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Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

cambridgeindependent.co.uk

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

#61

Post by seydor »

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…

Presumably if they understand the whole process they can move it outside the body in a controlled and non-rejecting artifical womb

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

#62

Post by hatsunearu »

latchkey wrote: post #38

A few years ago, someone did home experiments (posted to a FB group) with raising chickens outside of their egg shells. It caused a lot of controversy, but damn, so fascinating at the same time. This has actually been a whole thing for a while... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell-less_chick_embryo_cultur... https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/shell-less-chick-embryo... https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jpsa/51/…

This is not that newsworthy, I've seen this is done as a science fair experiment by kids. There's nothing controversial about this...

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

#63

Post by sacrosancty »

Tozen wrote: post #39
xwdv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t the living artifact that results from this embryo just be horribly incompatible with life and die quickly or at best live for a brief time before expiring?

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…

Why would we abuse them? We treat disabled people OK, don't we? What exactly is your fear? Some kind of prejudice against people who were born through different procedures? We already have test tube babies walking among us and nobody mistreats them.

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

#64

Post by shireboy »

Tozen wrote: post #39
xwdv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t the living artifact that results from this embryo just be horribly incompatible with life and die quickly or at best live for a brief time before expiring?

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…

Brave New World gets into this a bit as well.

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

#65

Post by implements »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #58
tsimionescu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> What's the point in cloning people?

Medical treatment (availability of 100% immune-compatible spare parts) and in a possible future, life extension.

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

#66

Post by redanddead »

Tozen wrote: post #39
xwdv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t the living artifact that results from this embryo just be horribly incompatible with life and die quickly or at best live for a brief time before expiring?

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…

What do you think is going to happen?

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

#67

Post by redanddead »

tsimionescu wrote: post #43
Tozen wrote: post #39

Earlier 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.

I think this is only true because people don't know how/the tools have been restricted/the freedom not given to people

I think what the above person is saying is that one day, even if people try to restrict the ability, technology will advance to a point where anybody will be able to do it.

What do we do then?

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

#68

Post by implements »

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.

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 test of moral virtue (“Here’s free-will, let’s see what you do with it”) then “eggs as persons” doesn’t really make sense - the test can’t start / a true person doesn’t exist until it has some form of effective agency.

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

#69

Post by graderjs »

colanderman wrote: post #33
NotYourLawyer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Important point. Pretty fucked up to do this to a human.

At the embryo stage, what's the difference?

Ho ho courting controversy.

The difference is you don't know if there's a difference: when does the soul come in? Maybe you don't believe in souls but can you disprove that they exist? is the personality only some sort of construct that's formed as a child is raised? Or is there something eternal spiritual inside? It doesn't have to trip your anti-religious ADS, maybe it's a fact about the universe we haven't found a way to measure yet.

Giving you don't know and can't be sure don't you think it's better to err on the side of caution?

But putting that aside like I think it should be possible to create embryos that don't have souls but these non-soul persons are they any less human or deserving of human Rights than soul persons, given they can experience pain and suffering just the same as soul embodied humans?

The future is just a giant big can of worms I don't think anyone can strive so confidently into it sure of that they're coming down right on the ethical issues.

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

#70

Post by tsimionescu »

redanddead wrote: post #67
tsimionescu wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think this is only true because people don't know how/the tools have been restricted/the freedom not given to people I think what the above person is saying is that one day, even if people try to restrict the ability, technology will advance to a point where anybody will be able to do it. What do we do then?

The point of banning research is exactly to prevent this eventuality. Technology doesn't advance by itself: someone has to be actively advancing it.
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