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Ultimate Stem Cell Discovered
bofh31337 writes "Newscientist is reporting that the University of Minnesota has discovered a new stem cell in adults. It is thought this stem cell will be able to turn into any single tissue in the body." The article is kinda breathy, especially for New Scientist - but if this is true, which needs to be studied more, this will dramatically alter the landscape for stem cell research.
are you going to start killing adults now too?
buahahaha
Non sono d'accordo con questo alberino
security through obscurity = modding down anti-linux posts so maybe noone will see them
First post you sons of bitches.
I just read this on a news site. It doesn't mention many details but says Slashdot's founder Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda (AKA Stewart Denton) has been found dead. Murdered himself after being caught in a circle jerk scandal with fellow Slashdot editors (using aliases). Whether or not you were a fan of his openly gay attitude and right wing political views, you cannot deny his contributions to the alternative sexuality community. As a memorial, he will be ass reamed one final time before his pasty white body is burried. It is indeed a black day as he will be sadly missed by his former turd-burglars (for The Turd Report). Truly a homo-geek icon.
-Metrollica
Of course it would be found there. It's the most delicious part!
Although fried chicken embryos were helpful and delicious, they had that whole "abortion" stigma attached to them.
Hopefully this will open up a whole new era in gene therapy. Imagine being able to grow heart tissue from delicious bone marrow!
Yay for science!
need a brain stem first. speaking of firsts, let this post be the first bold-faced fuck you
root> man -k lunix heterosexuality hygiene
nothing appropriate
root>
Lets just hope that such a gene is not patented by an evil company trying to get every last dollar out of their discovery. This could be a huge brakethrough for all mankind, if they (the government) would only let us do the proper research.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
The cells seem to grow indefinitely in culture, like ESCs. Some cell lines have been growing for almost two years and have kept their characteristics, with no signs of ageing, she says.
Two years? Damn, now that's an example careful experimentation. Although, I'd like to know what "aging" implies, and if she'd have to wait 80 or so years to see real human aging. Any biologists out there care to explain what aging looks like on the cellular level?
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Oh no! Extracting and growing these cells to cure diseases would be like killing millions and millions of clones of yourself! It's like having a million abortions, or even worse, committing suicide a million times over! We must ban research immediately! If God had wanted us to be healed, He wouldn't have let us get sick in the first place!
will they still need fetuses? Will this finally make Bush + his pro-life friends happy? Screw parapalegics, we've got to protect already dead fetuses.
security through obscurity = modding down anti-linux posts so maybe noone will see them
One other very promising source of stem cells is from liposuction - check out StemSource for details
John 17:20
In the attempt to overcome my "thingness," Mina subjected me to enemas, branding and shit blistering. This last ordeal consisted of Mina injecting her shit underneath the surface of my skin until a blister formed. I was ordered to allow the blister to fester for days until she would order me to tear it open with my own teeth. As she berated me verbally and beat me with a television antenna I would lick my wound until it was clean of all pus and shit. We engaged in this drama a number of times, the blisters becoming bigger and more numerous each time. It wasn't long before I became sick. A painful and persistent nausea became a constant presence for me, but Mina refused to allow me to see a doctor. She would call me a "fucking little baby," and force me to lick her anus while she sat on my face and farted. She felt smooth and slick as she slid back and forth over my nose, and the sensation of her soft brown thighs gripping my head threw me into fits of excitement. But this highly pleasurable experience became associated, more and more, with the stench and filth of her bowel excretions. I could not separate the pleasure of having sex with Mina from the displeasure of being forced to wallow in her excrement. Being a helpless mastabatory aid and shit receptacle became an important and indispensable part of the sexual act with her. The more of her shit that I was forced to eat and have injected under my skin, the sicker I became. Yet I could not stop seeing her. More to the point, I did not want to stop seeing her. I craved the humiliation that she subjected me to in my pursuit of nothingness. I was becoming less and less of what I had been by virtue of the fact that I was becoming less and less of anything. Soon I would disappear and never experience pain again.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
I just knew it.
So basically, my brain is just a Beowulf cluster of these?
It says the stem cells come from bone marrow, therefore all that would be required would be a bone marrow sample from a healthy adult. Sounds a lot more PC to those Christian fundamentalists screaming death.
Not to start a giganitic flame war, but being 'prolife' (lets skip the whole 'its already gonna be aborted crap, and get to the meat. Getting stemcells from fetus' is a prochoice activity) isn't being a 'christian fundamentalists'. I'm prolife and FAR from fanatical (evolution and bigbang are things I study and believe in). Just something to keep in mind...
-FortKnox : Posting anonymously, cause this is OT.
The tests seem to hold promise, but it is not confirmed yet. But if it works... ooh, the excitement. 'Free' stem cells, with no issues about embryos and cloning is a dream come true to scientists working in this field.
I wonder how long before practical applications of this research become available... five years? Ten?
Raven
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
If you donate stem cells from willing adults, you don't have all the ethical arguments you get with harvesting human embryos. Not really sure which side of that argument I fall on, but if we can avoid the argument altogether and concentrate on the science instead, things would move along faster.
Hopefully these stem cells are as useful as the embryonic ones are.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
If this pans out to be what they think they have, I just hope that the patent holders do not charge and arm and a leg for the world to use it. Sure growing organs and such is a longs ways off, but the potential is astounding. Some discoveries should belong to the public domain, like cures and other medical discoveries. And I understand that research costs money, but maybe we as a society would be better off if governments not spend so much on space when there are so many worthwhile medical research programs that arin dire need of funding. And if the governments fund it, then the knowledge could be public.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Forgive me for pointing out the obvious but this is good for several reasons. The one I'm most pleased with is the moral aspect. Assuming this is true we no longer need to farm embryonic humans for stem cells. We can gather them (and possibly in a superior form) from consenting adults.
This may also help compatibility. If there were any problems with a replacement organ for example then this would possibly lessen the chances of rejection.
Of course this still leaves moral controversy over what is done with these stem cells - I mean, that whole human cloning thing.
