Researchers Create Beating Heart In Lab

Sunday Scientist writes "Minnesota researchers have created a beating heart in the laboratory. In a process called whole organ decellularization, they grew functioning heart tissue by using dead rat and pig hearts as a sort of flesh matrix, and reseeding them with a mixture of live cells. The goal is to grow replacement parts, using their own stem cells, for people born with defective tickers or experiencing heart failure."

Comments

Wizard of Oz

[hack slash]

Tin Man will be so pleased.

Re:Wizard of Oz

[infonography]

Oz never gave nothing to the Tin Man.......

Ok that was heartless.

Re:Wizard of Oz

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually...he never gave ANYTHING to the TinMan, and THAT is what's heartless. Had he actually NOT given him NOTHING then I'd consider that charity!

Re:Wizard of Oz

[EugeneK]

Mod up +10000, Pedantic!

Re:Wizard of Oz

[kiddygrinder]

Only by the rules of mathematics, by the rules of english he was merely being emphatic

Re:Wizard of Oz

[slashbob22]

Yes, Quite! Mod up +10000; shallow and pedantic.

Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[CRCulver]

With the advances in biotechnology, it's amusing to think that Larry Niven in his Gil "The Arm" Hamilton stories (collected in Flatlander ) foresaw a future where you'd get the death penalty for just about anything just so that the state could rip out your organs for donation into someone needing it. In Niven's future history, the use of organ transplants ends only hundreds of years in the future when alloplasty ("gadgets instead of organs") is developed. Now, in just 2007, we're getting close to synthesizing real organs instead of transplanting or making little machines.

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[cnettel]

Or, maybe, like in many kinds of SF, the specifics of technology available is just as well chosen to make the story interesting, even in hard SF. It's supposed to tickle your imagination, not as a technology roadmap. Hence, to paint the picture of a society where this becomes common practice over the course of generations, of course you need to stipulate that the problem is hard, just like some people chose to assume that somewhat-strong AI or FTL drive is far more feasible than it was maybe reasonable to assume.

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, to the creators of that incredibly crap film "The Island" it was unthinkable only a few years ago.

(As a biochemist, it annoyed me no end. Not only did it ignore likely advances, it ignored or contravened current science and known medicine of the time. The writers should have been shot, and some proper science fiction authors hired).

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[Firethorn]

In this case, I figure that the creator was going for serious SciFi, not just a mcguffin to make the story interesting. You just have to remember that even the most expert SciFi writer isn't going to be 100% of on the science of his day - much less how it'll play out in the future.

Wikipedia placed the publish date of "The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton" in 1976, The first successful kidney transplant was in 1954(for identical twins, so no rejection)and the first human heart & liver transplants were in 1967.

So, at the time the story was written - humanity seemed to be on a steady march towards being able to transplant more and more organs. Cloning hadn't made the news yet. Stem cells were hardly known to the public.

So I could see an author, in 1976, positing that eventually our desire for replacement organs might warp society a bit. The usage of convicts sentenced to death for this would be the mcguffin, as would the expansion of death penalty cases.

Meanwhile, 30 years later we're getting close to being able to clone (just)organs, we've discovered making computers fast and small is easier than large and smart, we have NOT conquered the human mind, space, or the sea like the writers of the '50s thought.

At least we aren't quite as screwed up as the author of 'soylent green' would have you believe.

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[cnettel]

I really don't see the conflict between serious science fiction and some degree of artistic license. The point is that the scenario should seem conceivable, "this is one possible future development". It doesn't have to be the one that the author her/himself deems the very most likely. After all, if every story written was part of the author's personal ML estimate optimum of the future at the point of writing, one would either run into a complete inability to write any coherent works (the prediction would continuously change), or lock it at one point in time and then go on writing about the same stuff.

To say that Niven predicted that synthetical organs wouldn't be possible for hundreds of years is like saying that Clarke predicted that a 1:4:9 monolith should have been found on the moon about ten years ago, and that the creats of that monolith should have seeded human intelligence. Despite those aspects, both authors try to give a somewhat "realistic" view of a possible future, but that doesn't change the fact that some aspects are chosen more for the benefit of the story or to explore an interesting issue, rather than for the purpose of prediction.

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[ppanon]

Well, Niven's government ordered organ collection stories may not have been too far off either if Falun Dafa practitioners are to be believed. There's been ongoing rumours of organlegging in Asia for a while, and even the UK is being more aggressive about organ collection.

The advantage of using your own stem cells instead of parts of some poor sap cut up for his crimes or beliefs, is that the former should be less subject to rejection. Assuming they ever get this approach viable for use in humans. I'm hoping so because, as the population becomes an increasingly aged one in Western countries, the pressure on organ banks is going to increase. And as the population becomes increasingly obese, the supply of healthy candidates for organ donations is only going to decrease.

Oh well, it could be worse. Transplants could have been available back when people thought debtor's prison was a good idea.

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[AJWM]

I don't know if it'd be correct to describe the gift from Earth as "gadgets"; they were grown organs, not requiring a host body.

As for Niven's earlier future, you might want to take a closer look at what goes on elsewhere in the world.

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, did you read "A Gift From Earth"? That's when Niven described precisely this technology, and it disrupted the social order you refer to. He wrote it in the late 60s. Yeah, he missed it by a country mile. Wanker.

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Jigsaw Man" (also by Niven) is more succinct, and earlier.

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[Firethorn]

To say that Niven predicted that synthetical organs wouldn't be possible for hundreds of years

My point was that he didn't think of it. Just like how writers of the 50s tended to make computers huge, because the computers of the day were huge, and getting larger as their power increased.

Heck, if we went back to the days of analogue cell phones, when pagers outnumbered actual phones 100 to 1, and told you that your phone would eventually have a camera and a music player, and you could surf(selected parts, at least) the web with it, would you believe us?

We can't predict how life will be like hundreds of years in the future with any accuracy. Heck we're doing good to get a 50% rate in the next 10 years.

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[dkleinsc]

So can we have your liver then?

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly enough, the UK is on the verge of legislating a 'presumed consent' statue for human organs immediately upon death. You can 'opt out' if you want your body parts to remain contiguous after your death. Given that all hospitals in the UK are public, this policy might give the UK government an even greater incentive to expanding the definition of 'dead' so that organs can be re-used as quickly as possible. I wonder if a patient awaiting a suitable organ could sue the hospital for not declaring someone dead as soon as possible?
Looks like we may be travelling on parallel paths; rapid organ recovery, organ growth, and organ substitution. And why not?

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Soylent Green was based on the book Make Room! Make Room!. In the book, soylent green is made from soy and lentils.

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[WhiteWolf666]

I'd like to remind everyone about the suspicious connection in China between a very large number of death penalty cases and extremely rapid organ transplants.

For the average transplant recipient, the waiting time in China is approximately 2 weeks. 2 weeks. This compares to months or even years in the U.S.

With this in mind, I do not think Mr. Niven's idea is quaint or naive at all.

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[Firethorn]

Good point WhiteWolf.

Some of this could also be attributed to China's relative lack of safety standards, resulting in more dead people suitable for organ 'donation'. But it's also that 'donation' is more or less mandatory there, and death penalty cases are not exempt.

With this in mind, I do not think Mr. Niven's idea is quaint or naive at all.

The only think preventing Niven's scenario being widespread today is a strong ethical background. The only reasons that it doesn't happen more is that the west has a strong ethical background, while areas that don't generally aren't up to transplanting organs.

Now, to approach from a more contrarian angle - a stronger organ donation requirement can save lives, so it could be considered ethical. Still, these are quandries to be decided on by boards of doctors, scholars, potential donors and patients.

This is partially why I welcome this development so much - It helps eliminate so many ethical concerns.

Sure, growing a pig* in special conditions to provide the donor structure** to grow a new heart or other organ is expensive, but this way we don't have to wait for a tragedy to provide a rescue. Once perfected, this could kill conventional organ transplants completely - Would you want to have to take immune suppression drugs for the rest of your life, and still risk rejection? Or have a heart grown from your own tissues, eliminating that risk?

