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Stem-Cell-Like-Cells Made Using Only Blood?
Adair writes "Newscientist.com is reporting that a UK biotech firm, TriStem has developed a technique to 'turn ordinary blood into cells capable of regenerating damaged or diseased tissues.' Their method transforms anyone's white blood cells into 'stem-cell-like-cells' which can then be coaxed into one of a myriad of healthy cells such as heart, nerve, or brain. Having made these claims for years, TriStem has recently provided proof to their claims, which some scientists who witnessed called 'stunning."' They have some more proving to do, but if the initial results pan out, the applications could be fantastic -- and without the stigma of traditional stem-cell research."
So I could like, inject this stuff into my arm and I'd have a super-arm that could like shoot laser beams and pick up mack trucks full of pianos?
I would check to see if these TriStem people have recently returned from Antarctica or a husky was doing the presentation.
I'd have a super-arm
Many of the subscribers already do...
Do you like German cars?
So, could they replace a foreskin?
No, the fanatical Christians' whole point is invalidated; but the grandparent poster's point is right on the money.
Just about major medical advance in history -- dissection of corpses to learn anatomy, sterilization of instruments, immunization, anesthesia, antibiotics, x-rays, blood transfusions -- has met religious opposition when it first came out*. And over time, as the obvious benefits added up, these advances became part of "just the way things are" and almost everyone** stopped complaining about them. But new advances still set off the same alarm bells in the minds of the Luddites, who don't have the grasp of history to see what fools and hypocrites they are.
Plenty of True Believers will happily go to the doctor, take advantage of whatever the latest technology is that's available at that moment to cure what ails them, and then go home and bitch about Those Damn Scientists Interfering With The Will By Meddling With Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. And because of this behavior, unfortunately, there's no selective pressure for that kind of idiocy to die out.
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* I heartily recommend Jonathan Miller's The Body in Question for an overview of this, as well as other fascinating aspects of medical history.
* With the exception of, e.g., Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions. They may be fanatics, but at least they're consistent fanatics.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Everybody is Peter North!
Mods, if you understand this joke you're just as twisted as me.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano