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Bone Marrow Can Grow New Brain Cells
ActMatrix writes: "Scientists at Stanford and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke have demonstrated that stem cells in bone marrow can produce neurons that replace dead brain cells, similar to the way our bodies constantly replenish skin cells. What isn't certain yet is whether these new brain cells make functional neural connections. If they do, it's possible that doctors will some day use marrow transplants to treat brain disorders. What's especially cool is how they discovered this. In one case, mice whose natural bone marrow was killed by radiation were injected in the tail with marrow containing a phosphorescent protein. When the mice were killed later, parts of their brains glowed in the dark. =) Article with some more details from CNN here."
thank you, i was about to do a post with random bolds myself :)
No no no, you're missing the point...
Ever watch National Geographic, when lions are hunting a herd of wildebeest? The herd of wildebeest is only as quick as its slowest members, which is why the lions attack the slow and weak, improving the overall efficiency of the herd.
Now we all know that pot kills brain cells, but wouldn't the same logic apply? Wouldn't it go after the slow and weak brain cells first? Wouldn't this increase the overall efficiency of the brain?
This would explain why your brain churns out such great ideas when you're stoned :)
- Adam
...the "smartest" thing Cliff EVER said on Cheers!
One afternoon at Cheers, Cliff Clavin was explaining the Buffalo
Theory to his buddy Norm. And here's how it went:
"Well ya see Norm, it's like this.... A herd of buffalo can only
move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it
is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first.
This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because
the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by
the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way,
the human braincan only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells.
Excessive intake of alcohol, as we all know, kills brain cells, but
naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In
this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain
cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's
why you always feel smarter after a few beers."
I probably could have worded my previous post a bit better... oh well..
Of course overpopulation is really only a problem in 3rd world countries. Does that make it a problem that the rest of us shouldn't worry about? We developed nations like to help developing nations by curing their diseases and keeping their babies alive. But frankly, they don't know how to deal with it. They don't have enough resources to sustain those people when they stay alive! We're not really helping them by doing this unless we they are also able to have enough resources available to them.
And I'm not saying medical technology shouldn't advance, but that it needs to be balanced with the state of the world. Sure, it might seem nice to be able to stop everyone from dying as an infant. But in light of the current state of the world, is that really a good thing??
And this is maybe a bit off-topic, but the main medical advance that really disgusts me is reproductive medicine. Mainly technology we use now to induce pregnancies. We have all these people now who can't have children, so they have treatments to allow them to get pregnant. Then when they have half a dozen fertile fetuses, they won't allow any of them to be aborted! Then they have the nerve to say that it's a God given miracle! Give me a break! If you believe there's a God, then you must believe God was the one who made you infertile to begin with! You should've gone with his decision the first time if you're not capable of deciding to abort some of the fetuses after you defile God's temple by changing your body!
And I'm not necessarily against medicine that will enhance the quality of life. Sure, allowing someone with Parkinson's disease to lead a normal life is great. Curing Alzheimers would be nice. But being able to keep a 90 year old person alive on life support for a year in a hospital bed? Is that an accomplishment we should really be proud of?
The whole killing each other argument I made was worded pretty poorly.. very poorly actually.. I was trying to get at the fact that our overpopulation will eventually make our ecosystem unliveable. And this will, in a way, be us killing each other.
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
Kiss the Blade said:
"The medical technology we have already is quite good enough, thank you, without sacrificing our ehtics in our lust for immortality."
I would say that medical technology has gone too far. People are living too long, people that would normally die from their genetic diseases live on to produce children, and people who should be recipients of the Darwin Award are kept alive to produce children. We are breaking the system. What happened to survival of the fittest? Medical technology has created an over polluted gene pool. People who should be dieing are passing on their bad genes to the next generation, instead of taking their diseases to their grave never to be seen from again.
Let's not forget over population! Medical technology has decreased infant mortality and increased life expectancy rates too much. Not enough people are ever going to use proper family planning, and old people are just going to keep getting older. There's always going to be too many children. The elderly will keep increasing. I know nobody wants to lose their little baby brother, or see their grandparents die, but frankly our race is doomed unless we find some fantastic new way to utilize the resources we currently have. And this would have to be implemented worldwide in order to work, not just in the US or EU. We give medical technology to third world countries, but we don't help them utilize their resources! It's just not going to happen.
Maybe I'm just too sadistic, but I think the world needs another plague or something similar to get us back into order.
And no, this post is not meant to be funny, or to be a troll. I truly believe we are fucked.
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
From where I'm looking, it seems that we're driving ourselves extinct! The #1 killer of humans is, well, humans. Other than natural diseases and what not, the only thing that regularly kills humans is humans.
So, get rid of those natural diseases you say. But those natural diseases and what not is what keeps our population in check. When we start defeating those natural diseases, our population explodes. And this is exactly what's happening. There's simply too god damn many of us. We're destroying ourselves.
You say you'd rather be guiding your own destiny than have nothing guide it. But what's happening is short sighted, money grubbing assholes are running all our destinies. Destroying the balance of our ecosystem to make a quick buck. I'd rather have nothing guiding it.
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
Shoeboy (not posting anonymously ^_^ ) said:
"There's no moral difference between change due to evolution and change due to scientific treatments."
Uhm.. I'm gonna have to disagree with you here. Change due to evolution is something we don't control. It's something that happens naturally. It has nothing to do with morality.
Scientific treatments are the exact opposite. We control what we do to ourselves with science. Any changes that happen are changes that we did to ourselves. This has everything to do with morality.