When it comes down to it though, I wouldn't be surprised if they manage some sort of printing process for the organ structure - not need a donor organ to decell at all.

*or other suitable animal
**While having the cells of a different animal is pretty much a sure path towards rejection, it is generally possible to transplant non-cellular structures like bone without rejection. If nothing else, it could be temporary as the body changes out the structure of the organ during normal 'maintenance', meaning you only need to take the drugs for a few months/years.

Re:Unthinkable just 25 years ago

[Shajenko42]

This is exactly why I'm not an organ donor. Not because I particularly care what happens to my organs after my death, but because I want to increase my chances of surviving. I don't want any part of my surgeon's mind thinking "There's a kid in Kansas that could really use this liver."

Interesting engineering opportunities

[G4from128k]

This presents a long-term opportunity for the next phase in body modification. Who says that a "replacement" organ must be identical to the original equipment? Perhaps athletes will opt for an enlarged six-chambered heart or an abdominal booster-heart to improve endurance.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[britneys 9th husband]

I doubt it. It would be almost impossible to hide a 6 chambered artificial heart from the IOC doping testers. You'd be much better off just sticking to old fashioned performance enhancing drugs. Someone will probably be dumb enough to try it though.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[JazzyMusicMan]

Considering the fact that the new fetal heart was only pumping at 1/4th the normal heart's capacity suggests you might already need a bigger heart. Although, if they were able to grow a heart that functioned exactly how an original would, what animal can you think of has those kinds of modifications? From the article, you can read that they simply created a new heart using the lattice structure of the original heart.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Anonymous Coward]

You shouldn't have to hide it. Each sport should have an entirely-separate class for modders and dopers.

This is how we're going to evolve, from here on out. Natural selection doesn't work in a welfare state.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Badgam]

Even non-athletes could benefit from various forms of heart enhancement and engineering; of course, this discovery is currently very rudimentary compared to the longer term potential, but the door would be opened to engineering custom-tailored enhancement hearts for no other reason than to enhance performance, longevity, efficiency, or whatever else a person desires. There's going to be a lot of money in supplying them, too; the transplant backlog market will shrink pretty quickly once these start entering mass production, so anyone manufacturing these hearts would have to start expanding their offerings to reach out to discretionary rather than medically necessary markets. Organ replacement and organ enhancement would be just another expansion of the discretionary medical market; of course, they would also offer some pretty significant benefits above and beyond the ability to replace aging organs with better ones. I'm looking forward to it myself.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Surt]

Nearly every sport has a doping and non-doping league already. The problem is, people will only pay to see the non-doping leagues at the moment. Which means all the money is in the non-doping league. Which means all the dopers try to cheat and compete in the non-doping league. This problem seems unlikely to ever go away.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[pedrop357]

I wonder if a fetish would develop for chest scars...

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Badgam]

If it exists, there's a fetish for it. So the answer is yes.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Fred_A]

Nearly every sport has a doping and non-doping league already. The problem is, people will only pay to see the non-doping leagues at the moment. Which means all the money is in the non-doping league. Which means all the dopers try to cheat and compete in the non-doping league. This problem seems unlikely to ever go away. It seemed to me it was the other way around. But then I don't really follow the sports.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[sltd]

The problem is you would have to make it from existing stem cells. You would probably get them from the person, or wherever. If I understand it correctly, you would be limited to normal human physiology, for compatibility reasons. There's the form factor, yes, but also getting everything connected, and you'd have to actually grow a six-chambered heart. At this stage, they're just barely getting a beating heart, so creative engineering like you're suggesting is, at best, quite a way away.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[bwalling]

This is how we're going to evolve, from here on out.

I seriously hope that I die before that comes to pass. Given the greed in this world, modding humans will only lead to a greater disparity between "have" and "have not." I'd like to hope for better, but it seems like that would just be foolish.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[ehrichweiss]

What I've often wondered is why our artificial hearts have a heartbeat. I mean, if it only has to move blood, why don't we use something akin to a centrifugal pump that would move blood in a constant stream instead of thump-thump-----thump-thump-----thump-thump? It seems there are more moving parts in an artificial heart than would be necessary.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the greed in this world, modding humans will only lead to a greater disparity between "have" and "have not." I'd like to hope for better, but it seems like that would just be foolish.

Well, as things stand, there has never been a greater disparity between haves and have-nots... and gee, the have-nots have never had it so well. In America, our 21st-century trailer trash lives better than 19th-century royalty.

You can make fun of trickle-down economic theory all you want, but like the XKCD cartoon about the microwave-anisotropy measurements that proved the Big Bang, "It works, bitches."

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[MotorMachineMercenar]

"What I've often wondered is why our artificial hearts have a heartbeat. I mean, if it only has to move blood, why don't we use something akin to a centrifugal pump that would move blood in a constant stream..."

That's more than likely to result in your body's finely tuned system malfunctioning. Just imagine taking a "normal" engine out of a car and replacing it with Mazda's Wanker engine - I'm sure you'll end up with with a huge mess, leaking fluids all over the place. Not to mention a broken crank shaft.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Prof.Phreak]

I think there's one that uses the constant stream thing... (read about it on slashdot a few years ago?). I think the downside is that it causes arteries to accumulate stuff (ie: the beats tend to move things that would otherwise settle on the walls).

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Rich0]

I dunno - you're thinking about haves and have-nots in terms of cash. But I'm thinking in terms of genetics. Why should some girls be "prettier" than others, and some guys able to run faster, think smarter, play piano better, or be born without what we'd consider "mental defects"? This way in theory anybody could participate in the Tour de France, or marry an old rich guy.

In any case, I think its inevitable - so there is not much point in arguing about it. Everybody uses their strengths to make up for their weaknesses. The fact that humans are much better in brains than just about anything else just means that the brains will figure out a way to make up for the rest.

What's the difference between having a few extra heart chambers vs wearing eyeglasses or a hearing aid?

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Badgam]

Honestly, it doesn't bother me if this leads to greater disparity. The fact is that it will benefit me, and that is all that ultimately matters. I'm going to have the skills, the money, and the knowledge to take advantage of this new technology and use it to increase my competitive edge, and although this may sound harsh I really don't give a damn if its unfair to everyone else. Fairness is nothing but a myth; life has never been fair and it is neither possible nor desirable to attempt to create it. Through my work and my hard effort I make myself better...that's really all I'd be doing.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Gideon Fubar]

Western medicine has always been about making sick people kinda better again.. once the person gets to that point, we tend to leave them to their own devices, until they're sick again.

Growing and harvesting organs is fine in scifi.. but in real life it seems to make people squeamish. Just like the concepts of open heart surgery and organ transplants used to make people squeamish.. also notably like the concept of x-rays, CT scans and cancer treatments don't make them quite so squeamish.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[G-funk]

Don't know much about cars, huh? People do that all the time. A mate of mine's got an old Gemmie with no engine awaiting a silly little 12A instead of a real motor.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Wonko the Sane]

Forget about athletes; just think of all the people who buy viagra now

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Anonymous Coward]

life has never been fair and it is neither possible nor desirable to attempt to create it

If the game isn't fair, don't look down on those who choose not to play it.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Badgam]

I don't. I'd rather someone make a free choice about themselves than be forced in to doing or being something they don't want; as long as they don't directly threaten or harm others with their decision, they are free to do whatever they wish. That freedom is all I really care about, because it applies just as much to me as it does to them.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[ehrichweiss]

Well, I put a Dodge 360 in a Triumph TR7 and it ran faster than any car we went against ever and I've seen more than my share of other "transplants" so maybe you could find another analogy rather than a car. Besides, your analogy would translate to the Jarvik artificial heart as well since it technically doesn't belong in the human body either.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[bwalling]

Because only the haves will be able to afford enhancement. With enhancements, they'll have even more relative to those that don't and the gap will widen. The gap will continue to widen as the haves continue to enhance themselves away from the have nots. That's pretty straightforward. If you can improve yourself and give yourself an advantage, then surely you will choose to do so. Those that cannot will then be even further disadvantaged. This is why there are scholarships and grants and whatnot to enable the poor to go to college - otherwise, they would be permanently disadvantaged, as the rich can afford college and they can't.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Raenex]

Western medicine has always been about making sick people kinda better again Abortions and cosmetic surgery. Athletes going in for LASIK to get better than 20/20. Choosing the sex of your baby. It's going to be a brave new world.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Anonymous Coward]

There certainly are artificial hearts which do not beat, at least in the testing stages. You will have to Google them for yourself though, as I don't remember any names.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[ikkonoishi]

I think they would prefer to have some glucose/lactic acid sequestering glands placed within large muscle groups. Imagine a 2 km sprinter.