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
One of the exiting possibilities stem cell research is someday we may be able to make better replacement organs without horking the immune system, understand aging (and someday doing something about it), or any of the pure research that a baseline cell could offer.. It is still way out there, but this nicely side steps most of the religious/ethical/what about the children political nonsense we have with the embryo-based stem cells. Woot! Just getting past the BS is worth a noble prize in my eyes...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
With respect to the aging claim made, is two years enough time to detect a reasonal shorting of the chromatic telomerase?
Cheers,
-- RLJ
This could put a whole new twist on toys in the genre of Sea Monkeys and Chia pets. Can I grow my boss or my professor in a petri dish and then torture them without any legal ramifications?
Everybody involved in healthcare will breathe a sigh of relief about this discovery. As there are less and less people willing to donate organs, it is time that we get other means of harvesting organs.
D
WOOHOO!
I can get me a whole sack full of testicles now!
Breaking News -- Terrorists have attacked the United States.
Once again, middle-eastern terrorists from Osama bin Ladens' Al Qaeda terrorist network have attacked The United States of America. The attack of September 11, 2001 pales in comparison to this highly coordinated, massive attack.
The White House, the Capitol Building, and the United Nations building are smoldering in ruins after being attacked by truck bombs and hijacked commercial airliners. Thousands of government officials are presumed dead while rescue efforts are being hindered by intense heat and smoke.
There are reports of further attacks in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Miami.
* Unconfirmed: Rumors are surfacing that the heart of Los Angeles was attacked using multiple 10-ton ammonium nitrate truck bombs detonated in multiple locations.
* Confirmed: Large portion of downtown Chicago sprayed with anthrax via multiple cropduster aircraft. Sadly, the terrorists operating the cropdusters were able to disseminate almost their entire arsenals of anthrax before being shot down by US military F-16's. In this first ever wide-spread biological attack, millions of innocent men, women and children were exterminated like insects.
* Confirmed: Nuclear explosion in New York City. A rental truck carrying an unidentified type of nuclear weapon was detonated in New York City early this morning. Details are sketchy, but US Government officials are saying the blast was somewhere in the magnitude of 15 megatons.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney are believed dead in the White House destruction.
Nuclear strikes have been launched by the United States military against Phillipines, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Somolia. All of these countries have been hit by at least five Titan II ICBM's and one 100-kiloton thermonuclear warhead; millions are believed to be dead.
Martial law has been declared across the entire US in an attempt to try and control the wide-scale looting in major US cities. High ranking military commanders have assumed control of the military retaliation, as the President and Vice President are presumed dead.
Government officials who weren't killed in the attacks are now attempting to keep control the chaotic country from the bunkers under the White House. The US Government is broadcasting nationwide television and radio announcements to inform the public of the status of the country.
I suggest you all stop what you are doing and spend some time with your families, because quite frankly, World War 3 is upon us.
More details to come.
~ a personal journey ~
Last weekend I noticed that my bum was itchy. Leaning to one side
I scratched at the itch but it moved further towards my anus. I was
scratching at my anus when the itch moved inside my bum.
"Weird.." was all I could think. I managed to get my right index
finger in my puckered starfish in pursuit of the antagonist. Too late,
already the beast has gone around the bend past my rectum and into my
colon. I eased a second finger in my red-eye, followed by a third, fourth,
and finally my thumb. The thick knuckle ridge was a bit hard to get in
but I took a deep breath and it slipped in like butter. The itch was
mocking me. I could sense it laughing at my hand just centimeters away.
Taking another breath I slid my arm in my ass all the way to the elbow
but the itch had moved further up my intestinal tract. Past the elbow
to my bicep I went, my wrist making the bend in my colon with ease.
The itch was near, I could sense it! I pushed further in to the
moist darkness to the shoulder but the itch moved farther away..
If I was to scratch this itch, I'd have to do it by suprise! I lay
in my chair whistling to myself so as to get the itch thinking it
was forgotten about. When the time was right I pounced! My head,
shoulders and upper body were in my ass and I had the itch cornered,
for just past it was last nights dinner coming down the pipe, the
bits of corn glistening like stars at night. Another lunge forward
and I was within millimeters of the itch. I walked towards the
itch, smiling with joy.. "Wait! How am I walking?" then it hit
me. My anus was a portal through the space time contiuum. I was
in another dimension, the festering home to the itch.
Trolling is a art,
Oh my goodness, but wouldn't this mean that potentially we might be able to create a new human being out of those MAPCs.
Quick, ban this research, it is heresy, it is aweful, it can save lifes!
"We live in our minds, and existance is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality" Ayn Rand
REUTERS, MARCH 5 The University of Minnesota has been granted a patent for what it calls 'The Ultimate [human] Stem Cell'.
It is now illegal for humans to generate this cell, or invoke its capabilities to develop into any human tissue, without a license from the University of Minnesota.
Expectant mothers and fathers, upon confirmation of pregnancy, will be asked to sign a Universal Stem Cell End User License Agreement, and pay an annual license fee.
Healing of disease, and repair of damaged body tissues, will incur special levies.
Any use of Universal Stem Cells in any bodily function will result in substantial fines, possible jail terms, and compulsory MRI scans and biopsies for the forced removal of offending cells from the bodies of perpetrators.
You have been warned!
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
http://www.micab.umn.edu/faculty/Verfaillie.html
m d= Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11458512&dopt=Abstrac t
and an abstract of one stem cell paper is at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?c
"others think the selection process actually creates the MAPCs.
.with no signs of ageing" could herald this find as biomedical fountain of youth, the raoyalties could be astronomical, especially when used for non-life-threatening conditions.
I don't think there is 'a cell' that is lurking there that can do this. I think that Catherine has found a way to produce a cell that can behave this way," says Neil Theise of New York University Medical School.
If this turns out to be the case rather than the cell naturally occurring in bone marrow, it has tremendous implications from a patent perspective. Since you cannot patent a naturally occuring object, anyone who could reverse engineer the selection process would be able to produce these cells. But if it is the process itself that transforms otherwise non stem-cell behaving cells into MAPC's then process itself would be patentable and I believe even if you reverse engineered it you would be expected pay royalties. Since claims like "cell lines have been growing for almost two years . .