This isn't even getting into the whole argument about whether we even have the knowledge required to properly alter our own evolution. Who the fuck are we to say that we know how we should evolve, when it's been working pretty damn good without our intervention for the past few eons. I would like to say the now cliche "We shouldn't play God," but i shouldn't say that since I don't think there is a God.. I'll instead just say "We shouldn't play Nature." There's sooo much we will never know about the ecosystem as a whole. We will never really know enough to where we can intelligently control our own evolution without royally fucking it all up.
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Do not anger the worm.
This would also involve finding a destination that would actually be livable or at least harvestable. There's more to resources than just precious metals. Terraforming is all fine and dandy, but it's going to stay in the realms of science fiction for quite a while. Probably a lot longer than practical interplanetary travel.
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Do not anger the worm.
Exhibit A is meant as a result of Exhibit B. The world is overpopulated, as a result of humans. This in turn is causing many human deaths. Not nearly enough to counterbalance the overpopulation however. The overpopulation is resulting in a destroyed ecosystem, which is in turn killing humans.
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
"survival of the fittest... If that sentence is not pure nazism, then we didn't read the same history book!"
Geez! Nazi's were not about survival of the fittest at all! They were about systematic destruction of anyone besides their "Aryan Race." Nothing to do with who is the "fittest."
And regarding your statement about people living on medicine who contributed to society... I'm not against letting them live so much, as letting them reproduce! We don't need their genes!
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
Humanity is different.
Did I predict this one or did I predict it?
Sapience is one thing. Tool-using beyond a primitive stage is another. These are not minor or trivial differences.
Yeah, and they're subjective differences. What about back in the day when humanity was primitive in it's tool use? No problem for your kind, you'll just refine your definition of primitive so that it always falls somewhere between us and the chimps and then argue that the sapiens sapiens subspecies dates from after we reached that level of tech. Your special pleading is nonsense.
The fact that we can *consider* eating our own young to be wrong shows that we have a sense of morality -- not the weird, abstract UberChristian kind, but the kind that keeps us from doing something, not because it would hurt us, but because it would be *wrong*.
But given training, could we raise humans that belived it to be okay to eat weak and deformed offspring? If so, how does that make your "morallity" anything other than a dominant meme set? If you couldn't, and human being will naturally be averse to offspring eating, then how is it different from the parenting instincts of emporer penguins? Hint - the fact that we can rationalize our instincts doesn't make them more special or valuable.
--Shoeboy
Exhibit A: Human beings are killing each other off at such a rate that extinction is approaching.
From where I'm looking, it seems that we're driving ourselves extinct! The #1 killer of humans is, well, humans. Other than natural diseases and what not, the only thing that regularly kills humans is humans.
Exhibit B: The world is overpopulated.
And this is exactly what's happening. There's simply too god damn many of us.
Can anyone spot the contradiction here?
Sorry Leto, but I think turning into a sandworm has affected your brain.
--Shoeboy
Of course, you completely ignore the fact that as far as technology gores, things are changing faster than they ever have.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
Would that really be so bad?
On what do you base your claim? If its biblical then you should know that methusula lived to be 900+. But, according to modern history, a person whom just died recently lived to be 122. And I believe there was a man in Japan that lived to be 127.
Heres some proof, if you want it.
http://detnews.com/1997/obits/9708/04/08040139.htm
------ 24.5% slashdot pure
Or we need to develop pratical interplanetary travel so as to increase the reasources available to us.
We do have gregarious references to "Our Lord" in our legislation, the removal of which was brought up on numerous occasions but has never followed through.
shhh, stop that...
it not nice to explain to joke, if they didnt get it the first time maybe they will next lifetime...
crowley may have been a Troll but he was a classly one.. most of the time.
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
The term "bonehead" will refer to someone who's smart now?
Earl
Sigh... I remember when people at least put some *effort* into their trolls.
Oh, no, wait, I don't.
Capitalizing 'Human Beings'?! A reference to 'the very basis of humanity' in the second sentence?!What ever happened to actually trying to fool people?
grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Err... why not? Do you mean "shouldn't"? Or is there some kind of point you're trying to make?
grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Shoeboy never posts anonymously, that's just his sig.
will we be counting intelligence in Lumen?
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
This discovery is certainly an inportant one. With regeneration of the brain and spinal cord cells, people who have been delt an unlucky hand of cards can now find new funtionality with their bodies. Only thing is, it would really suck to be those mice. Have your marrow killed off by raditaion, then have new marrow injected in your tail, only to be killed off later. I like the idea of curing humans, but I only hope one day computers will grow advanced enough that we can fully simulate human body conditions instead of killing off tens of millions of animals every year. I'll get off my podeum now :)
I guess that some moderator have made a mistake. I'm not OFFTOPIC !
Maybe a little Troll, but definitely not OT.
The post wanted to be a joke. But OT ??
Somebody help!
Just another coder...
i bet you support abortion. right? 1 human is not worth 1,000,000 of any other animal
Ergblah.
In short, the answer is yes. You couple up a virus with the GFP (green florescing protein) DNA (or RNA) sequence, get the virus to target specifcially your epethelial cells (not sure how to do that, probably some epethialial specific protein) and then infect you. Assuming the virus evades your immune system, and the resulting changes in your cells proteins don't cause your immune system to freak out and decide to digest your entire skin (I think GFP at this level would cause the immune system to decide it was "self") you would have green glowing skin. (Under the appropriate light, probably UV if I remember correctly.)
Of course, when you shed, you'd leave behind a train of GFP, so everyone would know where you had been, who you had touched, etc... but hey, that's the price you pay for green glowing skin.