Captcha = Turgid

Violent action ensues.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[DieByWire]

This presents a long-term opportunity for the next phase in body modification.

Great. I can't wait to get more email offering me a new organ...

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Gideon Fubar]

heh.. by 'always', i guess i meant 'traditionally'.. :) Either way, it's an exciting time to be alive.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[gad_zuki!]

You must be pretty blind to not see this already. Its funny how we're not supposed to notice the disparity in healthcare in the US. People from wealthier families get insurance and a lifetime of dental work. Those who dont, well, dont. They also get access to mental health professionals. Poor people dont, thus the mass of toothless, poor, sick, and crazy people. The distinction should be obvious already, adding bluetooth to someones skull isnt that much worse.

Lastly, we're cyborgs today. Our dependance on modern healthcare and our lifetime of using these technologies (vaccines, operations, dental work, etc) makes this "scary future" very real right now.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[esper]

Hell... Even if it doesn't exist there's a fetish for it.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Anonymous Coward]

So? Inferior servants might not be a bad idea as long as they do not rise up against us improved humans. With enough modification to our brains and bodies that'll be nothing to worry about though, I can't see what a lowly human can do against my brain with an IQ of 300 compared to a normal human and a body of steel (I see no reason to stay with the weak human body, it'll only hold us back).

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Badgam]

Actually, I'm going to speculate here: If it exists, there is a fetish for it. If it does not exist, not only is there a fetish for it but someone will make it exist solely for the purpose of indulging said fetish.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[nyonix]

Its not selfish to think of yourself first, its self preservation in the works, just remember to help those who ask for it.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[jimicus]

This way in theory anybody could participate in the Tour de France

Provided they can afford the surgery. Even in countries with free/cheap healthcare, this kind of thing won't be available cheap.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Archimonde]

This way in theory anybody could participate in the Tour de France, or marry an old rich guy.

Average Joe + double heart "much less than" Professional athlete + double heart + rigorous training + other modifications + more money.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[sloth jr]

That would be interesting, except that's not what the article describes. The article describes a process of removing all the cells in the target organ, leaving the framework tissue. Then, cells are injected into the framework and grown into the original structure. So more like ripping off all the siding, drywall, and insulation of your house, and replacing it with new siding, drywall, and insulation - the floorplan doesn't change.

sloth jr

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[bwalling]

I don't disagree with you. I'm just saying that genetic engineering and bio enhancements are going to further the gap. There is already a large gap. The gap is going to get a lot worse with these things.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[UbuntuDupe]

I'll start caring about income inequality, when the egalitarians that gripe about it start caring about inequality in beauty and access to sex.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[KDR_11k]

I'm going to have the skills, the money, and the knowledge to take advantage of this new technology

Or that's what YOU think.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[KDR_11k]

Actually you'd want the slave to perform better than the master (because the master doesn't really need any boosts, he's not gonna use them anyway), just program him to consider his position the greatest thing ever. Keeping physical superiority isn't going to do much, I'm fairly sure weapons technology will always stay ahead of body enhancement tech enough to destroy even super-boosted humans with the right gun. Mind control is much bttersuited for the job.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[AxelBoldt]

Fairness is nothing but a myth; life has never been fair and it is neither possible nor desirable to attempt to create it.

I disagree very much with that sentiment. I'm a college teacher. People with your opinion get an automatic F in all my classes. You asked for it, don't whine that it ain't fair.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

This presents a long-term opportunity for the next phase in body modification. Who says that a "replacement" organ must be identical to the original equipment? Perhaps athletes will opt for an enlarged six-chambered heart or an abdominal booster-heart to improve endurance.

Currently (in the US) the medical community only allows drugs to be prescribed to people with existing medical problems, they're not allowed to be given to otherwise healthy people who are simply looking for a boost to their natural abilities. I would assume that this way of thinking would simply continue forward, with healthy people being forbidden from improving themselves with new body parts.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Leffe]

No, I intend to live my life without any risks until this technology becomes available -- then I intend to live for ever.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Kram_Gunderson]

This presents a long-term opportunity for the next phase in body modification. Who says that a "replacement" organ must be identical to the original equipment? Perhaps athletes will opt for an enlarged six-chambered heart or an abdominal booster-heart to improve endurance.

Well, this won't be happening for Olympic athletes, at least. Just today there was news that a double-amputee sprinter has been barred from competing in the Beijing olympics because his prosthetics give him an unfair advantage over 'able-bodied' sprinters. From the article: "[Scientists] found that Pistorius was able to run at the same speed as able bodied runners on about a quarter less energy."

In an interesting related article, William Salatan of Slate.com asks "If steroids are cheating, why isn't LASIK?", since many pro athletes are having the surgery to give them an unnaturally keen vision of 20/15 or even 20/10.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[darkfire5252]

What's the difference between having a few extra heart chambers vs wearing eyeglasses or a hearing aid?

A large sum of cash, payable to your local geneticist. That's why the haves and the have-nots would benefit disproportionately.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Badgam]

That's fine. I'd rather take an F and hold on to my dignity than lower myself to be in line with someone else's opinion.

Re:Interesting engineering opportunities

[Badgam]

I really might want to amend this, because in all honesty I sound like a real, real asshole: I don't believe that fairness should be an inherent goal of society if it means foregoing the benefits of things that might increase inequality. There's a difference between the creation of an unmeritocratic elite and the creation of an "elite" based upon skill and ability; the former almost always reaps all of the benefits for itself since it gives little back, while the second often invests huge amounts of resources back in to the rest of society because it is capable of realizing the benefits of that investment as well as its own origins.

I've always wanted to say this...

[Sergeant Pepper]

This is positively Final Fantasy 7-esque!

Tag this nineinchnails

[Nocterro]

Anyone else instantly reminded of the clip for "Closer", by Nine Inch Nails?

Long road ahead

[gone.fishing]

While on the surface this is very exciting and welcome news, understand that this: development still has a very long way to go before it will be truly useful. It will be a very long time until an engineered heart will be placed in a human chest saving someone's life. It may or may not happen in our lifetime (or ever for that matter).

Re:Long road ahead

[Firethorn]

development still has a very long way to go before it will be truly useful.

You might be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised if it happens in my lifetime.

They noted that the hearts were beating within 8 days - while I presume it might take longer for effective beating, I could see specially prepared pig hearts be decelled and then reseeded with stem cells from the human patient. A month later, they transplant, with no lingering need for immune suppression drugs.

While fusion is still two decades away, at least to me this seems to be at the '10 year' point. They merely have to ensure effective pumping of blood and get the process to work with human cells.

While they're doing this, perform test transplants with pigs where you create a replacement heart for a pig, then transplant the duplicate into the pig and see how it works.

After that, it's time to find a potential human recipient.

Re:Long road ahead

[autophile]

It may or may not happen in our lifetime (or ever for that matter).

Well, now I know where to order my supplies of humidity-saturated bedding ;)

I kid!

--Rob

Re:Long road ahead

[sukotto]

I just want them to grow me replacement teeth. The combination of poor oral care and weak enamel on my natural ones have messed me up pretty badly.
There's been some promising work done in the area. Eg. Growing teeth from stem cells and fabricating bones with a 3D printer.
But there's still so far to go :-(

Re:Long road ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand. My teeth are pretty good, but I like thinking in "proof of concept" terms. If animals can have constantly regenerating teeth, why not us? At any rate, I've heard of a machine that uses ultrasound to stimulate new teeth to grow.

http://www.rexresearch.com/chentoth/chentth.htm

Color me skeptical, but it would be nice if it worked. Or you can always become a Shane McGowan and just not care about your teeth.

