Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not a human, just a thing made of human parts.
it's a homunculus
murinculus
Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells
51–60 of 147 posts
Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could it be nutrition?
Not in the generic “eat better” sense. There are some diets that can affect hormones/cycles, but it’s eating special foods, not laying off the ice cream.
I was referring to vitamins and minerals kind of nutrition, not dieting. Forming a baby takes ungodly amounts of minerals.
Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells
#53This really is pretty amazing work. But, to the uninitiated, there's a dark side; I overheard someone commenting about an earlier post about this experiment, thinking it's possible to get out a chemistry set and just make a living thing. To be clear, they started with stem cells, and teased them into doing the right thing - they did not create a new living artifact from scratch; > Instead, they used stem cells - the…
> to the uninitiated, there's a dark side to the initiated I wish there was a dark side! > they did not create a new living artifact from scratch that is where this is headed, that is where they want to go, that is not what they've done... till they do it. That is the dark side. Humans in a competition with one another are not capable in a broad sense of reining in every worst impulse, as we saw with recent "gain of…
What is a "gain of function" experiment?
Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect we will find out at some point in the next 25 to 50 years. Somebody, somewhere, is going to give it a good try. As in not stop at just the embryo stage, but make fully functional living beings, regardless of whatever laws exist. The ramifications of "synthetic life", will sure to be staggering. This was covered a bit in the Blade Runner Sci-Fi, but what real Replicants would be like and what they will do wi…
> Somebody, somewhere, is going to give it a good try. People always say this, and yet the universal ban on human cloning has, at least so far, held strong and prevented further research more or less entirely.
Primates have been cloned [1], human embryos have been cloned (supposedly) [2], and there are confirmed gene edited babies [3]. But, I doubt the existence of a ban means humans haven't been cloned, because I have trouble believing that a group that would successfully clone a human would be dumb enough to tell the world, state sponsored or not.
1. https://www.science.org/content/article/these-monkey-twins-a...
2. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2009-02/04/content_7443166...
3. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/08/cloning-crispr-he-jiank...
Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells
#55> to understand why so many pregnancies fail and how we might be able to prevent that from happening Are we sure that's a good idea? I've read that one of the reason for early pregnancy failure is that the embryo is not fit enough and it would be a waste of time and resources to commit to it. Another very counterintuitive finding is that if you try to implant embryos in various tissues (brain, liver, ...), the one in…
The question is why is the embryo not “fit enough”. One way to increase the chance of success is by making the embryo “more fit”, but that requires an understanding of what that definition of fitness is, and that is what I understand this study is about.
This is making an extreme assumption that miscarriages aren't an expected, or required, phenomenon.
Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
> to the uninitiated, there's a dark side to the initiated I wish there was a dark side! > they did not create a new living artifact from scratch that is where this is headed, that is where they want to go, that is not what they've done... till they do it. That is the dark side. Humans in a competition with one another are not capable in a broad sense of reining in every worst impulse, as we saw with recent "gain of…
What is a "gain of function" experiment?
This 2015 article (and its more recent discussions due to relevance) provides background on the topic and its controversial nature: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28582500
Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> to the uninitiated, there's a dark side to the initiated I wish there was a dark side! > they did not create a new living artifact from scratch that is where this is headed, that is where they want to go, that is not what they've done... till they do it. That is the dark side. Humans in a competition with one another are not capable in a broad sense of reining in every worst impulse, as we saw with recent "gain of…
What is a "gain of function" experiment?
Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possibly? I expect we'll figure out how to do this with a high chance of success within the next few decades if not sooner, unless for some reason every country capable of supporting the research bans it.
Human cloning research has similarly been banned, and quite successfully, hasn't it?
What's the point in cloning people? I'm pretty clueless about biology, but as I understand it the process to generate new semi-randomized humans using a woman is fairly well understood and straightforward
Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells
#59"Elsewhere on campus, two other Cambridge scientists created a non-synthetic embryo with brain and beating heart, baby shower scheduled for mid-2023."
Not newsworthy
Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not in the generic “eat better” sense. There are some diets that can affect hormones/cycles, but it’s eating special foods, not laying off the ice cream.
I was referring to vitamins and minerals kind of nutrition, not dieting. Forming a baby takes ungodly amounts of minerals.
This is not true, in this context. 75% happen within the first two weeks. No excess nutrition is required in that time. Folic acid is important, but someone having multiple miscarriages, under the care of a doctor, will obviously be taking the recommended supplements.