to me the genetic issues you bring up could ALSO be considered an ethical dilemma, because someone is (rather arrogantly) assuming they're making the "superior choice" by creating clones of a particular human being, despite the negative ramifications the lack of diversity will ultimately cause the human race.
Additionally, while no, I don't think most people are really concerned we'd clone humans to "use them as food", we very well *might* regard cloning as a "more acceptable" way to fight war
Re: (Score:2)
That is by far the coolest thing I've heard this week, and the only thing you can think of to say about it is something about ethical issues? That's like saying, "I invented artificial intelligence, but I don't know what to do about my ugly computer case, where can I get a nice one?"
I'd think it's a little bit more like "I invented artificial intelligence, but now I don't know if it's ethical to turn it off or alter its thoughts."
Cool new discoveries/creations demand ethical inspection even if ethics weren't considered from the start. Oppenheimer and crew... Did they say "Wow! That was a neat application of mass/energy conversion. Let's do more tests."? I think it was more along the lines of "Scheisse! Mein Gott!"
Re: (Score:2)
"Controversial laboratory techniques" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:"Controversial laboratory techniques" (Score:4, Interesting)
There is no scientific consensus on when life begins, but most would agree that the thing is a living human whenever the egg is fertilized.
It appears we are now on a slippery slope that some of us have been predicting for a long time. From the article: "All you need are somebody's skin cells to create a human baby."
That isn't quite true yet, but it will be soon. The technique these guys are using injects reverted skin cells into an existing embryo, so you still need an embryo to start with. But that's just a temporary thing. At some point we will be able to revert skin cells to zygotes, and at that point all the crazy "life begins at conception therefore abortion is wrong" folks will go really nuts, because the completely nominal line between "ordinary somatic cell" and "living human being" will be entirely erased. Every cell in our bodies will clearly have the potential to become an independent, living human being, just like a zygote made the old fashion way.
Every human society has practised some form of defacto infanticide, and abortion is WAY better than any alternative, and pregnant women are FAR more qualified than anyone else--both on an information-theoretic basis and a moral basis--to decide what happens to their offspring and their body. Ergo, life begins at conception, and abortion is not wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
I can't wait for the new talking points. Scrubbing is murder! Toenails are people too! You know who else had his hair cut? Hitler!
Re:"Controversial laboratory techniques" (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether life begins at conception depends entirely on what you mean by "life", and that's a matter for philosophy or religion, not science. Science can never change one's mind about what constitutes life, because life is life by definition.
Whenever necessary, the people who want to believe a certain thing will refine their definitions to suit what they want to believe. Take, for example, the loophole in some laws that forgot to mention that "marriage" must be between a man and a woman that anti-gay folks are trying to close.
While most might "agree that there is a living human at fertilization", the same most would probably not be willing to investigate every single miscarriage as an accidental death, or even potential murder case. Clearly, they're not quite fully "life", both morally and logistically.
Re: (Score:2)
While most might "agree that there is a living human at fertilization", the same most would probably not be willing to investigate every single miscarriage as an accidental death, or even potential murder case. Clearly, they're not quite fully "life", both morally and logistically.
Come on now, be reasonable.
Not every death is murder.
Re: (Score:2)
While most might "agree that there is a living human at fertilization",
The arguments around abortion and fetal stem cell research are about person-hood (a legal term), not human-ness (a physiological term). Being a legal term, "person" can be whatever the government wants it to be.
Science can never change one's mind about what constitutes life, because life is life by definition. [...] Clearly, they're not quite fully "life", both morally and logistically.
Living cells replicating. Not quite fully life?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There is no scientific consensus on when life begins, but most would agree that the thing is a living human whenever the egg is fertilized.
Evidence to support this assertion ?
Re: (Score:2)
From everything that I've seen, most people who support abortion would disagree with you. They think that a fetus doesn't become a human being until birth.
Re: (Score:2)
There is no scientific consensus on when life begins,.
If you really want the scientific viewpoint, there is no beginning, at least not in the last billion years or so. It has never been observed.
Life is continuous from parent to gamete, zygote, blastocyst, embryo, etc.
Whichever stage you choose to call a "new human being" has little to do with science, except in the role of rationalisation.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I believe they were referring to this incident:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQL_4acR6hM [youtube.com]
But there's a more important question here... (Score:2)
I mean, dood, like how do all these mice always manage to get researchers the world over to do their bidding. Why can't humans get them to do research on them, huh???
The only time we hear about human research, it's like that exploding head problem in Scotland (sidebar: a bunch of male subjects heads started rapidly and painfully expanding while undergoing a non-protocol type drug experiment in Scotland, by a German pharmaceutical company, using British subjects and American researchers. Anything about th
Re: (Score:2)
If you support stem cell research (as I do) have the balls to call it what it is...
Induction of fibroblasts to become pluripotent (IPSC) can actually be described as controversial, at least in the academic sense, not so much ethically controversial as ESC use is. The field is extremely new, it was only a few years ago that IPSC were discovered/invented. New ways of making IPSC are coming out at a pace that is faster than biological research usually moves, because the rewards are so great and so many people are working on it.
It's inevitable that there are going to be some scientists who
Controversial? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Controversial? (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is some spirituals, such as Christians, believe cloning is like playing God, and should be eschewed by all means.
In that sense, we are in fact playing a role of their "God". Why don't they pray to their god and tell him to finally show himself in a physical sense and then we can discuss what his little rules are regarding this. This reminds me of that quote, "God did not create man in his own image, rather, man created God in his own image." Science is becoming God.