Re:Long road ahead

[gone.fishing]

Firethorn

I looked at the website a-human-right.com and came to the conclusion that you may be a frend of a friend. Are your initials O.V. by chance? If so, a very good friend of yours lives right down the street from me! His initials are R.S.R. and runs a training originization that I think you may have founded...

Re:Long road ahead

[Firethorn]

Sorry, while I hang around on Oleg's boards a lot, my initials are not O.V., nor have I founded a training organization.

I simply believe in Oleg's cause enough to include a link in my sig.

choices, choices...

[smokejive]

Now the big question is, do I go for the replacement legs that give me more speed and let me jump higher, or do I become more stealthy. Choices, choices...

Re:choices, choices...

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about the possibilities!!! All "3n14rg3 ur p3n1z" spam-mails will lose their purpose... Just get some dead donkey and elephant tissue to grow on the proper place, and... Voilá!

Re:choices, choices...

[Wingnut64]

I can't wait to hear "My vision is augmented" by someone who doesn't get the reference.

Re:choices, choices...

[Constantine XVI]

Only reason one would wear sunglasses on a night operation.

(Deus Ex, IIRC)

Re:choices, choices...

[megaditto]

The whole game seemed to be a long-ass night operation. Seriously, do you ever recall seing blue sky in Deus Ex?

Re:choices, choices...

[all_the_names_are_ta]

It all happens in something like 24 hours, and with the world travel, it's conceivable that you could be spending the entire time in darkness.

Plus the cyberpunk genre doesn't work if you're trudging through verdant sunny meadows.

Be still my beating heart!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know there are going to be a lot jokes about 'dead rat and pig hearts' but you all are going to miss the obvious:

"...as a sort of flesh matrix..."

Imagine waking up from a cyber-dream only to realize you're competing with dead rats and pigs...

Re:Be still my beating heart!

[ZeroExistenZ]

Imagine waking up from a cyber-dream only to realize you're competing with dead rats and pigs...

Are you that guy with the sign; "Will code HTML for food"?

Re:Be still my beating heart!

[Anonymous Coward]

no, but it's uncanny you should post that. here's the deal, I've been using mechanical turk to complete HIT's (basically like break CAPTCHA's, or any other task you can't automate well, sometimes OCR, "what would a person search for who wanted to find", etc etc.) I have like $30 like that, but as you can see from the screenshots:

as HIT completer

as HIT requester (same account

I can't use that balance to request hits of my own! I have to charge as little as $1 into a requester account to use it, which is total bullshit because it's the same system.

Anyway I don't have a credit card, but I'd like a requester account with $1 so I can try some automation ($1 will be enough, because HITs are like a penny each), and in exchange I can code something simple for you in Python or Perl, or C or C++, or maybe do some resarch for you with Google if you don't have time to find something but know it's online, maybe differently phrased or something. Or anything else like that. (help you QA something -- i was an intern before as as a qa 'engineer' before, ie test your software, or anything else)

If you (or anyone) is up for that, please reply with an obfuscated e-mail so we can talk.

(p.s. of course you can just add $1 and then remove your payment method again, you dont have to trust me with your cc number, and you can even do that once i've coded for you or whatever)

Thanks a lot!

Big Step

[usul294]

This is a big step for biotech, and I'm glad to see it, improving longevity and quality of life is a noble goal in science. I wonder when the development is complete, a machine organ replacements, or cellular organ replacements are the ones that better/more popular.

Re:Big Step

[Badgam]

Honestly, I've wondered about this myself. I think it will really be a personal choice more than anything. Of course, some people might appreciate the various advantages of each; mechanical hearts, after all, would likely be far easier to customize and adjust post-formation, giving you more control over the device once it's implanted. Also, it may be possible to achieve greater levels of performance with an artificial device than a biological one. The main challenge would be at the surgical step; it would require somewhat more work to ensure the body does not reject the artificial heart. It's likely that a biological heart would be cheaper than a mechanical one, but at the cost of some performance and ability to modify once it has been grown.

Re:Big Step

[nsaneinside]

improving longevity ... is a noble goal in science.

Is it? I'm not so sure. True, there are few who wish to die, and advancing technology in the medical world allows us to delay death for some amount of time. Isn't that selfish, though, in a world where resources are at a premium, and hundreds of thousands die each year of malnutrition?

How much are we willing to put into saving a single life, when the same resources could be used to save a hundred?

Re:Big Step

[rothic]

Is it? I'm not so sure. True, there are few who wish to die, and advancing technology in the medical world allows us to delay death for some amount of time. Isn't that selfish, though, in a world where resources are at a premium, and hundreds of thousands die each year of malnutrition? You will be remembered as a hero. I, on the other hand, am a selfish prick and look forward to taking advantage (selfishly of course) of all that western science and technology has to offer.

Re:Big Step

[Badgam]

I don't see why they're mutually exclusive; either way, we're increasing longevity. If anything, they should both be our goals; increasing longevity through science and technology will greatly increase the amount of skilled and educated people at our disposal to use solving other problems.

Re:Big Step

[KiahZero]

Malnutrition is caused entirely by economics, not a lack of substantive scientific work.

Install several in parallel

[MonkeyBoyo]

If you can grow replacement hears, then you can grow more than one.

Think of the gains of installing 2 in parallel, or even 4.

Though it would probably be nice to get their beating synchronized.

Re:Install several in parallel

[qw0ntum]

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those things! ...sorry.

Re:Install several in parallel

[AJWM]

The hydrodynamics would be interesting. Yeah, two in parallel, synchronized, would probably be simplest from that standpoint, but one wonders what it would do to one's blood pressure. The complications are probably why no animal has ever evolved a double (separate) heart (no vertebrate, anyway). (We need two pumps as it is to compensate for the pressure drop in (1) the lungs and (2) rest of the body, we solve that by making the two pumps beat as one, as it were (our four-chambered heart, one side for venous blood the other for arterial).

Re:Install several in parallel

[Anonymous Coward]

Though it would probably be nice to get their beating synchronized. This is very important. People who post on Slashdot already illustrate what beating off can do.

Re:Install several in parallel

[Nazlfrag]

That's just taking Dr. Who cosplay way too far.

Re:Install several in parallel

[MonkeyBoyo]

Umm, the reason that no vertebrate has developed two parallel hearts is that evolution has found it much easier just to increase the size of one heart as needed.

In humans who live long enough to die from old-age problems, having 2 parallel hearts could be an advantage because if one failed there would be a backup.

However death by heart disease is only historically a recent major cause of mortality, and most victims are past the age that reproductive fitness could work out a dual-heart solution.

Re:Install several in parallel

[Mantaar]

I don't think it has much to do with hydrodynamics. You don't want your veins to explode, do you? So you're not likely to have two hearts that beat as fast as the original one heart -- instead you'll have two hearts beating half as many times per minute as to decrease the wear'n'tear on both of them and thus minimize the risk of an infarct and any other heart disease; while still maintaining the same amount of heartbeat overall. You would still have to figure out a control mechanism that is able to throttle both the hearts (and of course, keep them in sync - that's why it has at least a bit to do with hydrodynamics), but that's it.

I still think having two hearts is kind of pointless. Except for the 'double-safe-backup' thing. People that do a lot of sports or work in a stressful position would actually like that as it effectively is two life insurances in one: one backup and both do less work overall and are less likely to fail. Actually, that's quite nice.

Re:Install several in parallel

[dvice_null]

Octopus has 3 hearts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus

I suggest that you read how octopus uses the hearts. We could simply use one heart for the brain, other heart for the legs etc.

Re:Install several in parallel

[bytesex]

Hearts need (oxygenated) blood themselves. You could only feed the venous-blood-heart with oxygenated blood if you rerouted some of the the arterial-blood-heart-blood back to the venous-blood-heart, which makes it impractical.

Re:Install several in parallel

[dwarfsoft]

Wait! If they can grow them bigger then we all really could end up with a heart as big as Phar Lap's.

Re:Install several in parallel

[AiToyonsNostril]

Damnit, and my mod points expired few days ago. This comment was awesome.

Re:Install several in parallel

[steveo777]

The poster said vertebrates. Octopus are invertebrates. Read the article you linked. Well, it's not technically reliable being on Wikipedia, but the fact still remains.

On the other hand there are a lot of countries that require anesthetic if you are to operate on an octopus. Neat. By the way, Tako can be rather tasty!

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because Larry Niven didn't conceive of it happening for one of his science fiction worlds doesn't mean it was "unthinkable". It wasn't even "unthinkable" there, it was just at a different spot in the timeline. It's hardly something new (or noteworthy) for an SF writer to make poor or inconsistent predictions about future technologies, and I don't see why you'd derive much amusement by looking back on it (especially considering that the SF-style applications of this technology are as much vaporware as claims about AI made 20 years ago - the foundation isn't the house).

Cool, but...

[owlnation]

...it's pronounced "Fronkensteen".

Re:Cool, but...

[pragma_x]

Well, then isn't is "Frowdwick"?

Re:cool, but...

[jimicus]

You are one sick puppy, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Brains beat Evolution.

[headkase]

I'm firmly in Kurzweil's camp with developments like this. I intend to live just long enough (naturally) that I can live forever (engineered).

Re:Brains beat Evolution.

[Badgam]

Yeah, that's my basic goal. Keep myself as is healthy as a way of reaping the benefits of these technologies, with the end goal of some kind of indefinite lifespan. The way I figure it, I'll only be 63 in 2050, so my odds are pretty much 100% as long as somebody doesn't kill me. And if that happens, well, there wasn't much I could've done about it in the first place.

Re:Brains beat Evolution.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if I find you first, heathen

Re:Brains beat Evolution.

[Raenex]

I intend to live just long enough (naturally) that I can live forever (engineered). What's the probability that something can go wrong so that you don't live forever? I mean, forever is an awfully long time. I'd be surprised if humanity survives for a million years into the future, let alone 1 person. The thing about technology is that the more powerful it is the more destruction just a single person can do -- and that's just one of the threats.

What about your brain? Is it going to be backed up somewhere so that they could restore it? Can they restore it into two different people? Are you confident that *you* would still be alive?

Re:Brains beat Evolution.

[Badgam]

Way I view it is "live forever or die trying"...if I can't do it, so be it. I'll try like hell, but in the end if it's simply not available, there isn't a damn thing I can do. I'm not going to obsess Ultimately, the only way to really be sure you are you following a transfer from and biological to artificial brain is through memory and conscious continuity; if there's no conscious or memory break between being a person and being uploaded, you can be confident that you're the same person. It would be far less risky from a philosophical standpoint to replace the brain with artificial parts and gradually integrate with a machine than to try to scan yourself and effectively kill off your body and brain. Either way, this is a while down the road. Hopefully, our biological lives still have a good amount of time left, although I can't deny the thought of being able to live a massively long biological life and communicate directly with various intelligences, both human and artificial is pretty damn beautiful. I could spend an eternity doing that for sure; besides, most afterlives would be like that anyways and I'd rather do that here than in the great beyond, where I'd have to risk punishment for not believing the right way.

Re:Brains beat Evolution.

[Raenex]

Way I view it is "live forever or die trying" Sure, that's a common view -- most people want to live forever. I just disagree with the wild optimism of Kurzweil's followers. Technology for drastically extending life may just be around the corner, but I think eventually everybody will face death. Just remember that technology can be used for both health and destruction, accidents happen, etc. If nothing else there's the heat death of the Universe as a possibility :)

It would be far less risky from a philosophical standpoint to replace the brain with artificial parts and gradually integrate with a machine than to try to scan yourself and effectively kill off your body and brain But accidents will happen, ones that will overcome your little nano-machines, and that's when you'll need the offline backup. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is fun reading if you haven't read it yet.

Re:Brains beat Evolution.

[Badgam]

Sure, that's a common view -- most people want to live forever. I just disagree with the wild optimism of Kurzweil's followers. Technology for drastically extending life may just be around the corner, but I think eventually everybody will face death. Just remember that technology can be used for both health and destruction, accidents happen, etc. If nothing else there's the heat death of the Universe as a possibility :) Yeah, I'm kind of hoping we're either going to get an oscillating universe or escape to another one through some unknown, presently technobabble means, although it would be interesting to see what would happen to information processing in the heat-death universe (especially when those quantum actions start occurring at a macro scale). I would say I'm a follower of Kurzweil, in a very broad sense, but I do see what you mean. "Immortality" in its truest sense would require you to outright overcome the limits of the universe itself, and that's pretty much Godhood we're talking about. Not that it's necessarily impossible, but it's going to take a long time for any physical being to even remotely have such abilities even at an exponential rate of growth. So, for the foreseeable future, you will still be killable even if you don't die of diseases or the degeneration caused by aging. Regardless of what you do, any physical body is going to be subject to the same general constraints as any other; if you fall in to a volcano, get nuked, get shot or go too close to a star, you're going to die whether you're 50 years old or 50 million. Stuff can still kill you. I think the goal is to have indefinite lifespan; live as long as you want free from aging, illness, or other issues related to the body itself, and then attempt to

But accidents will happen, ones that will overcome your little nano-machines, and that's when you'll need the offline backup. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is fun reading if you haven't read it yet. (I love Down and Out) I think any person will need a lot of backups of multiple forms just to be safe; that's just good sense from an engineering perspective. I mean, sure there's the debate whether or not the backup is the same person, but at least I have it regardless. It's better than not having it and being unequivocally dead, which as far as I know is a lot more challenging to overcome, especially if you end up falling in to the aforementioned volcano. Hell, I'd be happy with just knowing that it would be possible to bring me back at some point in the future, let alone actually trying to survive the whole time.

Re:Brains beat Evolution.

[Jamu]

This will be after they engineer a perpetual motion machine.

You See,My Stethoscope Is Bobbing to The Throbbing

[Quiet_Desperation]

...Of Your Heart.

It Goes Boom Boody-Boom Boody-Boom Boody-Boom, Boody-Boom Boody-Boom Boody-Boom-Boom-Boom

Well, Goodness Gracious Me! ...

Next up on OldTyme Radio overnight, Dr. Hanny Lector and the Cannibals with their top hit, Liver & Chianti. Hope you like it...

Dead rat hearts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they finally give up on using live rat hearts?

sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Get this perfected and available for me in 20 - 30 years?

Not quite creating.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm reading this right, they didn't so much create a new heart as bring a dead one back to life.

Which is possibly even cooler, and I'm sure you can find 50k hearts a year in the US that wouldn't normally be donatable because of time constraints. (A heart is (normally!) only good for 4 hours after death or removal iirc). And even beyond saved lives, we can hopefully get a better quality of life too, since there should be less time waiting for a transplant with a half dead body.

Hmm, do modern artificial hearts last 8 days reliably? And would a diseased heart be practical?

What about organ rejection issues, will those be causes by the dead heart, the stem cells, both?

Re:Not quite creating.

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought that when a person died, after a short while most cells go into apoptosis and start suiciding.

I also always thought that once a cell begins the process of apoptosis it cannot be reversed.

whats the deal here?

Re:Not quite creating.

[the_humeister]

They're not brining a dead heart back to life. They're getting rid of the cells for the dead heart leaving the extracellular structures intact and then reseeding this structure with new cells. Pretty neat. You'll still get rejection issues only if you use cells that aren't from the recipient of said heart. Otherwise, if you're able to use recipient cells to seed, there will be no rejection issues.

Re:Not quite creating.

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux doesn't even last 8 days reliably.

blimey.

[apodyopsis]

if i read the article and the similar one on the BBC correctly then there was a shell of a heart they laced with stem cells that regrew into a heart functionality- but after 8 days operating at 2% so longer growth term is needed to by functional. this would go part way to solving rejection issue obviously, but if i am correct there is one slight problem you cannot take the patients heart, decellularize it and regrow it with stem cells because (1) bad as he heart is he needs it and (2) you still need to manufacture stem cells in sufficient quantity.

so there are a few options I see...

