Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells • Hacker News Board

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#101

Post by LinuxBender » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

user_7832 wrote: post #94

gardenfelder wrote: post #2

This 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…

Well, to quote Carl Sagan, if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. I doubt human technology will be able to create life from organic molecules for at least several decades if not centuries.

Here is a auto-tuned song of Carl Sagan [1] saying that quote so that others may have it stuck in their heads and to share the full quote.

[1] - https://amorningfilledwith400billionsuns.ytmnd.com/

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#102

Post by ralusek » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

nurettin wrote: post #53

fsckboy wrote: post #15

Earlier 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?

Selective breeding/reproduction/engineering combined with evolutionary pressure in order to guide a genetic lineage in a particular direction. In the example of disease, say you wanted to make a human virus be able to infect mice.

You keep releasing a human rhinovirus into a cage with "humanized mice" (mice genetically altered to have specific receptors in common with humans). There is strong evolutionary pressure in this environment for the virus to evolve to infect these mice. A viral variant eventually catches on and begins infecting the humanized mice. Then you take that viral strain and start exposing normal mice. Now there is an evolutionary pressure for the virus to be able to infect those mice. This virus will have essentially "gained that function."

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#103

Post by ikt » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

LinuxBender wrote: post #101

user_7832 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to quote Carl Sagan, if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. I doubt human technology will be able to create life from organic molecules for at least several decades if not centuries.

Here is a auto-tuned song of Carl Sagan [1] saying that quote so that others may have it stuck in their heads and to share the full quote. [1] - https://amorningfilledwith400billionsuns.ytmnd.com/

Thanks for taking me back to 2009* (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc)

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#104

Post by guggleet » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 2:29 PM UTC

user_7832 wrote: post #94

gardenfelder wrote: post #2

This 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…

Well, to quote Carl Sagan, if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. I doubt human technology will be able to create life from organic molecules for at least several decades if not centuries.

We already can...?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#105

Post by NotYourLawyer » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

411111111111111 wrote: post #37

colanderman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the embryo stage, what's the difference?

The difference actually doesn't change, wherever it's in embryo stage or not. The human is easier relatabe and enjoys a special status from organized religions.

Even putting aside the embryo vs adult issue… pretty much everybody, religious or not, considers a human qualitatively different from a mouse.

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#106

Post by NotYourLawyer » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

implements wrote: post #68

Thorrez wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the abortion debate. I'm against abortion. The way I see it is a person has rights no matter the person's age. Earlier in development just means younger.

Everyone agrees people have rights, it’s that they disagree on what constitutes a person. Some religious people currently believe a person exists at the point of fertilisation, but they used to believe ‘ensoulment’ happened some weeks after. One question to ponder - “Why would God give personhood to a fertilised egg that (via omniscience) he knew was fated not to be carried to term?”. If earthly life is essentially a…

Plenty of non-religious people think life begins before birth.

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#107

Post by jvanderbot » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 2:44 PM UTC

pyuser583 wrote: post #11

biolotthek wrote: post #5

> 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…

That might be true, but I know for a fact it’s a truism that doctors tell women to not feel as bad about miscarriages. My wife has had multiple miscarriages, to the point where it’s expected. Until doctors are informed of her history, they always say “the embryo wasn’t healthy enough to survive on its own …” My wife has a number of hormonal issues, but doctors can’t find a single diagnosis. But it’s certainly not wea…

We've swung from "God's will" to "Fitness" a bit prematurely. Sure, there are many underlying causes for miscarriages (which we've experienced in our house, as well), but the sense I got from talking to our docs was that luck has as much to do with it as anything. The signals and systems that benefitted homonids a million years ago still affect our chances in the modern world, and are full of false positives and negatives, and luck (blood type, etc) plays an outsized role.

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#108

Post by SergeAx » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 2:55 PM UTC

The brain part is important. I know several people who suffer without brain.

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#109

Post by colanderman » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 3:02 PM UTC

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #105

411111111111111 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference actually doesn't change, wherever it's in embryo stage or not. The human is easier relatabe and enjoys a special status from organized religions.

Even putting aside the embryo vs adult issue… pretty much everybody, religious or not, considers a human qualitatively different from a mouse.

Hence why I'm asking about embryos.

What, scientifically, differentiates a human embryo from a mouse embryo, beside what it may eventually become? Why find the experimentation of one appalling, but not the other, when neither is allowed to grow?

(I am not arguing one way or the other, merely that it is illogical and unscientific to differentiate.)

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#110

Post by colanderman » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 3:04 PM UTC

Thorrez wrote: post #42

colanderman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the embryo stage, what's the difference?

It's the abortion debate. I'm against abortion. The way I see it is a person has rights no matter the person's age. Earlier in development just means younger.

Not an abortion debate -- a human exceptionalism debate.

That is -- what makes a human embryo special compared to a mouse embryo? (Beside what it eventually grows into -- since that is not allowed to happen in these experiments.)