Re: (Score:2)
So is putting someone on a life support machine. Or transplanting an organ.
Oh and don't lump all Christians with the nutters you have in the US. Every one I've met has been very pro stem cell research because it potentially saves a lot of lives.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's more complicated than that. There are those who believe in genetic diversification, and see genetic manipulation as a threat to that, much as they see GM crops along those lines. This is more of a niche ethical argument, but it's out there.
Additionally, and this is the ethical argument that Charles Krauthammer, (hardly a "spiritualist" and he's pro-choice), that it becomes an ethical dilemma if we create life simply to destroy it. At that point, there is a breakdown in the fundamental moral underpin
Re: (Score:2)
I am old enough to remember when "some spirituals", such as Christians, believed that in vitro fertilization was "like playing God".
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, those Christians, who all believe the same thing. And they're all bigots too.
Re:Controversial? (Score:4, Informative)
Read the article more closely; it's not about cloning at all. The reprogrammed stem cells were injected into already-developing embryos to create artificial chimeras -- mice that contained cells from the donor line, not just the parents'. The intent of the research is to achieve true cloning, but they still have to get past the hurdle of starting the embryonic development. However, using this technique to grow organs, since the organs will grow as part of the embryos' normal development, will be "harvesting our own young" -- taking normal embryos, usurping them to grow organs with another genotype, and then removing them for use as transplants. Getting organs to grow in vitro is a much more complex and daunting prospect.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, how would it make an article, and create readers, if it weren't controversial.
Welcome to the media machine. Prepare to be extremised, and then ripped apart.
Re: (Score:2)
We can do cloning well enough now. The technology already exists.
It can be done, but I don't recall anything that suggests that it's been made into a reliable process, and I don't recall any resolution to the bizarre or rare illnesses the clones seem to come down with.
Re: (Score:2)
I really don't understand how this experiment could be seen as controversial, as the cloning effort was
If CLONE
then CONTROVERSIAL = TRUE;
The question keep becoming more complex... (Score:5, Funny)
Soon enough, there won't be a single, simple, answer to the classic question
how is babby formed [somethingawful.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Soon enough, there won't be a single, simple, answer to the classic question how is a baby formed
Yes there is. "Ask me when you're older, son".
"But dad, I'm 36 tomorrow" is no reason to have that conversation.
pups or it didn't happen... (Score:3, Funny)
kulakovich
Re: (Score:2)
Well, your parents turned stem cells into you. Should we post that under comedy too? ^^
Controversy? (Score:2)
so wait (Score:4, Funny)
More importantly (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well how else are we to keep up with...... (Score:2)
.......... Computers outsmarting man [slashdot.org]
Is it viable cloning though? (Score:4, Interesting)
So before we see people start banging the drum over "ZOMG! Teh humanz r cloning!" we need to see if these mouse clones are actually viableclonesof their parents.
About as viable as a mouse can get... (Score:2)
From TFA:
Of 37 stem-cell lines created by reprogramming, three yielded 27 live offspring. One of these pups, a seven-week-old male named "Tiny," mated with a female and produced young of its own.
Any more viable and he would have an never-ending copyright extension attached to him.
Re: (Score:2)
Shaorong Gao and colleagues from the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing got four live births, including one mouse pup that made it to healthy adulthood. Their results were published online in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Also, one of the mice mated and had offspring.
It has ALL been done before! (Score:4, Interesting)
God did it when he made Eve from the rib [cells] of Adam. This is nothing new or remarkable. But, because God did it, we shouldn't... just like flight and other technologies man has managed to understand the develop. Have I said that right? What say you "Religious Right"?
Re: (Score:2)
God did it when he made Eve from the rib [cells] of Adam. This is nothing new or remarkable. But, because God did it, we shouldn't... just like flight and other technologies man has managed to understand the develop. Have I said that right? What say you "Religious Right"?
I'm not sure whether this should be modded Funny, Insightful, or Flamebait. Saying "God did something" on Slashdot is a dangerous thing.
;)
Every cell is sacred! (Score:4, Funny)
Every cell is sacred! When a cell is wasted, God gets quite irate.
Misleading summary, of course (Score:4, Informative)
Though part of that is the fault of the original article.
In their study published in the journal Nature, scientists led by Qi Zhou of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing described how they injected reprogrammed mouse cells into an early-stage embryo to see whether the introduced cells contributed to the tissue of the eventual fetus.
In other words, they did not take a skin cell and turn it into a baby mouse. They took a skin cell and decided to see if an already existing mouse embryo would accept the stem cells created from it.
Screw the ethical concerns (Score:3, Funny)
Screw the ethical concerns
I want them to grow a clone of me and start replacing the parts of me that are wearing out.
They can start with my teeth, eyes, and knees.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Forget that, old man.
I would rather build a Jessica Alba or a Cindy Crawford for me.
As history shows, ALL new technologies have been first used for pr0n: the printing press (am sure after printing the Bible, Gutenberg's 2nd book was an early edition of P1ayboy), the telephone, the cinema, BB's, internet, virtual reality, etc.
If this stuff about creating new life out of a few cells is true, then the first few lives well be by own Alba, or heck, even Jessica Simpson.
Sensationalism (Score:3, Insightful)
Damned popular press covering science stories...
"All you need are somebody's skin cells to create a human baby.""
And, you know, an embryo. Which will become a human baby all by itself anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I never liked ASP either. And that was BEFORE dot-net.
Not that MJ... (Score:2)
This is Slashdot after all... [wikipedia.org]
Although... where are they going to get THOSE cells is beyond me. Unless he is referring to the surrogate. [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)