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
http://www.donarmstrong.com
Most of you have been easily duped. All blood cells, including white blood cells and (macrophages)the cells that gobble up invading organisms and other debris), come from the bone marrow after birth (before that they come from the liver). Some bone marrow stem cells naturally mature into macrophages, which then migrate and mature further into specialized macrophages, localized to certain regions of the body. In the brain, these specialized macrophages are called microglia. So, bone marrow cells are constantly maturing and migrating to the brain and central nervous system to become microglia and patrol those regions. Concluding that these tagged cells are neurons without reporting any other neuronal specific markers is ludicrous and would be thrown out of any peer-reviewed journal.---Glen Otero, Ph.D. "Bad Boy of Immunology"
This research is all going towards me becoming the worlds smartest person and world domination!
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
Does this mean that in order to find if it really works where are going to slice open a few humans (there are enough of them arround -just like mice- anyway) to see a gif of glowing human frontal-lobes shining through the eye sockets :)
If only I could come up with a catchy name...
-Legion
I'll volunteer to examine his brains later to see if they glow.
(disclaimer in case he wins the lawsuits and motions and is elected President by the Patent Office during the new American Democratic cycle: it's a joke)
-Legion
Good and bad are like up and down
What goes good must come bad? Sounds good to me!
-HobophobE
-HobophobE
Nothing laughs forever.
another consideration is brain development. you basically have the brain you have now based on what parts got used most frequently between the ages of 1 and 5, during this time neurons connect and disconnect based on what kind of simulation patterns they get. this self-arranging behavior is that which they are trying to take advantage with the leach neuron experiments (i'm too lazy to hunt down the link, some karma whore i am! haha). the implications are that if you weren't using your brain for new things constantly, these new neurons probably (this is my somewhat informed theory.. perhaps someone could elaborate?) wouldn't make good/useful connections.
it's certainly interesting for us biology students though!:
C:\>ls
bad command or file name
C:\>uptime
Does this mean I can grow myself a new brain out of dog food? Full of marrowbone jelly and meaty goodness...
Only American pigs need apply.
Mommy! Mommy! Can I have a glow-in-the-dark-brain for chrismass too?! oh please! oh please! oh please!
-
This post was compiled with `% gec -O`. email me if you need the sources
It seems that if you were to take a perfectly healthy person, whose brain cells have not died, you could use this to just add more neurons. Sounds good to me. Brains for everybody!
"If I can see farther it is because I am surrounded by dwarves." -- Murray Gell-Mann
This doesn't seem incredibly on topic. Would you mind evaluating in context for the sake of us mortals? What does this have to do with neuron generation? -Fred
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American Public." - H.L. Mencken
Isn't there a better way to do this, one that doesn't kill cute little mice?
Why don't we use slashdot trolls instead. (And no I'm not eligible for the task)
Pedro Côrte-Real.
So, in theory, once this is implemented, I could sneak into the factory where they make hair-regrowing cells, and add some fluorescent protein to their big tanks of protozoa. Glow-in-the-dark hair! Yowzat!
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
This is neat stuff. Perhaps the transplantation of basic cells (like marrow stem cells in this case) will become the wave of the future.
This sort of thing has already been done with with Parkinson's disease with some success. Cell transplantation into the pancreas is also one of the cures (yes, a real cure) in the work for diabetes.
I'm always excited when we learn that previously uncurable, unfixable problems suddenly can be patched up no problem. Lots of docs out there will still tell you that nervous tissue does not regenerate under any condition
The BUSH administration is urging all swinging singles to impregnate as many shagadelic girls as possible in order to increase deposits to the "Slashdot Aborted Foetus Bank for Aging Geeks".
In short, shag wildly now so you're sure to get a compatible foetus later when you really need it (Altzeimers,too much X, Microsoft 2K).
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Then where would you draw the line? Should we stop any form of health care since curing someone's ailments "is a step toward immortality," is it not?
Virtually all of the cures for disease and common ailments have been the result of experiments and studies that are an example of "a step toward immortality," in your own words.
Relax, you're just a humanist.
Consider this:
Do you feel bad that your ancestors were bacteria?
Do you make an effort to remember your bacterial heritage?
What about your anthropoidian heritage?
Did it not occur to you that biological evolution has carried us as far as we are going to go? Why should we not use our technology to continue where nature left off? I can understand that people will be naturally paranoid about eugenics for a long time due to certain nutbags...*cough*Hitler*cough... but if we are capable of improving upon ourselves, why shouldn't we? It's not like someone is going to put a gun to YOUR head and tell you that you have to be implanted with a pig's spleen or some such nonsense. From my point of view, status quo thinking like that is how discrimination came to be. Look at that guy, he has cybernetic eyes. Look at that girl, she has an mp3 player in her arm. Look at that guy, he's black. Beliefs that limit future possibilities are death. The human body is not sacred, it's not perfect, and being human means recognizing your instinct for self preservation. It is only natural that if we have the means to better ourselves with some artificial tweaking, we would do it.
Default Dennis Miller disclaimer here
I was going to make stupid comments about increasing excess substance use, but golly if you lurkers didn't get to it before me. Good for you!
io hymen hymnaee io
io hymen hymnaee
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If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
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If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
But if we play God, then would there not be a god? In which case it would be alright for you to use the cliche. But then that would also mean that the vast majority of society would end up worshiping themselves because they are playing God and yet also worship God. But then, how is this any differnt from society today? A large portion of society seems to be a bunch of self-worshiping pricks. What a coincidence that they also seem to be among the most religously adament of society.
[Let me apologize now for offending anybody. Years of living in the bible belt of America have left me with a very jaded attitude of religion.]
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If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
I believe Stephen Hawking(sp?) would be the supreme example of this. He has contributed possibly as much to the science of physics as did Albert Einstein. And yet he is among the most physically challenged of our society.