WOW, who would have thought that the fountain of youth, and a source of infinite free power would be announced on the same day?
Work for Change & GET PAID!
I claim Prior art!
Damn straight!
The bastards can't get away so easy.
Of course it's a lucky 'Wheelchair Romeo' that finds himself a quadraplegic.
A stem cell has been found in adults that can turn into every single tissue in the body. It might turn out to be the most important cell ever discovered.
Until now, only stem cells from early embryos were thought to have such properties. If the finding is confirmed, it will mean cells from your own body could one day be turned into all sorts of perfectly matched replacement tissues and even organs.
If so, there would be no need to resort to therapeutic cloning - cloning people to get matching stem cells from the resulting embryos. Nor would you have to genetically engineer embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to create a "one cell fits all" line that does not trigger immune rejection. The discovery of such versatile adult stem cells will also fan the debate about whether embryonic stem cell research is justified.
"The work is very exciting," says Ihor Lemischka of Princeton University. "They can differentiate into pretty much everything that an embryonic stem cell can differentiate into."
Remarkable findings
The cells were found in the bone marrow of adults by Catherine Verfaillie at the University of Minnesota. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and though the team has so far published little, a patent application seen by New Scientist shows the team has carried out extensive experiments.
These confirm that the cells - dubbed multipotent adult progenitor cells, or MAPCs - have the same potential as ESCs. "It's very dramatic, the kinds of observations [Verfaillie] is reporting," says Irving Weissman of Stanford University. "The findings, if reproducible, are remarkable."
At least two other labs claim to have found similar cells in mice, and one biotech company, MorphoGen Pharmaceuticals of San Diego, says it has found them in skin and muscle as well as human bone marrow. But Verfaillie's team appears to be the first to carry out the key experiments needed to back up the claim that these adult stem cells are as versatile as ESCs.
Verfaillie extracted the MAPCs from the bone marrow of mice, rats and humans in a series of stages. Cells that do not carry certain surface markers, or do not grow under certain conditions, are gradually eliminated, leaving a population rich in MAPCs. Verfaillie says her lab has reliably isolated the cells from about 70 per cent of the 100 or so human volunteers who donated marrow samples.
Indefinite growth
The cells seem to grow indefinitely in culture, like ESCs. Some cell lines have been growing for almost two years and have kept their characteristics, with no signs of ageing, she says.
Given the right conditions, MAPCs can turn into a myriad of tissue types: muscle, cartilage, bone, liver and different types of neurons and brain cells. Crucially, using a technique called retroviral marking, Verfaillie has shown that the descendants of a single cell can turn into all these different cell types - a key experiment in proving that MAPCs are truly versatile.
Also, Verfaillie's group has done the tests that are perhaps the gold standard in assessing a cell's plasticity. She placed single MAPCs from humans and mice into very early mouse embryos, when they are just a ball of cells. Analyses of mice born after the experiment reveal that a single MAPC can contribute to all the body's tissues.
MAPCs have many of the properties of ESCs, but they are not identical. Unlike ESCs, for example, they do not seem to form cancerous masses if you inject them into adults. This would obviously be highly desirable if confirmed. "The data looks very good, it's very hard to find any flaws," says Lemischka. But it still has to be independently confirmed by other groups, he adds.
Fundamental questions
Meanwhile, there are some fundamental questions that must be answered, experts say. One is whether MAPCs really form functioning cells.
Stem cells that differentiate may express markers characteristic of many different cell types, says Freda Miller of McGill University. But simply detecting markers for, say, neural tissue does not prove that a stem cell really has become a working neuron.
Verfaillie's findings also raise questions about the nature of stem cells. Her team thinks that MAPCs are rare cells present in the bone marrow that can be fished out through a series of enriching steps. But others think the selection process actually creates the MAPCs.
"I don't think there is 'a cell' that is lurking there that can do this. I think that Catherine has found a way to produce a cell that can behave this way," says Neil Theise of New York University Medical School.
19:00 23 January 02
From the article:
The cells were found in the bone marrow of adults by Catherine Verfaillie at the University of Minnesota. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and though the team has so far published little, a patent application seen by New Scientist shows the team has carried out extensive experiments.
Tough luck. It is already being patented.
If they somehow figure out how to repair brain damage due to old age with these cells, wouldn't that mean people could theoretically live forever?
I doubt it would be as easy as to just insert them into the brain and let it assimilate them, but still an interesting thought..
I could've guessed that this entire topic would just lead to a gigantic flamewar.
It's a gret word.
- people embryos and spraying their precious genetic material out the back.
I can just imagine this huge behemoth of a combine harvester scooping up those doomed-but-seemingly-more-important-than-homeless
I hope it runs over a kid one day.
And his bastard dog too!
If this turns out to be true, it would be a remarkable find. But as the article points out, this is only a preliminary report, and "the team has so far published little." They will need to carry out extensive tests and publish a lot more research before anything conclusive can be determined.
It is interesting, but I wish researchers wouldn't jump the gun and announce "findings" before research is complete. (Cold fusion, anyone?)
The article is kinda breathy, especially for New Scientist - but
I hate to disillusion you, but New Scientist is well-known for their sensationalism. If this were Nature, Science, or even Scientific American, Hemo's comment would make sense. Don't take me wrong I've enjoyed reading New Scientist for a number of years, but its niche is tabloid-style, scientific journalism. It is not a scientific journal.
If this research is valid, it is a huge breakthrough. But it means that human cloning will have to be argued for its own sake, rather than it somehow being necessary for growing spare kidneys. My concern with this is that Bush, et al, will use it to shut down cloning research altogether; they've never seemed to have any other use for cloning. On the other hand, it may allow clarity on the morality of cloning.
Yet more evidence that we will have the ability to make ourselfs immortal in this lifetime. Well, at least the rich will be able to live forever. This is the kind of research I would be investing in if I had more then pocket change.
[note: bitchslap comming]
but if this is true, which needs to be studied more,
Needs to be studied more? Of course it does. Who ever said they weren't going to?
Thank you for the wonderful insight. If it's true there will be more research than, well, you can shake a chromosome at. If it's false... who cares?
