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Jacket Grown from Living Tissue
RangerRick98 writes "Wired has a story about growing jackets from living tissue. The jacket is grown using "a biodegradable polymer as a base," a coating of 3T3 mouse cells (which apparently continue to grow and split even after being removed from their host), and human bone cells for rigidity. The jacket grown so far is only about 2 x 1.4 inches. The hope is that when the polymer degrades, the jacket will retain its structure. The focus behind this work is 'victimless' leather."
Why don't scientists instead concentrate on breeding a cow that enjoys being eaten and having it's skin made into leather goods?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I'm calling prior art.
My second thoughts were "Hmm, I wonder how I'd look in a mouse coat".
Paul Lenhart writes words!
I'm thinking: same technology, but keep the jacket tissue alive, and stick some nerve cells and audio production equipment in there somewhere.
Imagine how many PETA heads you could explode if your jacket cried out in pain when you busted a seam or whimpered with hunger if you hadn't spilled any food on it recently.
> The focus behind this work is 'victimless' leather
This is great news. Hopefully someday soon we can grow all of our leather clothing. Once we attain that proud accomplishment we can then dump the remains of cows slaughtered for meat in a landfill instead of using their hides for clothing.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
I'm going to have to lose a ton of weight to fit into a 2" x 1.4" jacket...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
[fill in person]
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
The artists claim to be making a point about our loose and casual attitude to life, by making us aware that we casually wear dead things.
I find it extraordinarily creepy that these people would criticise our attitude to life by combining mouse skin cells and human bone cells into a living coat. I find this manipulation of living things far more disrespectful to our environment, and all things living than harvesting the hide of dead cattle.
As one poster already pointed out, its not like we slaughter cows just to wear their skins, and toss the rest of the cow in a landfill. Its not like it really improves the cows outlook once it reaches the slaughter house.
Even if this ends up being more economically viable then using cow hides, this will still offend those who view this kind of science as an abomination. Instead of slaughtering cows for their skins, were now tinkering in 'gods' playground, pissing around with the building blocks of life.
And the sort of person who complains about using leather is also likely to be the sort that complains about genetically modified foods.
END COMMUNICATION
I'm pretty sure meat-cows and milk-cows are mutually exclusive. I don't know myself where leather cows come in, but it may very well be that they are special cows that we don't eat. Go read wikipedia or something... (NOTE: I am not taking my own advice since I really don't care.)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
When this is all said and done, and there will be no more innocent animal victims, but the planet is going to be the victim of overpopulation from animals, letting off CO2 and methane.
Yes, it's important that we don't kill off all animals, and yes it's important that they're treated humanely, but my lunch and winter wear is darned important too! Not to mention the ability to live on a safe and hospitable planet.
Jiminy jillikers people.
"We're growing cattle for their meat anyway, why waste the leather?"
1. Every additional consumer purchase contributes to the economic viability of the producer.
EVEN IF you disagree with the animal rights activists, this is simple math.
2. Instead of asking, "Why waste the leather after the slaughter?", how about asking, why not use this process to *replace* the need for slaughter, i.e. why not work toward making this process an economically feasible substitute for producing meat?
Won't it be destroyed by things like the tanning process? I mean, It's not like we yank the skin off a cow and slap it on our backs, the leather is cured/tanned to make it more durable and useful as a material for making a jacket. It's an interesting idea but it is more of a animal rights statement than a realistic way to replace using animal hides for clothing IMHO.
- F1 NEWS
The focus behind this work is 'victimless' leather."
So where do they get the human bones from? Or aren't we supposed to ask that?
It rubbs the lotion on its skin...
Seamless leather clothes, grown exactly to your dimensions -- now that's something I'd pay money for! Most of my leather jackets seem to come apart at the seams after several years of continuous use and abuse... can they also genetically engineer these cells for different pigments and eliminate the dyeing done on most natural leather products?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Does the tanning process actually change the dimensions of the skin in question? Curing usually involves stretching the skin, doesn't it?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Next they should work out how to grow pure cotton fibres so they can save the senseless slaughter of millions of cotton plants every year... just so us hairless apes can stay warm!
I'm outraged that they have chosen the ignoble cow to save, itself guilty of torturing living plants (did you know they eat them alive... then chew them and grind them up several times before sending them to four, count them four stomaches to be slowly and cruelly digested via the use of ACID!).
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
The Reindeer or the Reindeer bone lasso?
I can get leather whenever I want it and until we all stop eating real meat the leather I buy won't be hurting any animals.
What I want is a chairdog!
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Maybe you could get a small sample of Fluffy's skin. (I'm sure Fluffy wouldn't object--It's all in the name of science, right?) And grow your coat that ends up looking like your pet. I bet you could really freak out someone who gave you the pet in the first place! "Dude, I'm am SO glad you had to move to that apartment and you had to give up Fluffy. Check out my coat!"
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
The article implied they're going to keep the cells alive after making the jacket.
How about using chameleon skin cells?
At the least, what the pictures have shown is not leather. Leather is what you have after tanning a hide (a process which usually involves chemicals or enzymes, if I recall correctly). What is shown is raw hide, untreated skin (and, in this case, bone).