Further more getting back to the survival of the fittest notion. Who's to say that we aren't more fit simply because of our ability to produce medicines that can help us to sustain life for just a little bit longer?
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If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
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If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
Well, if one-click shopping is patentable, I am sure this is, too. I am sure someone will try to patent it. That would be proof of just how much the patent system in the US helps citizens.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
If anybody tried to live in a cave right now, I would hardly call them fit for the environment they are in. - That's what's meant with the term, not survival of the strongest, or healthiest, or the stupidest...
Now humans are excellent at fitting in, in almost all situations, we even have the power to go the moon and survive there (for a few days at least)! Now many other species can do that?
The point is, that humans are excellent at adapting [themselves to] environments, and so yes, survival of the fittest still applies to humans: if they don't fit their environments one of them changes, and in this particular case, it's the humans that are changeing, which is, in my view a lot better than the the changing of the environment that has been going on the last 150 year or so...
Opinions uttered in this comment may not be mine when I'm sober.
Now, if only we could somehow use this on George W. Bush...
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
This is sorta strange..my friend MattH and I were just having an arguement about braincells growing back this afternoon. He was trying to feed me some line about cellular phones causing braincell depletion in small children...and I told him that now they learned braincells can grow back, so I wouldn't care if a small child used a cell phone (though I can't think of a good reason for them too) and he was telling me that braincells never grew back...I argued that I had seen some article in a magzine about it and how that could possibly prevent the onset of alzheimers disease....then I just got an email from him telling me to look at this article (admitting his dumbness. :) couldn't be a better time for it :)
See the man behind "fjordboy"
The anti-salmon
1) Replenishment of brain cells might do something to reverse or otherwise alter the tendency of folks to get more and more set in their ways and opinions as they age--it may invalidate the "old dog/new tricks" axiom.
2) In a lot of cases, social failures have come about through folks' failure to keep their history in mind and act accordingly, not the other way around. 3) Until someone credible tells me different, I'm going by the 'death-is-permanent-and-absolute-with-no-continuin g-existence-of-any-kind' idea, and acting accordingly. Combine that with the fact that I'm the selfish bastard posited by the 'laws' of economics, I'm damned well going to live as long as I find tolerable.
However, I'm open-minded enough to accept the beliefs of others, so, if you want to get out of the way for others, I won't stop you in the swift and efficient execution of your "solemn duty."
--- Submission is feudal.
What are you talking about I broke the second law of thermodynamics yesterday... You should have seen it... all the clutter on the floor of my room got up and moved to it's proper place... it was incredible... Just like Fantasia... sorry just screwing around
If you want to talk evolution, without constant meddling viruses would kill the entire population in less than a century.
Then we'd already be extinct, unless we've been meddling since caveman times. Besides, any virus with a guaranteed 100% mortality rate would soon die out due to lack of hosts.
That's because HIV hits after reproductive maturity, so there's no way for natural evolution to select against it.
Tell that to someone born HIV+ and see how far you get.
--
Freeper Logic
Sigh. You really think that people born HIV+ are a selection pressure towards HIV immunity?
Not necessarily, but the idea that people must reach a sexually active age before contracting HIV is ridiculous on the face of it. It's doubly odd coming from someone who seems to know so much about it, don't you think?
--
Freeper Logic
The primary reason for transplanting bone marrow into someones brain is to repair/replace damaged brain cells. This is good news to those of us who regularly read slashdot, since the more cost effective method of introducing brain tissue will bring about the following changes around here.
So called "First post" messagers will unilaterally disappear, since the arrival of even one more brain cell will probably double the intelligence of this misanthropic community as a whole. Such a sudden leap of intelligence will more than likely force these people to receive instantaneous "Get a life" messages from their now active brains.
The offtopic posters, who rant and rave about their cause as if they were lobbying in washington will also benefit greatly from the introduction of more than lower brain activity. These people will finally be able to deduce that nobody really hears their pleas, and arguments, since they are idiots.
Unfortunately, the role of moderator will probably only be diminished, and not abolished completely, as the "TROLLS" of slashdot obviously have zero brain material at all, and science currently can not transplant even an inactive brain into these people. Simply put, the detrimental effects of chiseling out around 150 cubic inches of obstructing skull to create room for even a rudimentary brain (capable of plant like reactions) are so great that most doctors are unwilling to risk it. Yet.
P.S. Not trying to raise a fit here, but I heard this on AFRTS Europe like three days ago. They usually run around two days behind the regular news agencies. Did this "Just" get posted?
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
One big problem with with your central idea there. Humans been evolving themselves ever since we figured out how to keep Nature from killing a majority of us off.
Nature selects for traits by killing off individuals before they are able to reproduce. But you may have noticed recently that modern medical science keeps that from happening in the majority of cases. Near-sighted Timmy is no longer unable to findfood, and thus survives. Little Susie, born with a genetic defect that will paralyze her from the wait down by the time she is 10, can still get around in a wheelchair.
If Nature were still the dominant evolutionary force in our lives, these people would be DEAD long before they had a chance to pass on their genome.
Currently, the only thing evolving humans is social pressure. We are evolving ourselves through our own social likes and dislikes. For example, it's an accepted fact that the human race is slowly growing taller. Nature can also cause a shift towards height, but only in high-temperature climes (to promote heat dissipation). But if we want heat dissipation, we turn on the AC, so Nature has nothing to do with it. Instead, we're getting taller because height seems to be socially desirable. Simply, tall people have more kids that survive to reproduce than short people.
So now everyone's in a tiff because we're going to start actively participating in our own evolution. They think we don't know enough to be having a hand in things, and are afraid that we're going to fuck things up for the rest of the ecosystem BULLSHIT.
- We have been unconsciously evolving ourselves for centuries.