Get your Unix fortune now!
"Yes, I only need a few more aborted fetus' and my stem cells would have cloned me my own Shakeys Pizza !"
<controversial opinion>Thank the pro-life contingent for this. Yes, them. Because of the hard-line stance of many people that human life shouldn't be devalued through experimentation, there is naturally going to be a lot more research into finding adult cells that do not have the controversy attached.
Sometimes sticking to principles and not taking the easy ways out (e.g., manufacturing embryoes for experimentation) leads to very nice results.
</controversial opinion>
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
'Tis sweet... but there's a big problem I could forsee (dunno if the article addressed this... I kinda jumped through it...)...
If we went and did testing on this with humans, how would we be sure to inhibit the reproduction of said tissue? I'm just wondering if these tissues would reproduce the same way that embryos would.
If it did, then it's quite possible that we could eventually replace _all_ the organs in the body (With pretty much the exception of the brain) and thusly we now have a theoretical "fountain of youth" (Any bio nuts wanna call me on this one? I'm not certain how plausible this would be... haven't taken biology in years...). If it doesn't, how can we be certain that growth inhibition wouldn't be lost somewhere in here, and thusly this kind of transplant would end up giving us happy little tumors? Especially if you're transplanting something like a heart, it'd be a Bad Thing to have your heart itself turn into a gigantic tumor...
(Excuse the amateur biologist in me... I'm just wondering...)
Karma: Non-Heinous
They're applying for a patent on the extraction and enrichment process, not the cells themselves, folks. Stem cells can't be patented, because the host person could simply claim prior use and blow the patent.
Virg
If I put a bunch of these stem cells next to a Shaky's Pizza, would they work together to build another Shaky's Pizza?
That'd be sweet!
"I just hope that the patent holders do not charge and arm and a leg for the world to use it"
Feel free to Mod me down for this, but I think this is got to be the worst Pun I've ever heard...
Karma: Non-Heinous
http://www.nature.com/nsu/990114/990114-6.html
Get your Unix fortune now!
I'm a Christian. First you get the stem cell. Then you clone them. Then you grow new people and harvest their organs for yourself. Its all beginning to come together!
Fountain of youth, free power, AOL buying Red Hat, Amazon making a profit. It's been a banner week for insanity ;-)
Note that the "free power" thing on CNN was bullshit. Some scientifically-illiterate Reuters boob (but I repeat myself) was impressed that the voltage measured across the terminals of a set of batteries was 48.9V at load, and 51.2V not under load, "indicating that, somehow, they had been reimbursed." The inventor told the boob that three 100W light bulbs powered for 10 minutes (and his magical device) drew 4.5 kilowatts from the batteries. And the boob, sorry, journalism major, bought it - hook, line, sinker, and copy of Angling Times.
Next thing you know, someone will apply for a Nobel Prize because of the momentous discovery that his "dead" flashlight "works" for a few seconds after being turned off for a few minutes.
good, no more baby killing........now if can only stop abortion......
Breaking News -- Terrorists have attacked the United States.
Once again, middle-eastern terrorists from Osama bin Ladens' Al Qaeda terrorist network have attacked The United States of America. The attack of September 11, 2001 pales in comparison to this highly coordinated, massive attack.
The White House, the Capitol Building, and the United Nations building are smoldering in ruins after being attacked by truck bombs and hijacked commercial airliners. Thousands of government officials are presumed dead while rescue efforts are being hindered by intense heat and smoke.
There are reports of further attacks in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Miami.
* Unconfirmed: Rumors are surfacing that the heart of Los Angeles was attacked using multiple 10-ton ammonium nitrate truck bombs detonated in multiple locations.
* Confirmed: Large portion of downtown Chicago sprayed with anthrax via multiple cropduster aircraft. Sadly, the terrorists operating the cropdusters were able to disseminate almost their entire arsenals of anthrax before being shot down by US military F-16's. In this first ever wide-spread biological attack, millions of innocent men, women and children were exterminated like insects.
* Confirmed: Nuclear explosion in New York City. A rental truck carrying an unidentified type of nuclear weapon was detonated in New York City early this morning. Details are sketchy, but US Government officials are saying the blast was somewhere in the magnitude of 15 megatons.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney are believed dead in the White House destruction.
Nuclear strikes have been launched by the United States military against Phillipines, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Somolia. All of these countries have been hit by at least five Titan II ICBM's and one 100-kiloton thermonuclear warhead; millions are believed to be dead.
Martial law has been declared across the entire US in an attempt to try and control the wide-scale looting in major US cities. High ranking military commanders have assumed control of the military retaliation, as the President and Vice President are presumed dead.
Government officials who weren't killed in the attacks are now attempting to keep control the chaotic country from the bunkers under the White House. The US Government is broadcasting nationwide television and radio announcements to inform the public of the status of the country.
I suggest you all stop what you are doing and spend some time with your families, because quite frankly, World War 3 is upon us.
More details to come.
Now what am I supposed to do with my clone?
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
I truly hope that the inventors charge whatever they can get away with and perhaps even regulate the use of this process for as long as the patent is in effect. If a university or government arm sponsored the project, then I hope that they do the same.
After all, shouldn't the inventor have at least a temporary say in what is done with their patented invention? Say, 14 years?
We should not sit back in the armchair hoping that the result of their hard work will benefit us on our own terms. Be happy that this team of researchers has done such great work and that we may have an opportunity share in its benefits.
So very sorry, but these revolutionary new master stem cells aren't going to be permitted for scientific or medical use. You see, they're not on the list of 30 Bush drew up last year. So, no go. Flush 'em. His Chimpness has spoken.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
If you have a source of infinate power then you better have an infinate sink for that power.
Wow! Adult Stem Cells. This isn't new. Adults have always had stem cells AND this has been known. The National Institute of Health has an article [nih.gov] from May 2000 which states,
While stem cells are extraordinarily important in early human development, multipotent stem cells are also found in children and adults.
Again, this is not a new discovery. ~flogger
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
First off, if the pun was intentional, very good work. Second, the work would be in the public domain. They're trying to patent their extraction and enrichment process, not the research itself. Third, your logic about cutting off funding for one type of science to push it to another has two main flaws:
1.) Reducing funding for space does not necessarily translate to extending funding for medical research.