I grew up in the rural areas of the northern Rocky Mountains, and I've seen more than one disembowled deer corpse hanging from a garage ceiling--among other things that would make a vegan howl in rage (after heaving, of course). Those images still disturb me, as does the concept of engineering flesh and bone from two different species to create an item of clothing.
And I can't help but wonder how they got the human bone cells for that ghastly project.
~UP
Eat the Path.
Burns: Some men hunt for sport, Others hunt for food, The only thing I'm hunting for, Is an outfit that looks good... See my vest, see my vest, Made from real gorilla chest, Feel this sweater, there's no better, Than authentic Irish setter. See this hat, 'twas my cat, My evening wear - vampire bat, These white slippers are albino African endangered rhino. Grizzly bear underwear, Turtles' necks, I've got my share, Beret of poodle, on my noodle It shall rest, Try my red robin suit, It comes one breast or two, See my vest, see my vest, See my vest. Like my loafers? Former gophers - It was that or skin my chauffeurs, But a greyhound fur tuxedo Would be best, So let's prepare these dogs, Mrs. Potts: Kill two for matching clogs, Burns: See my vest, see my vest, Oh please, won't you see my vest.
Uh, wow. What's next, a chair made of human skulls?
[o]_O
Don't be silly. If we can make a mouse skin and human bone jacket, surely we can make meat grow in vats too or better yet, on trees. Not necessarily just beef either...
Obligatory quote:
Fry: Oh my God! What if the secret ingredient... is people!
Leela: No, they already have a drink like that: Soylent Cola.
Fry: Oh. How is it?
Leela: It varies from person to person.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
mmm ... sliders
I was reminded of the alien in the Independance Day movie, which is "wearing" what looks like a living outer body shell.
If we could manage to make that concept into reality, it would be great for sending humans in hostile environments, inside living suits genetically engineered to thrive there.
Like another poster in this thread, I was intially quite disgusted but then lightened up significantly. My shoes would be mooing, my lunch would have been oinking, and more than one of the toys I've bought for my cats would be hopping happily in an alfalfa field somewhere under different circumstances.
If you can create bulk tissue for consumption as food or leather without harming an animal capable of feeling pain or fear, then so be it. I'll be the first in line.
Then I thought about Oola, a character from a anime called 'El Hazard'. Diehards will know it well.
Oola was a minor character, basically cat-like in appearance, who also served as a protective vest for the main character. Her skin and body stretched so that she could be worn like a belt or harness. It was stated that she was 'magically' engineered. While she spoke, she had animal intelligence.
One of the more creepy scenes was when she yelped in pain after sheilding her master from injury.
Since we're approaching this same kind of technology in real life rather than fantasy, it starts making you think about the logistics of wearing living tissue as clothing. These guys keep talking about 'partially alive' clothing, so I can't help but think that's their ultimate goal. Killing tissue and curing it to make leather is another issue altogether.
- Animal tissue can't photosynthesize. We're not up to changing cell structure on that level yet. Therefore, you'd have to have some method of providing nutrition to any living garment.
- Living tissue must excrete the products of respiration. You could theoretically sweat it off, but who'd want to clean the equivalent of dried urine off their coat every day? Having bladders built into the coat to collect excrement means that you have to let your coat urinate or defecate regularly.
- Living tissue can, by definition, be injured. You can patch or sew up a leather coat in the worst possible case short of complete destruction. How would you deal with a coat infection or cut? Imagine having to buy antibiotics for your coat or worse.
- Cured leather has the property of being somewhat resistant to cold because most of the water has been drawn out of it. Leather sustains damage at temperatures well below what living tissue can survive. A living coat would be prone to frost burns, sun burns, or worse.
Eeewww...
Does it look anything like this?
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
All the comments indicating that the cows will still get slaughtered in millions, even if we have artifical hide are very true. It might be agood idea then to follow on this concept. How would everyone feel about eating a nice juicy steak with the only difference being that it was cultured artifically rather then comming from the animal. Research for medical purposes is already advancing in context of organ regenertion/regrowing.
Why dont we try artifcal milk as well etc. etc... except i get the feeling that this way will just lead to the universal "food pill". Lets just hope that people will still like to taste their food in the future.
It puts the lotion on its skin...
Normal primary cell cultures i.e. ones that would be made from real tissue can only divide so many times before they stop. Some contend that this is due to innate limitations in normal cells - others say it just reflects the way cells are grown in culture - no matter - cancer cells and some pre-cancerous cells have the property of being "immortalized" in that they can be cultured indefinitely.
The article says that the cells were of the immortal variety which mean that they were likely derived from tumors or other abnormal cells (like teratomas which I believe is the source of 3T3 cells..) - so no humans or mice were injured in the process (well maybe the first mouse...).
Leather would be a big deal, but I think fur would be bigger. The presence of cheap and abundant lab-grown real fur, leather and hide could alter the clothing market as much as the discovery of synthetic fiber. Plus it would utterly erase poaching, and could save a few species.
Yeah, what if the thing decides you're pretty tasty, yourself?
Ick.
(cue Twilight Zone/Outer Limits/X-Files theme)
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
I hope all you anti-meat vegans realize something when you claim we can replace cow grazing fields with wheat fields. Millions of innocent animals still get slaughtered by the threshing machines that harvest that wheat. Think about that next time you're chewing on a granola bar.