- Evolution doesn't care about the ecosystem. In nature, if a trait comes along that puts another organism so far ahead that it takes over, then that organism will take over. No ifs ands or buts. And that organism will stay dominant until another organism evolves something to bring that other organism under control.
- Constant "supplementing" of our own evolution is the only thing that keeps the entire human race from being wiped off the face of the earth. We have been doing a good job keeping microorganisms under control for a while, but recent mutations have brought some supreme badasses onto the playing field. Biochemically, there is no way for our own immune system to deal with viruses like HIV. Even with gene therapy, it's doubtful that we'll ever be totally immune to HIV. If you want to talk evolution, without constant meddling viruses would kill the entire population in less than a century. That's because HIV hits after reproductive maturity, so there's no way for natural evolution to select against it. Without behavior modification (social influence on evolution), HIV alone could kill us all. Not to mention all those other cool retroviruses.
Some people talk like Nature is some all-knowing force that's trying to keep everything in balance. Nature doesn't care about balance. Nature is. Things happen. And every organism on the face of the planet is trying to survive what's happening, while possibly making life very hard for all the other organisms.4-star general in a one-man army.
Pot doesn't kill brain cells. Carbon monoxide kills brain cells, if you smoke a couple of pounds a day.
It's not every day that you have a genuine chance to save the life of another human being. By having a vial of your blood tested and placed into a database used by the National Marrow Donor Program, you could potentially become an anonymous bone marrow donor for another person who would otherwise die of leukemia or other blood disorders.
The testing procedure only takes a few minutes and is a simple blood test. The NMDP keeps the data until you reach age 60 (or until you ask them to remove your name from their database). There's no obligation after taking the test, and if you ever match a patient, the NMDP makes every effort to ensure that you have given your informed consent before proceeding.
I can say from personal experience that these guys are true professionals and that privacy for all parties involved was taken very seriously. (This is Slashdot; somebody is sure to bring up the they've-got-information-on-you angle.)
You don't get many real chances to save a life, and this one isn't that hard to fulfill.
I want my brain to glow in the dark too!
But seriously, if it is possible to force bone marrow stem cells to grow into the other body parts, we may be able to get around the (soon-to-be) ethical issues with using fetal tissue.
But if my brain glowed in the dark, would anybody see it? Would anybody care?
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
if only "survival of the cutest" applied... then all you ugly people wouldn't exist... :)
'course then there's the dilemma about whether or not i want the *stupid* cute ones around...
You mean "should we kill all the blondes?"
And should we let them reproduce?
LOL
Technically you don't even *need* fetal cells, the placenta contains upwards from a pint of stem cells following birth... As much as a quart in some cases...
On a planet that churns out 100,000,000 fresh squalling brats a year, that's a lot of stem cells... Pity doctors don't bother with informing their patients in regards to this information... Some families are informed, however, and put in requests to hold onto the afterbirth for stem cell harvesting (in the event of immunotherapy, unexpected surgery, or transfusions)...
What's really nuts, are those newager parents who waste the placenta, either using it in food (blarg), or bury it in the yard as fertilizer (Mommy? What did Fido dig up in the back yard? BLARG!)... Any of the older hippies remember they used to make shampoo out of placenta as well (weeeeBLARG!!!)?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
sweet momocrome, i miss him so. he is making a big mistake.
-=kellet
If this works, does this mean that people can become practically immortal? Is there anything left in the human body that can't be transplanted? If not, what's to stop someone from transplanting organs indefinitely?
You know, I read this as "Bone marrow can grow Bush new brain cells". I think it was because of the "Bush" like shape of the word "Bone" and the "Gore" like shape of the word "grow", coupled with way too many election stories of late. Or maybe it is I who need to grow new brain cells.
Editor of the Computing section of nupedia.
Am I the only /.er who loves animals?
In my oppinion, experiments on mice and rats are plain stupid. The only thing those scientists have found until today is a lot of info on those poor little creatures, and nothing on humans. They can cure mice and rats of cancer, they know their entire DNA-string, they can grow other body parts on rats. And now they found how you can create more mouse-braincells. Well, don't expect that they will be able to do it with humans as well.
I pitty those cruel scientists who are simply wasting their time torturing animals.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
If everyone lived for, say, 400 years, where would the sweeping wind of change come from? Imagine if Elizabeth I were still on the throne and that the entire establishment were ancient - we would become moribund as a species.
To promote greater health is to promote death - the death of ideas and imagination.
The technology we have at the moment is perfectly adequate. It is our solemn duty not to try and live longer. Could someone tell the scientists, please?
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
I would argue that we were, but just a little. The vaccine that Jenner used came from cows. Many people of the time were shocked by this, and cartoons of the period show children with udders protruding from their stomachs. In the end though, Jenner won, and our morality suffered. Ever since that day we have been on a slippery slope to moral decay and decadence, and the ltest advances in medicine are taking us closer by the day.
We should not be comfortable as a species. Homo Sapiens Sapiens strives in adversity. To become an Ubermenschen, you must disdain the comforts of modern science, or forever be a slave.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
I want a glow-in-the-dark-brain, and a flip-top head, kind of like in the Reach Toothbrush commercials here in the U.S... but with the fliptop up a bit higher. Imagine that trick at parties... Hey everyone, turn out the lights, and check out my brain!
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
These of course speculative, for the time when we learn enough cell biology to control the cells...
1) Organ regeneration or complete creation of new organ, and with the marrow stem cells here we can use the exact DNA of the patient instead of a close match from a donor, or a close match from fetal stem cells.