2.) What if the next big medical discovery happens in the space program? There are so many examples of this that I could go on for days, but in the "pure" sciences (as opposed to applied sciences) very often discoveries are made from which the benefit is not readily apparent, but it soon becomes something that changes the world. Perhaps the cure for cancer comes from experiments done with materials in zero-G or vacuum environments. There's no way to know, so artificially limiting venues of research because they don't have obvious connections to a particular cause is very short-sighted.
Virg
There IS a cure for type 1 diabetes - recently in Edmonton, CA they "cured" about a dozen people by injecting islet cells (those that produce insulin) into the liver, along with some mild anti-immune drugs.
The anti-immune drugs are needed because the islet cells implanted are foreign.
The problem is that there aren't enough extractable islet cells in all viable cadavers in this country to cure even 1% of the diabetic population.
Under our current conservative presidency, stem-cell research involving embryos is at a near stand-still. (Only existing lines can be used, new ones cannot be created)
But if these stem cells can be trained to behave as islet cells, then my 13 year old son may well be effectively cured before he turns 20.
This is good news!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
It is thought this stem cell will be able to turn into any single tissue in the body
Ooh! They have discovered the "Ultimate Stem Cell"!
Could this be... no... a zygote!!!
Some Jackass on slashdot has made a stupid comment.
The world holds its breath in stunned silence.
Then they realize he's a moron with the socialogical understanding of the bowel movement I made last night.
just a simple question: why the fuck are they allowed to patent a part of me?
-- Note to self - 'Don't push that button'.
This is excellent science journalism. I'm glad to see the concerns of more skeptical scientists covered in such a balanced fashion. Most of the time, journalists, including those at the New Scientist, breeze past highly important caveats in favor of sensationalism - I'm sure we'll see this story repeated in Pro Life literature, for example, without qualifications. Kudos to Sylvia Westphal (author of the article.)
The fact that the claims being made appear on a patent application instead of in peer-reviewed research makes me extremely skeptical. Showing such a patent application to a member of the press - but not publishing - make me even more so. A great many people (I resist the temptation to post links) involved in Biotech make grandiose claims that they cannot really back up; the huge potential rewards have certainly led to compromises of scientific ethics in the past.
Just because a scientist is fishing for venture captialists does NOT mean that she is doing bad science; it does raise legitimate suspicion about her (Dr. Catherine Verfaillie, who did the work) research.
The "agelessness" and expression of unusual combinations of extracellular markers mentioned in the article are also features common to cancer cells. It is entirely possible that the process of extracting the bone marrow has merely selected out non-tumerogenic, precancerous cells. Such cells, which may very well substitute for stem cells anyway, but probably don't, might also spread through a mouse embryo into which they were injected.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
It would almost be amusing, were it not so deadly serious.
Now we can get about the serious business of curing disease.
New Scientist slashdotted??? snort
karma whore
Relax. It has been known for a while that you can take virtually any cell in the body and start a whole organism from it. Thus, any cell in theory can give rise to any tissue. This paper is just another one of the many examples of hype that is now common place in the biotech world.
your son sucks, ahahha
Nope. While they can't patent a naturally occuring object (I think), they most definately can patent the selection process. Reverse Engineering would definately still be a violation of the patent. Now if they could come up with a *different* process that could still extract the cells in question, that *might* not be a violation of the patent (depending on the exact wording of the patent and the similarities between the processes).
Reverse engineering allows you to get around trade secrets, not patents.
According to the article: ...a patent application seen by New Scientist shows the team has carried out extensive experiments.
This means the patent holders can charge an arm and a leg, literally!
Posit:
This process works, exact replicas of human organs can be grown and implanted into patients with phenominal success.
Effect:
Millions of americans decide that quitting smoking, losing weight, and all manner of healthy activity are not worth the trouble because science can simply cure them.
Result:
Health care costs skyrocket. General levels of health decrease.
So I ask...how would we prevent this? Make smokers pay for thier own lung transplants? Alcholoics pay for their own liver?
It makes for an interesting question.
I can have a second penis. Thank you science!
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
What I got from the article was that the voltmeter showed a 48.9V at load, then the machine ran for a while and was turned off, and then it showed 51.2V under the original load. But with more emphasis on description of what a layman saw than on explanation of what was going on, differing understandings are to be expected.
The thing about 3 100W bulbs pulling 4.5kW is obviously crap. I wonder if that's what the man said, or what the journalist thought he understood.
Oh well, if we never hear about it again, we'll know the answer.
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
The article is kinda breathy, especially for New Scientist
When timothy called this article breathless, I didn't agree with him, but at least I knew what he was saying.
What on earth does it mean for an article to be "breathy"??
Next thing you know, someone will apply for a Nobel Prize because of the momentous discovery that his "dead" flashlight "works" for a few seconds after being turned off for a few minutes.
Well, I don't think that meets the qualifications for a Nobel Prize, but they could probably get a patent on the process.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
As we've all come to notice, in the past few decades, Filipinos have
;)
begun to infest the United States like some sort of disease. Their extensive
involvment in the U.S. Armed Forces is proof of the trashy kind of qualities
all filipinos tend to exhibit on a regular basis.You can see this clearly by
studying the attitudes and cultural Icons of most Filipino Americans.
PART 1: Origins of Pinoys/Pinays: Are they really asian?
Well we've come to accept the fact the filipinos come from a part of the
world known as South East Asia. But the term "Asia" is used in the wrong way.