1. one use a dead donor heart as a shell and recellularize (that cannot be the correct term) with the patients stem cells assuming you can get them while he survives on what is left of his old heart and then transplant and hope there is no rejection

2. transplant the patient with an artificial heart until his old one can be repaired in the lab

3. find some way to create a fake heart "shell"? maybe extract some tissue from his current heart but not enough to kill him and create a template that the stem cells can be used to grow him a new heart over a few months.

of course they still need to manufacture a sufficient source of patient stem cells. does this sound reasonable?

of course in the UK, we have just got a new source of donors... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7186007.stm our prime minister has just decided to add the entire country onto the donor list unless we explicitly opt out. Gill the Arm would be amused...

Re:blimey.

[MozeeToby]

while he survives on what is left of his old heart It's interesting that technology developed and abandoned years ago may come back into the foreground. Artificial hearts were developed way back in 1969 but they are still big, awkward, and often painful. Only recently has one been certified as "humanitarian" to implant and it still has a limited lifetime. They were discontinued somewhere around 1983 because most patience only survived about six months. Of course, being stuck next to a shopping cart sized artificial heart for a few weeks while they grow you a new one doesn't actually sound so bad.

Re:blimey.

[Anonymous Coward]

of course in the UK, we have just got a new source of donors... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7186007.stm [bbc.co.uk] our prime minister has just decided to add the entire country onto the donor list unless we explicitly opt out. Damn, that's awesome. I find it silly that I have to carry around an organ donor card just so my earthly shell gets put to good use after I no longer need it.

Re:blimey.

[ROBOKATZ]

One point you miss in your reasons for not using the original heart, and in general everyone else seems to miss, is that a major reason for needing a transplant is a congenital heart defect. So, not only can you not use the original, but you are also not giving the recipient an abnormally long life nor superhuman capabilities. Well, maybe you are from their point of view.

10 years from now

[Anonymous Coward]

Resident Evil: Zombies in RL

Article and Video

[2cv]

Article and Video

If you're a Boomer, forget it.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I intend to live just long enough (naturally) that I can live forever (engineered).

If you're a boomer, forget it.

(At the age of about 11, back in the late 1950s, I was expecting medical technology to be able to stimulate the growth of a "third set" of replacement teeth - tooth-by-tooth as necessary, by the time my adult teeth might be worn out or destroyed by decay or misadventure. More than half a century later where's THAT flying car?)

The FDA approval process takes long enough (currently a minimum of 10 years) that even if a treatment useful for your program is perfected TODAY it won't be available in time to be of use. If it's not in the pipe now, it won't be out of the pipe while you're around to benefit.

And since aging is "a natural process" rather than a "disease", don't expect treatments to reduce it to be considered at all - except piecemeal for parts of aging that can be construed as a specific pathology.

Interestingly, the congressional debates that led to the creation of the FDA considered the issue - and declared that if the new agency delayed the introduction of a useful drug by more tha 6 months it was counterproductive. How things have evolved...

For instance, decades ago the FDA (no doubt traumatized by the worldwide problems with Thalidomide babies, which the US had missed due to their foot-dragging), refused to accept tests done in other countries and delayed the approval of beta blockers for years - to the tune of 100,000 extra deaths from preventable secondary heart attacks.

Unfortunately the lesson was not learned. Delaying a drug that saves lives doesn't affect the carreer of the bureaucrat, while approving one that causes damage can destroy it.

And (short of electing Ron Paul and a congressful of people like) him don't expect the FDA to be streamlined, dismantled, or their approval process to be reduced from a roadblock to an advisory status.

Re:If you're a Boomer, forget it.

[Badgam]

Nope, I'm 20 and my family has had a history of living in to their 80's and later. Besides, I can always go overseas to get things done; medical tourism's just going to get bigger and better over time.

Re:If you're a Boomer, forget it.

[sumdumass]

And to think, medical is free over seas :D

Re:If you're a Boomer, forget it.

[Badgam]

Hell, in a lot of cases it's faster, cheaper, safer, and better than what I could get in the States. I'm not going to let my health go down the drain because the clowns in the US government want to hold on to some kind of bullshit fatalism about aging or the "sanctity of human life" (which honestly seems to be more a euphemism for killing off old people in favor of the young by denying research in to beneficial fields). I'll gladly take advantage of other countries' resources, and I'm sure they'll appreciate the business.

Re:If you're a Boomer, forget it.

[jcr]

The FDA approval process takes long enough (currently a minimum of 10 years) that even if a treatment useful for your program is perfected TODAY it won't be available in time to be of use. I

Fortunately, FDA jurisdiction is only over the United States. When you want a new heart, you'll just take a flight to Mexico or India, and have a nice vacation while you're at it.

-jcr

Re:If you're a Boomer, forget it.

[sumdumass]

How sure are you? I mean would you be paying for the health care or using their free system?

And I seriously don't think the US government has held back research on stem cells. They just don't pay for it. Not every medical tech needs to be funded by the government.

Re:If you're a Boomer, forget it.

[KillerBob]

Don't tend to see a lot of foreigners coming to countries like France, the UK, Germany, or Canada to take advantage of the public health care... that's because while we do have public health systems where, in Canada at least, the majority of necessary services are actually free, they aren't for people who don't pay the taxes. Americans would have to pay, and in some cases it'd cost more than it would to get it done locally.

Get it done in a country which is commercialized, but very poor. For example, it costs thousands to get a cataract done in Canada. It costs $46 to get it done in India. Now, I wouldn't go to India, because it's covered by public health care in Canada (and because at 26, if I have cataracts then I have some serious problems). But it's an example. The same holds for elective surgeries... a procedure that's as much as $20,000 in Canada could be as little as $5,000 in Thailand or India.

Re:If you're a Boomer, forget it.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

And I seriously don't think the US government has held back research on stem cells. They just don't pay for it.

Unfortunately, they also consider that, if they ever spent any money on the construction or operation of the facility, they've "paid for it" sufficiently that no stem cell research can be done there. That eliminates virtually all medical research facilities - certainly all of 'em that are attached to universites and medical schools.

(Now if it were up to me the enforcement of that would consist of charging a higher overhead rate - calculated to replace the federal contribution to facility construction and operation under normal accounting principles - to any project that came under the federal ban. But it's not up to me. And the obvious intent of congress was to do their best to ban the research, rather than just pull federal funds.)

Are you sure about that?

[riseoftheindividual]

"Nearly every sport has a doping and non-doping league already."

There are doping leagues for baseball, basketball, and football? I've never heard of that. Are you talking about a European thing?

"The problem is, people will only pay to see the non-doping leagues at the moment."

In the one sport I know of that does have doping and non-doping, bodybuilding, the doping league is where the money is overwhelmingly made. Maybe this is just a US thing, don't know.

Re:Are you sure about that?

[Nazlfrag]

Weightlifting is a sport. Bodybuilding is a fetish.

Re:Are you sure about that?

[linest]

There are doping leagues for baseball, basketball, and football? I've never heard of that. Are you talking about a European thing?

Oddly, I was pretty sure that the doping leagues were named MLB, the NBA and the NFL and I didn't know what those non-doping leagues he was talking about were. The NFL, in particular, seems suspect. No IOC oversite, no WADA, and a bunch of 300 lb guys who can run the 40 yard dash in 5 seconds.

Re:Are you sure about that?

[britneys 9th husband]

I don't know about basketball and football, but baseball has a doping league. Their website is here.

Re:Are you sure about that?

[Anonymous Coward]

but how do you REALLY feel?

Re:Are you sure about that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the "roid rage" talking?

All I can say is..

[ZonkerWilliam]

Wow, I mean just wow. To think that most of the organs can be re-grown or replaced would provide a limited form of immortality, just replace an organ when it wears out and not to fear rejection.

Re:All I can say is..

[f1r3f0g]

Wake me when they can do kidneys.

Re:All I can say is..

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too, please.

I'm grateful for my kidney transplant and all, but I'd be even happier not to have to take drugs which make me feel ill and are slowly killing me.

Re:All I can say is..

[Jesus_666]

Doesn't quite work for the brain, though. And brain degradation is hardly unheard of in older people.

Re:All I can say is..