2) Muscle, skin, bone, etc. regeneration as a part of therapy for burn patients and other disorders
3) Increase of lung capacity, growth rate, blood vessel development in young children
4) Regeneration of cells/replacement of cells damaged in cryopreservation
Goat sex free since 2001
Blade, you are usually one of my favorite trolls but this here actually PREVENTS the pig organs. :)
It prevents a reliance on other ethically problematic methods of obtaining the cells, e.g. fetus-harvesting for stem cells, too. A marrow transplant from an adult will provide stem cells!
I support the use of fetal tissue in research and therapy, but am glad to see an option for treating those who do not wish to use this tissue.
I am wondering about a comparison for stem-cell yield between the marrow and fetal tissue. I am also wondering whether or not one can use marrow harvested from cadavers/organ donors for stem cell harvesting.
Goat sex free since 2001
This can not be done without donor FETAL cells, do you know what those are??? This is the big argument, the results are great, but where do you fall on the moral side of this issue? I know where I am, because I am firmly entrenched in science, how about you?
It is a dream, or at least I hope so!
just a quick note: Methusula lived to be 969
Like much of what Crowley wrote, this comment was meant to be misinterpreted. Crowley felt that each of us has a true inner nature which can only be expressed in a climate of absolute freedom; and that when people are allowed to express their true natures, behavior in accordance with the original dictum will arise naturally anyway.
Crowley was an elitist who felt people too stupid to understand his true intent deserved not to understand it, but several folks have issued fine interpretations in the decades since his death which make it clear that Crowley only liked to look like some evil dude from hell. He found it funny and enjoyed shocking his enemies. In many ways he is the Original Troll, and you've both fallen for one of his classic jokes.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
humans can't live past 120 years.
exscuse me, but sentienceis the reason to think, and you'd be pretty hard pressed to say that no animals can think, or reason. mice can navigate mazes, solve puzzles ot get to food, and that is definitly a sign of intelligence. as a matter of fact, any pack or family animal displays sentience by being able to distinguish alpha males, hunt, hide, or jsut communicate. and protecting the young is a trait in animals who have low numbers of offspring, and we definitly fall into tha catagory. as a matter of fact, we are th least ethical of all races for making war on our own kind, hunting for sport, and a variety of other reasons. so anything that we can learn about a fellow animal and use to help us is jsut continuing the species. so, in conclusion "you and me baby ain't nothin but mammals..."
Aw man, come-on, That wasn't offtopic. :-)
Think about it.
Joking, geeze.
M$ stock dropped in 1/2 since last year. If you are a MCSE, you will be broke.
an offtopic post in an open forum! oh the humanity! what ever shall we do?
Body factories where doctors call up Hey guys I need a liver here some of the pateints bone marrow one week ok he has that much time.
Does this mean we can all drink more?? Who cares if they die... they'll grow back!!!
-andy
The main advantage is that this method would avoid having to use fetal cells. That means less reluctance and larger supply.
Parkinsons, perhaps ALheimers, some mental illnesses
are due to chemical absences or imbalances.
This method might be able to help those.
Who the fuck are we to say that we know how we should evolve, when it's been working pretty damn good without our intervention for the past few eons. I would like to say the now cliche "We shouldn't play God," but i shouldn't say that since I don't think there is a God.. I'll instead just say "We shouldn't play Nature."
Newsflash ace: We are part of nature. We're animals and what we instinctively do (make and use tools) is natural. Let's keep in mind that "Nature" isn't trying to better us or keep us alive. Nature doesn't give a shit about the evolution of humanity and natural process may drive us extinct. You say that nature has worked okay so far - true enough, but past performance is no guarantee of future results. Nature has driven plenty of species extinct (dinosaurs anyone) and given our own a few hard knocks (black death).
I'd rather be guiding my own destiny than having nothing guide it.
--Shoeboy
Ok, this humanist crap needs to go. Human beings are animals. Humanity isn't an identity, it's a species.
It's no less moral for a human to eat a pheasant than it is for a hawk to do so. There's no moral difference between change due to evolution and change due to scientific treatments.
I congratulate you on your lack of sentimental religious idiocy, but I wonder how you justify believing in this sort of special pleading for humanity with your logical refusal to believe in god and the tooth fairy.
I know what you're going to say: "But Shoeboy, humanity is special and therefore special pleading is ok." Poppycock! Everything is special if you want to think about it that way. Dogs are special due to thousands of unique attributes that make them different from wolves and Volkswagen Beetles. The Matterhorn is special - there's no other chunk of rock quite like it.
Nature is no more concerned about eroding our precious humanity than it is about eroding the Matterhorn - why should we be any different.
You know what separates natural laws from moral laws? Natural laws are based on reality, moral laws are based on fantasy. Try an expiriment: break the second commandment - now try breaking the 2nd law of thermodynamics. See what I mean?
Good and bad are like up and down - outdated concepts born of ignorance. Just as you can't be sure what up and down mean on a spherical earth, you can never bew sure you're acting morally. The theiving clergy make a fortune of this dillemma.
Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law. The only way to be happy is to do what you feel like doing and be damned to morallity and consequences.
--Shoeboy
C'mon kiss. You usually put some more work into your trolls than that. Since this is really just a cut'n'paste version of your last one, i won't bother shooting it down. It just isn't sporting...
Wow, this is *great* news. Now I can drink all I want and not worry(like I did before) about killing brain cells, since they can be replaced! It's about time Science came up with something *I* can use.
the Germans carried Nietzsche's text like Canadians do the Bible
Woah. Like Canadians do the Bible? When did Canada become so religious? I don't think we're nearly as religious as our American neighbours. We certainly don't have the same amount of "Bible thumpers". Look at the general public reaction to the fact that Stockwell Day is a young-earth creationist.