You may notice that contemporary filipino americans try very hard to associate
themselves with groups that we know asasian. I cannot count the number of times
I have seen a 'Third World' Filipino try to connect themselves to the Chinese
or Japanese people. There is no connection and here's why. The Philippines is a
Third World country. Nothing respectable has EVER been created by filipino
people during our entire human history. Young filipino men in america have
become obsessed with "import racing". They have an enormously perverted
affection for Japanese cars. It's a common phenomenon. In their minds, these
filipinos somehow, believe that they are asian and that it somehow connects
them to japanese people and japanese cars. They often take credit for the
ingenuity of Japanese people and say how it's an "asian thing". This
term..."asian thing" derived directly from African American slang "black
thang". "It's a black thang." "It's an asian thang." You can see the
connection. It's even funnier that, in Japan, Filipinos are heavily
discriminated against. The only filipinos that can live successfully in Japan
are the filipino prostitutes. But that's the case for most filipino people no
matter where they live in the world.Now we've come down to this fact...and it
is a fact. Nothing in Filipino Culture can be seen as asian. They have no
architectural, artistic, or cultural influence which is in ANY way,asian.
Thinking of the great countries in Asia such as Japan, Korea, and China there
is no way you can possibly connect the Philippine Islands. This assault by
filipino americans to connect themselves with the great, peoples of North East
Asia is foul and disgusting.
PART 2: Young Filipino Americans: The Disease of Society.
See for yourself and go to any young filipino's website or chatroom, and
you will be able to see kind of attitude that's stinking up america! Some
things you might see: Dialouge such as the following (taken directly from a
chatroom in IRC): (please keep in mind that most people in these chatrooms are
young filipinos between the ages of(13-25).
AznGuRLie: Wzzup EvErYbOdY!!! RhEiNa IsH In Da HoUsE!
(Translation: Her name is Asian Girly. This young woman obviously thinks she is
somehow asian, but we'll adress that later. She's simply saying that she has
arrived in the chatroom but she's saying it in the most immature, ghetto, and
baby-type way possible. I'm suprised she said "Rheina is in the house" rather
than just "Rheina in the house".But notice how she spelled the word "is" as
"ish". The way a baby would pronounce it. The AlTeRnAtiNG CaPiTaLs is also
very common.)
AzNRacr_X: SuP Wit U RhEinA GuRL???
(A filipino male...he's obsessed with japanese cars and masturbates frequently
to Japanese Porno Cartoons, known as 'Hentai'. His response, is based on the
fact he listens to way too much Puff Daddy and thinks that he's some type of
"Player". Player is a concept invented by Black Americans. It simply means that
a young man has good luck with women. A "Player" often has sex with numerous
females and has more than one girlfriend at a time according to the Black
defenition. If the, filipinos have a different definition for this term I'm
not sure. But I think if you apply this term to a filipino male it usually
describes a young man who tries to have sex with girls by meeting them on the
internet. He, may or may not be successful in accomplishing this, but it just
shows the, LOW LEVEL on which filipinos operate and conduct themselves. What's
most interesting about this conversation so far is that it could be easily
mistaken for two African americans speaking to each other. There's nothing
distinctly 'asian' in this dialouge and it certianly doesn't reflect the level
of respect and intlelligence you find when Japanese or Chinese people relate to
each other in their own language!)
AznGuRLie: NuttiN. WhErEsh RoNeLiA???? ShE At Yo HoUsE???
AzNRacr_X: NaW GuRL...ShE At HeR CoUsiN's HoUsE.
PiNOY_PLaYR: She at mah houze suckin' on mah dick foo!
(Another filipino male has just joined the conversation! If you can call it a
conversation. At this point it just seems alot like baby talk.)
AznGuRLie: Heheheheheheh YoU WiSh!!!!
(Notice how this young woman accepts this disgusting statement and even has a
laugh about it. I think we're finding out how low these people really are.)
AzNRacr_X: ShUT yo MouTH lil foo!!!! Or I ShuT iT Fo U!
PiNOY_PLaYR: Where u at muthafucka?? I beat yo lil punk azz!
AzNRacr_X: My CRiB iz 619!! What u GoNNA Do Foo????
PiNOY_PLaYR: I gunna beat yo lil azz...afta yo gurl finishez suckin
on, mah NUTZ!! UWAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHhhahahaahahaah!
AznGuRLie: Hehheheheh NoW BoyZ WhY U fiGhtin LiKE tHaT?? U kNoW cAn, suCK u
boTH!! LiL RhEiNA wAnTz 2 pLaY 2!!!!!!!!
(This scum level of human interaction is not only disgusting and offensive, but
pathetic as well. And there's alot more than this going, on in chatrooms all
over the internet every hour.)
Try visiting a young filipino's web site too. You'll see something
called the "Asian IRC Ring". It has to do with the chatrooms. The most horrible
thing about this is that these TRASHY people are trying to associate themselves
with Asia again!! People in Asia don't act like, this at all. What we are
seeing here is the natural filipino in it's element with full access to
technologyand this is how they act! You will consistently see this behavior
over and over again. Another interesting thing is that these "thirdworld"
people also frequent IRC chatrooms such as #chinese #japan and #asian. They
must believe that they are some how related racially or culturally to North
Asians. But it's completely WRONG! There might have been some distant contact
with China and even less with Japan during World War II, but these people are
actually more closely related to african americans and mexican americans. Do
the parents of these young filipinos know what's going on? Would they accept
this? I believe that they would and do. This is the natural "Trash" element
in filipinos manifesting itself. Nothing good has ever come from Philippines
and I don't believe anything good ever will.
PART 3: The Conclusion: Recogonizing your Roots ( A Message to
Filipinos)
To all filipino people:
Please recognize yoour ROOTS! You come from the the Third World! Your
country is a disgusting and filthy place. Most people there live in poverty!
Your culture has MUCH MORE SPANISH influence than chinese, and absolutely no
JAPANESE influence whatsoever. People in Japan and China, do not act like you.
They do not constantly talk about sex and they have a MUCH HIGHER level of
RESPECT for each other. There is NO WAY that you can connect yourself to Asia
other than location. Your culture and technological advancement does not even
come CLOSE to what Chinese, people have done in the past and what Japanese and
Korean people are doing now! Everything you do is distinctly filipino. You
cannot take credit for Japanese cars, video games, or Hentai! It's not an
"asian thing" it's, an "american thing". You have no concept of culture..no
concept of asian ideas or asian philosophy! Can you demonstrate how you use
Confucianism or Taoism in you everyday, life?? You can't. And you will NEVER be
able to.I understand that you are trying to create an identity for yourselves
as young people...but it is NOT related to Asia. Your Identity is Filipino.