[AaronLawrence]

Isn't there still an issue that cells coming from existing body cells "know" they are "Nth" generation and hence already old - ie. you can't regrow an old persons cells like this?

Re:All I can say is..

[Fantastic Lad]

That's a very good question!

Perhaps if the various reasons for rejection are understood and categorized, a society could set up a DNA bank of sorts so that there would be a choice of a thousand slightly different hearts which would provide enough choice to satisfy even the most intolerant immune system.

Whatever. I think I'll just take care of the one I've got. "Rib Cage Separator" is a term I never want to have a doctor need to use while I lie unconscious on a table.

-FL

Re:All I can say is..

[ZonkerWilliam]

Yes that is a good question. It would appear to me though, that stem cells can reproduce indefinitely, so I wouldn't think that stem cell's don't age the same way somatic cells, I'm not a stem cell expert so I'm not 100% sure.

The "other piece" is also nearly there.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

In a process called whole organ decellularization, they grew functioning heart tissue by using dead rat and pig hearts as a sort of flesh matrix, and reseeding them with a mixture of live cells. The goal is to grow replacement parts, using their own stem cells, for people born with defective tickers or experiencing heart failure.

Given that another project also underway is "writing" synthetic organs using a rapid prototyping system (3D plotter) loaded with live cells, structural proteins, and growth factors, the salvaged-and-decellularlized organ should be rendered unnecessary in short order.

The fact that a substrate with the right chemical markers can be repopulated into a working organ means the process can proceed in two steps. This may make it easier to accomplish - especially by reducing the need for functioning blood-supply plumbing to provide nutrition and oxygenation in the eary stages of construction.

Re:The "other piece" is also nearly there.

[SpinyNorman]

Are you aware of any books intelligable (or even intended) for the "scientific layman" that discuss how the developing body (from initial egg division onwards) structurally forms in terms of the big picture?

I understand that undifferentiated cells specialize according to local chemical markers (or at least can do per this recellularized heart), but how do those markers get there in the first place? It seems a chicken and the egg type of problem - the structure (or at least cell specialization) forms according to chemical markers, but in seems the chemical markers can only have got to the right place by having the structure already develop. I could hypothesize a subdividing scheme where one initial marker somehow becomes 2 or more (in different locations in the dividing egg), each of which then latr give rise to further localized variants, etc, etc, but is that how it actually happens?

I'm also curious how asymmetry begins to develop - how (at the simplest level of explanation) does a dividing egg stop being a symmetric ball and develop left/right symmetry around a centerline, and develop top/bottom (upper vs lower body) asymmetry, etc?

Any very brief overview or book reommendations would be appreciated!

But will you be able to afford it?

[joh]

I mean, really. The stinkin' rich will have their hearts replicated and grown one after another just in case, while you and me will just drop down, carried to a hospital, and die. Somehow that's *not* the future I was thinking of when I was young. The bits and pieces (hah!) are there meanwhile, but our society isn't there at all.

A friend of mine was working in a hospital when some old and ill VIP had a heart failure and he not only got a replacement right away (while others died waiting for a replacement for months), no, he also got a second heart when the first one was rejected by his immune system within a day. Well, he died anyway from unrelated causes soon after, but I can't get over the vision of two otherwise perfectly healthy normal guys dying just because two hearts were *wasted* this way. I want to vomit each time I have to think of that event.

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[Badgam]

I doubt it will remain very expensive; the supply of hearts would not be tied to the supply of donors, as you could conceivably produce a lot of hearts from one person and use them on that person or supply them to multiple patients (especially when combined with advances in reducing rejection and complications from surgery). I think artificial and grown organs will get rid of a lot of the inequality in the transplant process, mainly because of the ability to utilize economies of scale to cut costs, something impossible when relying on a finite number of transplants.

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[maxume]

Were you envisioning a society with unlimited resources?

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[Badgam]

Demand would have to be really, really, really high for replacement hearts to even remotely strain resources; it would probably have to be at least higher than the Earth's population. I don't think people would be swapping hearts every few years; maybe every 10, or however long they plan to wait before upgrades, but demand would be cyclical and wouldn't come close to any resource constraints.

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[Anonymous Coward]

See...

Capitalism works

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[Brian_Ellenberger]

I mean, really. The stinkin' rich will have their hearts replicated and grown one after another just in case, while you and me will just drop down, carried to a hospital, and die. Somehow that's *not* the future I was thinking of when I was young. The bits and pieces (hah!) are there meanwhile, but our society isn't there at all. A friend of mine was working in a hospital when some old and ill VIP had a heart failure and he not only got a replacement right away

Why do you think that would ever change in any system of government or monetary distribution? However, it has nothing to do with being "rich" as much as it has to do with being "powerful". You see it in a capitalistic society as being rich because rich=powerful in America and most of the West. But even in America, if President Bush and Bill Gates had to fight it out for a replacement heart the President is winning. And you are naive if you don't think that Castro and his family or Politburo members got better health care than most everyone in their societies. Or that in the UK Gordon Brown doesn't get much much better health care than the average joe slogging over to the NHS hospital. What I don't like about non-capitalistic societies is that power is based more on who you are in politics and who you know rather than any individual abilities. With a capitalistic society, if I am talented enough I can make enough to afford good enough health care and end up being OK. In other countries, it only matters where I am in the political ranks and "who I know". Also, in a capitalistic society, there is an incentive to make the cost cheap enough to provide services to the most people. More people=more money. Government controlled health care lacks such incentives, because the number of people needing organ transplants is insignificant come election time. It is much more important to a politician to build a useless bridge or monument in a politically important state or district because that may get them reelected.

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[Jesus_666]

With a capitalistic society, if I am talented enough I can make enough to afford good enough health care and end up being OK.

Still ain't much of a difference, though. I don't think there are many more people who just happen to be business-savvy enough to build up a multi million dollar fortune from zero than there are people who are charismatic enough to make connections with VIPs. In the end, both systems mostly reward people who just got lucky.

It's just a different kind of unfairness. If you want actual fairness, you have to go with one of those good-on-paper-but-nonfunctional-in-reality systems where everyone has everything.

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"A friend of mine was working in a hospital when some old and ill VIP had a heart failure and he not only got a replacement right away (while others died waiting for a replacement for months), no, he also got a second heart when the first one was rejected by his immune system within a day. Well, he died anyway from unrelated causes soon after, but I can't get over the vision of two otherwise perfectly healthy normal guys dying just because two hearts were *wasted* this way. I want to vomit each time I have to think of that event."

Ahh the joys of capitalist "market efficiency".

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[maxume]

You already know how much they are going to cost!? (in terms of expertise, labor and resources; a few lumps of cells aren't real expensive, but the rest just might stay that way)

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[maxume]

You still end up with an argument about what fair means.

One argument in favor of what you are calling unfairness is that it is worse to take stuff away from lucky people than it is to have people with varying amounts of resources available to them...

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[Fantastic Lad]

These questions are retarded.

People are willing to base entire economic/philosophical believe systems on sensationalist hypothetical problems. When was the last time you needed a replacement heart? Okay. Now when was the last time you needed stitches or a bone set? My ex-girlfriend, (who remains an excellent friend of mine), cut the end of her finger off while working at her restaurant job. Because she lives in Canada, she had the end of her finger put back on that day for zero dollars. --On her income, having to foot a couple thousand dollar hospital bill would have been a major problem. She's quite young, but I can see her having some real income potential down the road at which point her taxes will help pay for others who are in need. Power doesn't come into the picture here at all. I point to her case only because it was the most recent, but I can point to a dozen others, one of them including open-heart surgery and another an MRI scan, all of which indicate that despite the nonsense claims by American politicos to the contrary, Canada's health care system not only works, but kicks serious ass.

These artificial sensationalist questions about replacement hearts used to sell greed-bases systems sound to me a lot like the artificial sensationalist questions about ticking-bomb scenarios designed to sell state-sanctioned torture.

It's all a lie designed by psychopathic leadership to turn the populace into monsters.