Of course, there's a lot of variation based on where you are in geography (a la US). Admittedly, I'm from Quebec, where religion took a very sharp nosedive somewhere in 60's. So, I come from the least religious part of the country.
S
-- Will quantum computers run imaginary-time operating systems?
In theory - they could do this...
Back in the late 60's-early 70's Time-Life published a set of books: Time-Life Science series (or some such). Many topics relating to science, both research and applied, were explored (a very fascinating one deals with Water). These books may still be found in used books stores all over.
Photos tended to be the high point of these books - most had the quality of Life magazine photos (I assume because they used the same photographers). In short, these books were of rather high quality.
One particular book in the series dealt with the Brain, discussing a variety of subjects related to this organ: learning, memory, vision - even AI and machine intelligence were discussed. There were photos and captions throughout showing the brain and how it worked (according to 1960's science). One particularly disturbing photo:
A couple of lab monkeys (rhesus, I believe) were being used for experiments regarding the brain (I can't remember what - probably brain activity or stimulus). Under anesthesia, these monkeys had their skulls, just above the browline, sawed completely off, exposing the top half of their brains. In place of the skull, an acrylic "dome" was attached (it looked molded to match the monkey's heads) to the bone "shelf", screwed down with stainless steel screws.
Essentially, the brains of the monkeys became "viewable". I imagine the monkeys were given anti-inflammatory medicine (and possible other pain killers), and probably a healthy dose of antibiotics for infection prevention. At least, I hope they were - though I have wondered whether that would have skewed any results, and whether they were given nothing to help any pain or infection...
I have only seen this picture in that particular book - nowhere else (I speculate that it may have appeared in either a Time or Life magazine of the period, but I have not located such an issue). Nothing was ever said further about the monkeys, such as what was learned or how long they "lived" in that condition.
It is a very macabre picture - disturbing in a primal way. Not an APCA moment, assuredly!
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
or do other people think that mice with glowing brains are cool ? now you need to modify them to be transparant ...
the ultimate geek pet ?
mvg,
Kris "dJOEK" Vandecruys
Exercise caution when modding this message up: the author acts like a jerk when his karma is excellent.
I happen to work with these cells in a reseach lab at Johns Hopkins. Beyond neurons, researchers have claimed these cells can become
- Fat Cells
- Cartilage Cells
- Bone Cells
- Muscle Cells (smooth, skeletal and cardiac)
The ability to produce new caridac muscle cells is also particularly important, as like neurons, they cannot be repaired or naturally replaced in adults. With a reliable source of Cardiac muscle cells heart failure, a disease millions of people develop each year, could possibly be cured.
If you are curious about reading more, try out these urls:
A nice graphical depiction from a biotech company.
An Importance Science Article (Requires account for full text access.)
Additionally,
Osiris Theraputics is a biotech company which is doing work on these cells.
I was born with cerebral palsy due to being born 3 months premature. So my brain, due to this damage sustained by this early birth, doesn't really communicate well with my body. While a have a mild case compared to some, I can walk reasonably well after 5 operations, and have little difficulty otherwise, it would be nice to be "normal". To counter some of the this is evil or unnatural postings. I believe in God, but I believe in man as well. Man has the power to change his surroundings and even himself to a large extent. Science is not inherently evil , but it can be put to evil uses.This research can be used to help millions with real problems. It's all in how you use the knowledge, not the knowledge itself. Things to keep in mind, these are mice, not people and the article says the scientists involved are not sure what this means. Don't view this as an excuse to drink and do drugs with the view that I can replace my brain cells when they are gone.(Yes, I understand these statements are meant as jokes.) Science can't fix everything, though it may someday.
IIRC, one of the reasons lower reptiles can regenerate limbs is because their blood cells still contain DNA in their nucleus. When a frog, for example, loses a limb, the blood cells undifferentiate and then redifferentiate to become bone, nerves, muscle, and skin cells. Absolutely amazing.
Mammal blood cells are "more efficient" and don't contain any DNA, but stem cells are blood cells before they differeniate and lose their DNA so that, in theory, they can redifferentiate into nerve cells! Or bone or muscle or skin! In theory at least.
The most interesting thing is that this book was first published over 20 years ago and it's only now that I've begun reading about using stem cells in medical treatment. I can't help but think, what took them so long?
In all honesty, although it is a fascinating book, the last quarter of it is a rant against the medical research establishment in general and, IMO, detracts from the credibility of the author.
---Disclaimer, I am not a biochemist.
// TODO: fix sig
An injection of marrow derived stem cells into the spine is far more elegant then any bionic solution we could ever develope. (though this is not to say I don't want implant technology to be researched, I've got a shopping list of implants as long as any other geek on
NightHawk
Tyranny =Gov. choosing how much power to give the People.
I mean, why do you need to grow more braincells? And how did they figure out that... errr... How did they... get ummmm.... wait, what was the article about again?
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
So someday people might actually be more bone-headed than they are now!?! What are they thinking? ;-)
--
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
This reminds me of some cool photos I saw of a human ear growing on a mouse's back.
But really, what is the degree of dehumanization that we suffer from scientific advance? Were we made less "human" when Jenner worked on smallpox or Salk established preventive measures against polio? I would dare say that, regardless of how a person sees scientific advance currently, they would dare not declare that they wish to go back to the day when outbreaks and plagues cost hundreds of thousands of lives annually and kept the average lifespan around age 35.
So what about now? Science is necessarily dispassionate in its advance and this is its strength. And if science moves objectively and empirically toward a solution to nervous damange that involves transplantation or whatever, then so be it.
And in 20 years, I'll bet nobody will complain that grandma got 15 more good years to spend with her family because of an effective treatment discovered for stroke that some people back then thought was scary and dehumanizing.