That's all you are. Just Filipino. Think about what that means....
-- The BOFH Troll
Good point. I think your hypo will occur and millions of Americans (and ROTW) will reward their poor lifestyle decisions with expensive medical fixes, leading to skyrocketing medical/insurance costs. Meanwhile, millions of other Americans are consciously choosing healthy lifestyles not only for the benefits of reduced frequency of illness and reduced medical/insurance costs, but for the benefit of feeling better 24 hours a day.
I think the gap between the two will widen and become more obvious. Hopefully, the problem will beget its own solution as people abandon the endless cycle (well, endless until death...) of bad lifestyle decision followed by painful/expensive medical procedures/drugs and complications, and seek a lifestyle that benefits the body and mind with maximum health and enjoyment.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
I think it's rather obvious that stel cells are eventually going to be conquered and put to wide usage in medicine... maybe in the near future, or maybe in the far future.
Right now I am 22.. going on 80. In my lifetime, I think that it will be possible for people to extend their lives out as far as they want to, if they have the money.
Basically, I see a time where the rich people will be able to remain ageless, living possibly hundreds of years. Meanwhile, average people would live a normal human life span.
Can you imagine what a social conflict something like this would make? In the past, there have been some very large social class differences, but imagine a gap where one group remains ageless, and another is jealously ageing and dying.
I think that I'm going to start saving my money now...
Congress could of course set more restrictive limits to patents on things like this if they choose. Remember, the constitution merely gives congress the right to make laws concerning the arts. So, if they want to cap royalties or something, they could. Assuming you could get people to vote for it....its interesting that despite all the talk from some members of congress about drug companies charging too much, not giving poor nations AIDS medecine etc. that no one has tried to just legislate that they cant...
I just got out of a colloqium presented by one of the researchers and she was careful to point out that they do not have cells that can fully differentiate, just that they have cells that they have *so far* been able to turn into anything they want. They haven't tried everything yet.
3*100W = 300W = .3kW
.6kWh
Except usually measured over time as kilowatthours:
3*100W*2hr = 600Wh =
That generator thing must've been drawing a lot of current!
Also, notice:
The machine went on to run for around two hours while photographs were taken, with no diminution in the brightness of the light bulbs, which remained lit during a short power cut.
Where was the power cut? Not to the lights, they kept lit. Must've been to the generator, for a "short power cut"...
So basically he's got a motor and a capacitor in a huge box. Or maybe just a flywheel.
Not "When will the Christians of the world wake up and realize that their 'moral standards' are seriously fucked up?" but "when will the religious people of the world wake up and find the difference between 'moral' and 'traditional'?"
Generally, "moral" really means "we have always done it that way".
Of course, tradition is also an important way of keeping a society working. Social tradition is really a set of protocols, just like TCP/IP in computer networks. But we all must agree on procedures for changing obsolete details in old protocols. Just remember to consider all ethical details (as in "avoid needless suffering") as well as technical issues when you discuss the changes.
"It is thought this stem cell will be able to turn into any single tissue in the body"
Hrm... it's a "stem cell" then, the above is definition of a stem cell.
It totally depends on what you define as the moment of life-as-seperate-organism. IMNSHO an embryo/fetus should be regarded as "alive" when it is capable of surviving completely outside of the mother's body. I think the best parts of you ran down the crack of your mother's ass.
While this would be an amazing breakthrough, the donation problem would still exist. See, as a diabetic (Type I), growing a replacement pancreas from my own DNA won't help me. The replacement would be just as broken and useless as the one currently propping up my liver (or holding it down, I'm terrible at anatomy). The only thing I get out of this research is plenty of free pancreas-shaped paperweights. ("What a lovely doorstop!" "Thanks, grew it myself.")
I would need one of the super stem cells from somebody with a working pancreas in order to grow a working one of my own. Presumably this wouldn't suffer from the usual tissue rejection problems of transplants.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Another reason to view it as a progressive stance is because, at least in the USA, the whole reason abortion was banned had nothing to do with religion at all. It was banned based on the efforts of the American Medical Association in the 19th century predicated by the new science of embryology, which showed more or less that human life began at conception. This was in contrast to the religious view that the human being did not become alive until quickening, when the fetus moved in the womb.
::G::
The U of Minn. research team is a nut house. They frequently release immature information, such as this, which turns out to be nothing at all. You can see a list of their problematic announcements, along with some opposite opinions on this specific research, at A. Lexchi University in China.
Ah crap... nevermind.
today is spelling optional day.
What? (Pardon me for summarizing some of your points)
Medicine-for-profit is bad.
How is anything-for-profit inherently bad?
If there was no profit pharmaceuticals would have no reason to continue spending billions on research and making drugs from that research.
I agree. Why would anyone invest billions in something if they expected nothing in return?
Medicine-for-profit has denied you treatment.
M-f-p may have (in the form of HMO's it sounds) denied you treatment. The fact that you are taking drugs that were made precisely because of profit potential tells me that you have benefited from m-f-p, and most likely quite a bit more than you have been denied.
That scientists will exaggerate a teensy bit sometimes to get funding? I don't know if I would buy this outright.
So, did moral/ethical pressure, help focus peoples attention on something other that ESC research?
A Success of Ethics I guess.
Some ageless cells are cancer.
...), but they aren't automatically cancerous.
Some are the sources of sperm and ova.
Some are probably the source of the blood, villi, skin, etc. (Yes, there are cells that aren't totipotent that are the sources here, but they don't have any obvious aging built in.)
If there are a few totipotent stem cells in an adult, it wouldn't be any big surprise. There probably won't be many of them, as they would be (are?) quite dangerous (one little mutation and
.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
But I seem to recall seeing that adults have stem cells. Using embryos was just a matter of convenience. Those people who have recovered from severe nervous system injuries had to get new nerve cells from somewhere.
that if the damage stems from genetic causes, the stem cells will still have to be repaired before a new organ is cultured. The interesting thing is that the body doesn't reject stem cells from other people; at least in the brain. BlackGriffen
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but this is a hoax.
