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Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

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Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#221

Post by Arch-TK »

goku12 wrote: post #190
Arch-TK wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the person you replied to was objecting to the fact that the wording makes it sound like we're using humans as vessels for extending the life of pig organs outside of pigs. Not necessarily that 6 months is a short period of time.

That's an interesting way to interpret it! I see what you mean, but I still can't see myself interpreting that headline in that way. Does it really give that vibe?

Yeah I re-read it now and don't feel so strongly about it. But I think its the sentence structure:

"This is the longest a pig organ has survived in a living person"

The pig organ is the first thing mentioned, with the living person last.

Whereas:

"This is the longest time a patient has survived after a pig organ transplant."

This puts the patient first, and doesn't give as much of that kind of vibe.

Edit: Actually, that updated sentence may need some adjustment. I assume when organ transplants fail we don't just let people die with them. So maybe that's why the original sentence had such emphasis on the survival of the pig organ...

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#222

Post by [deleted] »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #198
latexr wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But also… we got the tablets from Star Trek. They regularly used multiple tablets at a time, stacked like papers. What we have is presumably superior from a technological standpoint. Except their tablets weren’t filled with time-wasting features designed to keep you addicted and distracted. > And now we have the ship’s computer from Star Trek No, we definitely do not. If every time they spoke to the ship’s computer…

> They regularly used multiple tablets at a time, stacked like papers. If iPads were sold in every store for $1 a piece, we'd be doing that too. This is indeed a technology problem (or at least half-technology, half-economics), we just can't make working tablets cheap enough (and sustainably enough) to support such workflow. > What we have is presumably superior from a technological standpoint. The writers were surpr…

[deleted]

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#224

Post by lupusreal »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #217
latexr wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If iPads were sold in every store for $1 a piece, we'd be doing that too. Considering how bad Apple is at syncing, that’s just asking for trouble. You’d never know where anything is or what iPad has what or if it’s the current version. Not to mention the charging situation and all the e-waste. > The notable, if underappreciated, part of Star Trek's computers Under appreciated by whom? It’s one of their defining fea…

> Would we? What for? Why would we need reams of iPads on our desks? To use like we'd use paper. > Which LLMs do not. They fake it really well but it’s still an illusion. No understanding is going on, they don’t really know what you mean That is very much up to debate at this point. But for practical purposes in context described here, they do. > and don’t know what the right answer is. They're not supposed to. This…

> To use like we'd use paper.

How we use paper derives not only from our own practical needs, but also from the intrinsic limitations of paper. Stacks of paper are used because it's not possible to put several pages worth of text onto a single page of paper while maintaining a legible font size. The idiosyncratic way that tablets were used in Star Trek isn't how people would actually do things, it merely reflects the limitations of the writers to imagine all of the practical implications of technology such as they were depicting. It would be like somebody in the 1800s speculating about motor vehicles, supposing that teams of a dozen or more motor vehicles might be connected using ropes and used to tow a single carriage, because that's how they did it with horses.

> To use like we'd use horses.

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#225

Post by notmyjob »

Waterluvian wrote: post #2

“Xenotransplantation” is pretty #%^*ing metal. It’s pretty wild being alive these days. Lots of big stuff the species is struggling to adapt to and figure out how to exist with. But also… we got the tablets from Star Trek. And now we have the ship’s computer from Star Trek, and the early makings of the holodeck. And we’re making pigmen senior citizens who would otherwise be dead. It’s quite something to stop and thin…

The “pigmen” as you insensitively refer to them aren’t necessarily seniors. Organ failure affects men of all ages and the patients themselves are not to blame, often they have terrible support structures surrounding them and other factors beyond their control. You can be optimistic and compassionate simultaneously.

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#227

Post by _ink_ »

6SixTy wrote: post #47
parpfish wrote: post #33

I was just thinking about heart transplants and how they’re treated as commonplace now, but they are nuts when you think about them. You can hook up the nerve wires and blood pipes from one body into the heart from another body and it works? Just thinking about the simple physical connections would make me nervous. Why isn’t there blood just leaking out in your body? Why isn’t that other heart sliding out of place wh…

Fun fact: the nerves between the brain and heart are never reattached. A heart already has all of the facilities to keep working all by itself. Even weirder is that an adult kidney transplanted into a child will actually shrink to fit.

Will it grow again as the kid ages?

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#228

Post by jessriedel »

daedrdev wrote: post #89
krackers wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But presumably the nerves between the brain and heart exist for a reason. What functionality do you lose by not reattaching them? Do things like "heart beating faster when nervous" depend on this nerve signaling, or is it done via other chemical signaling.

Reading up on this there is some chemical signaling from the blood, but the brain is not controlling the rate of the new heart

He's asking about what the nerves do in a normal person

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#229

Post by 0x1ceb00da »

BrtByte wrote: post #145
parpfish wrote: post #33

I was just thinking about heart transplants and how they’re treated as commonplace now, but they are nuts when you think about them. You can hook up the nerve wires and blood pipes from one body into the heart from another body and it works? Just thinking about the simple physical connections would make me nervous. Why isn’t there blood just leaking out in your body? Why isn’t that other heart sliding out of place wh…

The part that always gets me is the lack of nerve reconnection - the heart keeps beating on its own, no nervous system hookup required. It's literally running off internal timing, like a mechanical watch made of cells

A human counting is also a mechanical watch made of cells.

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#230

Post by jessriedel »

krackers wrote: post #77
6SixTy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: the nerves between the brain and heart are never reattached. A heart already has all of the facilities to keep working all by itself. Even weirder is that an adult kidney transplanted into a child will actually shrink to fit.

But presumably the nerves between the brain and heart exist for a reason. What functionality do you lose by not reattaching them? Do things like "heart beating faster when nervous" depend on this nerve signaling, or is it done via other chemical signaling.

Yes, nerves from the brain to the heart can influence heart beat (and other features like heart conduction and blood flow to the heart itself) in response to stress and exercise. Heart transplant recipients lose these features. They make poor marathon runners :)
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