Good point.
I've often been afraid that, because I carry a leather wallet, I might grow horns and develop three more stomachs.
Same thing with feather pillows. It makes me shudder to think that at any moment I might start craving sunflower seeds.
New born babies haven't grown their skulls yet, they can be used as torches - obviously bigger brains -> brighter light. It gives new meaning to the phrase 'he's a bright boy!'
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"The human body is only a shell. Humanity exists because of what you may call a ghost or a soul. It is being sentient that makes us human. No other animal is sentient on this planet.
By being sentient, we have created medical technology that allows humans who might otherwise die, to continue their influence on others.
Suppose that Stephen Hawking were about to die from ALS, would you not want a medical treatment that could restore his ability to exist, so that he may continue unraveling the secrets of the universe?
As it takes several petabytes of information to hold the contents of the brain in a computer, in addition to the fact that we have not been able to figure out how the brain stores that information so that we may be able to retrieve it, we can't preserve a person who's about to die but has not completed 'their life's work'.
Immortality certainly has philsophical implications (although i wouldn't say ethical) - If you have seen Robin William's 'Bicentennial Man', that movie addresses such philosophical issues.
I don't see how using xenografts degrade humanity - they actually are better than allografts because instead of using another human's organs, youre using an animal. If you had 1 month to live due to congestive heart failure would you rather receive a heart transplant from your dead sibling/parent or would rather receive a pig heart?
"And if it's true, that plastic is not degradable, well! the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the Earth plus plastic."
-- George Carlin
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
"And like that
To be more inline with the story, you should say: pots don't kill brain cells bone-head.
Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law. The only way to be happy is to do what you feel like doing and be damned to morallity and consequences.
I'm sure ol' Adolf would have agreed! This is Slashdot's dirty secret out in the open now. Libertarianism leads to Fascism - one is only a stones throw away from the other, despite appearances to the contrary.
Your combination of technofetishism and fascism repulses me, although I imagine the average Slashdotter finds it quite attractive.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
I would say that we need to take a step back and consider very carefully what we are doing and what we wish to achieve. Surely advances such as these take something away from us? Most right thinking people don't wantto be immortal. The medical technology we have already is quite good enough, thank you, without sacrificing our ethics in our lust for immortality.
I would like to see this research kept on hold, until we can guarrantee that Human Beings will not have to sacrifice their morality to benefit.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
Read the FAQ.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
can I smoke bone marrow to counteract killing my brain cells?
-gerbik
I think that the major use of grafting bone marrow cells would be in cases of spinal cord damage - even if a small section of nerve tissue was damaged beyond repair, a bone marrow graft could be induced to replace it. This avoids the loss-of-data issues theoretically possible with grafting into the brain. Networking is also a lot simpler in the spinal cord an the brain. If bone marrow cells can replace brain cells, they also ought to be able to replace spinal cord cells (both being part of the CNS, with lots of shared cellular architecture).
OTOH, reflexes controlled by that section of cord would be useless - a small price to pay, IMHO.
My other sig is also a
So you agree with this *u****i*?
Come on KtB, you were complaining about nazism two posts ago, and now you agree with ideas like survival of the fittest... If that sentence is not pure nazism, then we didn't read the same history book!
And by the way there is a fair number of physically challenged people living on medicine to sustain their life who have contributed considerably to technology, art or entreat associations. Should you have killed them / let them die because they were not fitted enough according to your rules? What about their fantatic brain power, love or creativity?
We don't live anymore in caves and don't go hunting with our bare hands to get food. We don't need to be able to outrun a Grizzly or fight without medicine all virii and infections we come across.
If you believe that survival of the fittest still appies to humankind, don't go to the pharmacy or call the doctor next time you're sick!
Maybe we can use this wonderful advance in medicine to help out the poor, unfortunate people in the US Patent Office, who seem to be in urgent need of this procedure...
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
It's not so much that we'll be injecting bone marrow into our brains before finals but that there may be an unknown mechanism for generating neurons. If it can be studied and understood (maybe using stem cells as a model) that raises the possibility of drugs that can accelerate that mechanism to speed recovery from brain damage.
However, what does begin to demonstrate that the bone-marrow cells actually became neuronal cells is the staining process, where you stain for neuronal proteins. Of course, B cells have a nasty habit of trapping free neuronal proteins, so you would have to control for that, but that can be overcome. Course, one would really like to see a protein affinity study to conclusively demonstrate that the cells are actually neuronal, but I'm not a neurologist, so I won't digress.
Merzey's work deals more elegantly with the problem by not dealing with GPF at all and instead heading straight for genetic material, by using male stem cells in a female mice. (XY instead of XX, trivial to find Y using staining microscopy) This cleans up most of the nastyness of the GPF.
In addition Merzy deals with the differentiation of neuronal cells much more effectively, convicing me at least that these stem cells actually became neuronal cells, rather than just leaking out into the brain accidental like. Of course, the real trick now is to figure out what got the cells to become neurons.
I'm going to guess that it only works in stem cells, and occurs because of the influence of neuronal proteins on neurons affects the differentiation of cells that can actually change fate into something that suits their environment. (Ie, have a non-locked (non-genetic) path determination). Probably just the proteins that turned the neurons into neurons in the first place continue to act on cells that through some strange occurence end up in the range of those proteins
Oh yeah... for those of you who are actually interested, here is the links to the articles. Turning Blood into Brain: Cells Bearing Neuronal Antigens Generated in Vivo from Bone Marrow and From Marrow to Brain: Expression of Neuronal Phenotypes in Adult Mice.
Science 290:1779 and Science 290:1775 respectively.
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
http://www.donarmstrong.com