Here's the proof: I haven't personally seen it. That means it doesn't exist. It is a fact of the universe. You know why? Because the entire universe revolves around me. Hey, that's the proof. It's a hoax..O.H. .W.E.L.L.
assuming this is factual and accurate, this is the first bit of interesting information i have ever learned on slashdot.
give the man some karma!
It states in the article that certain people believe the cells are produced by the process, not that they already exist and are simply refined.
Is it just me, or was there news in the past year or so from people that had found that making cells dormant on minimal media (the same way they prepare cells for cloning) actually made them multipotent anyway? Does anyone else remember this?
toeslikefingers.com - because
Why grow brain cells when you can grow...the Ultimate Steak! Imagine growing meat in a vat instead of hacking up steer or chickens.
...good for me though - I could use some new teeth, probably a whole set by the time they get the process perfected... ;)
Or spammers, for that matter.
No space-based expatration system is going to ship enough people off this planet to make the slightest bit of difference. There are 250,000 new people on this planet, ever single day. That is net of deaths, by the way.
250,000 people per day is 91.25 million people per year. According to this slide, European air travel was 541 million passengers in 1998, almost six times your figure for world population growth.
stem cells have long been suspected to exist in adults and mainly in the bone marrow. the reason for the high concentration in the bone marrow is that the marrow is responsible for massive amounts of very different types of cells in the blood. no other tissue in the adult body has similar requirements.
however almost every tissue in an embryo does.
the real breakthrough (in my opinion) was finding these cell in a embryo and proving the stem cell theory, after that the main point of debate has been 1.) do stem cells exist in the adult body and 2.) do they exist in detectable concentrations
I'm not saying that these researchers have found the cells, that is what every stem cell researcher in the world is currently trying to do, what I am saying is that there have been very large amounts of money and time spent looking for these cells (and mainly in the bone marrow) so I wouldn't be surprised. Estatic, full of wonder, but not as surprised as I would of been if I read about a zero point energy machine that looked like a washing machine.
cheers
Heck, they could just get them from spontaneous abortions (aka "miscarriages") which make up more than 50% of pregnancies. Yup, more than half of those "new humans" die, often before the woman even notices. Compared to this, surgical abortions are small potatoes...
The stem cells this article is talking about - the embryonic ones and the newly discovered adult ones - are totipotent cells, cells that can differentiate into ANYTHING you want.
Which is rather strange, don't you agree? Essentially, these researchers have shown that there are "adult" stem-cells that behave identical to embryonic stem-cells. If the lawmakers would think logically, they'd apply the same regulations to research with "adult" stem-cells.
It is factual and mostly correct. I'm a molecular biologist so I should know ;-)
/. karma police (hehe as if they're not registering my ip adress)
Posting anonymously to escape the
Something very similar was done in Australia not long ago. The stem cell i believe was found in the brain.
Its was an important find because at the time the only place to find stem cells where in unborn babies.
--------
Rodney McDonell
At first I was sceptical.
How could he possibly have "supplied all his own domestic power needs free for 17 months"? IMPOSSIBLE!
But then I was convinced! It's true! Just look at the first sentence of the article! The "birthplace of such an epoch-making discovery" is "A cold stone house on a wind-swept Irish hillside".
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
This fits this criterion!
I hope that this is what it seems to be.......If they can make organs from the same tissue of the recipiant using these cells, this can save a lot of lifes!!!!
My son was born with chronic renal failure.....he needs a transplant when he is a year old..........if this can allow him, when he gets older, to have a new organ produced from his own body.......I can't wait........
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Well, maybe not "Now", but when you have an isolated cell, you have a cell that you can modify the genes of. Just change that particular part of the code. (Think of it as debugging.)
...
Perhaps a plasmid would be good enough. That would make things simpler. But even if the nucleotide sequence needed to be altered this isn't impossible. Then you grow the pancreas (lots of work to do to make this work, too) from the repaired cells. Now you have a pancreas without the original defect.
This works unless the defect is in the immune system rather than in the pancreas. In that case there is a need to purge the immune system of the sensitized cells. Ugh! But progress is occuring on that front, too.
In either case, once a few major problems are solved (including how to pay for all this)
One of the big benefits of the ban on human cloning is that the process isn't really ready. There's too much ancillary work that needs to be done. And there was never a ban on the cloning of chimpanzees or gorillas, which are so close to human that all major processes are the same, anyway. (Well, people are cheaper, and rightly so! But pigs are pretty cheap, and monkeys aren't too bad, and are pretty close.)
.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
"She placed single MAPCs from humans and mice into very early mouse embryos, when they are just a ball of cells. Analyses of mice born after the experiment reveal that a single MAPC can contribute to all the body's tissues."
Is this how the Rats of NIMH were born?
they could come up with a *different* process that could still extract the cells
Sorry, that is what I meant. I dind't mean reverse engineering the exact same process, just reverse engineering in the sense that unlike the patent holders, the 'reverse engineers' would actually know that such cells were at least a probable outcome of various manipulations to remove the non- 'stem-cell-like' cells from the marrow.
Claiming that unnatural implies immoral is the one of the oldest ethical fallacies still in use. It has been used during the dark ages and most likely it has even been used by such lovely governments as the Taliban.
Lets do a little reductio ad absurdum. The only natural form of transportation for a human is to use your legs, arms, etc to move about. From this we see that using a car as a means of transportation is unnatural. Therefore, using a car is immoral.
Not only that, but any form of artificial insemenation or stuff like test tube (petri dish) conception is by definition unnatural and therefore immoral.
Modern medicine in and of itself is immoral. I mean, you are "playing god" by giving people drugs that make them live longer.
Computers are unnatural and therefore immoral. We are practically playing god by making this virtual world we call cyberspace.
The entire field of artificial intelligence is immoral.
Just because people are ignorant or even stupid does not mean that you should work within their incorrect ethical system and its silly moral boundries.
And we still won't be able to DO anything with the stem cells since Bush doesn't like them. What'd they ever do to him (besides possibly erecting him as the ugliest man alive)?
[insert witty comment here]
Guess this story adds another reasonably reputable source to the mix...
The Humblest Mollusk on the Net