-FL

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[napalm684]

I agree that is disgusting but what is equally as bad are convicts on death row receiving organ transplants. I really don't see how someone who is going to be executed (I am talking the people with no chance of reprieve, parole, etc.) deserve a new organ. They are going to die in a relatively short period of time anyway so shouldn't this just be looked at as saving the tax payers' money that would have been spent on the formal execution? My biggest concern with this is that an organ that could go to someone more deserving (an upstanding citizen) could be given to a convict on death row that has a higher status on the UNOS list. That is not right or morally correct in my opinion.

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[Just Some Guy]

Because she lives in Canada, she had the end of her finger put back on that day for zero dollars.

Correction: because she lives in Canada, she wasn't the one that directly paid the bill that day. It wasn't free.

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[Anonymous Coward]

In smaller countries (few millions or few tens of millions of citizens) people do have a sense that everyone counts, so they are willing to foot a state-wide solidarity-based medical system, where you constantly pay into the big common hat with your taxes and get fixed for (nearly) free when needed. The quality of life really matters. If you don't have to worry day and night about bad fortune because there is a "safety net" for everybody, people can have a good life even if they are not particularly rich.

It should also be considered that countries (e.g. some in the European Union) which declared their intention to eradicte unemployment (nominally this means 3% or less) think the way that everybody works so everybody's job is important, regardless of salary, therefore everybody should be fixed up if needed so he/she can continue to work. The job of a garbage-can collector truck handyman does not pay very well, but it is quite risky of injury. He could not easily pay for mending a wrecked lower leg, but his job is quite important because with junk covered streets even top managers will soon succumb to diseases. Thinking the unitedstatesian way one might say why not just replace him on the job, but if we had nominally eradicated unemployment it is not easy to replace as almost everybody is already working somewhere.

The other end is like Mexico, or else Latin-America where most people are piss-poor and very few are mega rich and the state (gov't) has only minimal powers and responsibilities, either law nforcement or social sector. You may have Rolls, Ferrari and Lambo in the garage, but there are daily kidnappings on the streets, the cities are full of tin shack neighbourhoods and the even richest never stop worrying if a drug gang or paramilitary groups will fetch them. The sufferings of many needy will not automatically make the few riches any happier or healthier.

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[Double_Dark]

Organ transplants in the US are administered by the United Network for Organ sharing. According to their policy, 3.7.10 (pdf), hearts are allocated based upon status of the recipient and the distance of the recipient from the donor.

While it is possible that the "old and ill VIP" to which you refer greased a few palms I find it more likely that he was stable enough for a transplant, easily matched within the transplant network, and had a very low probability of survival without one.

Unless you are privy to the specifics of the case your anecdote is nothing more than hearsay.

Re:But will you be able to afford it?

[joh]

The case in question did not happen in the US of A. And of course it *is* hearsay, although I have no reason to doubt any of the details.

I always think of "The Island" as a good film

[Anonymous Coward]

By Michael Bay's standards, "The Island" is hard sci-fi... and a quality movie!

Niven counter-example (spoilers)

[StefanJ]

In A Gift from Earth, a colony world uses organ harvesting to punish criminals and dissidents, and rewards loyalty to the regime with spare parts.

In the course of the novel, a slower-than-light starship arrives with a how-to guide for a brand-new technology: Custom-grown organs. The protagonist sees grown-from-seed organs developing in a tank, and assumes that they are from children! Actually, they spell the end of the local tyranny.

That was in 1968, just a year or two after the first "Gil the Arm" story.

Re:Niven counter-example (spoilers)

[idontgno]

"The Jigsaw Man", 1967.

According to http://www.larryniven.org/biblio/, this was his 22nd published story and the first organ transplant story.

The first Gil Hamilton story was "The Organleggers" in 1969.

Damn straight!

[StefanJ]

Don't go abusing your body assuming you'll be able to get a new heart any time soon.

Of course, as late as the mid 1950s reputable engineers scoffed at the ideas of flights to the moon. This could come together faster than you can imagine.

Re:Damn straight!

[DarkOx]

Don't go abusing your body assuming you'll be able to get a new heart any time soon. Of course, as late as the mid 1950s reputable engineers scoffed at the ideas of flights to the moon. This could come together faster than you can imagine. It could but I still don't see why exactly I would want to take that chance. I mean it might not be ready in time for me which would result in death. If it is ready in time, then you are still looking at heart transplant surgery which sounds umm, painful and expensive amoung other things. I will stick with the parent posters ounce of prevention mentality, thank you very much.

Will they be able to control its growth?

[MECC]

I hope they have adequate containment measures. We wouldn't want it to just keep growing and growing...

Have fun wasting your life on a pipe dream

[Anonymous Coward]

Kurzweil, Drexler, Vinge, Max More et al have been on about immortality/singularity tech coming RSN for twenty years now and, like the ideals of Artificial Intelligence that inspired this quasi-religious behavior, it's always not far off in the future.

Even when decades pass without significant advancement... it's supposedly coming, RSN.

And really, why would any normal person expect access to immortality-tech? So long as humanity is confined to Earth (and space settlement is "coming RSN" just like immortality) open access could ironically cause the collapse of civilization and the extinction of the human race.

Re:Have fun wasting your life on a pipe dream

[headkase]

Life is already way different than when I was a child - Toffler's Future Shock has come to pass at least. Mapping the human genome in circa 2000 and now working on the protein foldings that those base pairs encode will absolutely lead to the ability to build a human (or so) machine out of meat. That is going to happen. Period. The only thing that is unsure is how long it will be held back for primarily religious hallucinations, how available it will be to the populace in general, and whether or not we bomb ourselves back to where Fire is state of the art in the mean time.

The Internet alone used to be complete fantasy now it's taken for granted in only 15 short years. Computing or Information Technology is the enabler for our current Biological Science. Now that we can just let the computers crunch 4 billion or so base pairs on their own connected to each other through a global network we're gonna see some Unicorns well within 50 years. I shit you not, accept it.

Re:Have fun wasting your life on a pipe dream

[Badgam]

We've gone from mapping the human genome in 2000 to offering basic genomic sequencing, creation of artificial lifeforms, and rudimentary bioengineering in less than ten years. That's pretty damn impressive considering the skeptics of the HGP said the exact same things; it was a "pipe dream", "too expensive", would take thousands of years to complete... ...and look at how utterly wrong they were. Genetic sequencing is offering insights in to untold numbers of conditions, diseases, and human attributes and it is making its way in to medicine. In 15, hell in the past 5 years we've developed so much in thousands of different fields that it is impossible to even remotely argue that progress is not moving forward at a blinding pace. Today, a cancer patient or similar victim of a serious illness has more tools at their disposal to ensure they will survive than ever before, and it is paying off in saving lives from the horribly painful and prolonged deaths that would have been inevitable only a short time ago. The world is changing faster and faster whether people like it or not. The only "pipe dream" here is pseudoskepticism, the willingness to doubt things not out of evidence (which is clearly supporting rapid change) but out of fear and misunderstanding. They've been proven wrong again, again, and again and there's no reason to believe they will ever be right.

Re:Have fun wasting your life on a pipe dream

[0111 1110]

Ah. The optimism of the young. Talk to me in 30 years when we *still* have no flying cars, or HAL9000 computers, or fusion power, or affordable moon and outer planet tourism, let alone immortality. Of course you can't reason with an optimist. What saddens me is just how similar our world is to the one of the 1950s. So much of our basic tech is the same. Souped up and improved, but there haven't been many completely new concepts. I guess the biggest difference is from improved computer tech and the birth of the internet (although that wasn't until the late 90s). As far as immortality in your lifetime: I wouldn't hold your breath.

Re:Have fun wasting your life on a pipe dream

[Badgam]

A lot of it simply hasn't been economically necessary, removing the need to develop new technologies. It has certainly become more efficient and scalable, but the basic technologies themselves work well enough that there has been no impetus to improve them. I mean, the wheel's been unchanged for pretty much its entire history; there's no reason to reinvent it if it works well enough. But also look at it this way: your computer, your TV and its programming, this website, your internet connection, your MP3 player, your videogame console (if you have one), your cell phone and pretty much all of the medications and medical techniques used by your physician were scarce to nonexistent 15 years ago. That's pretty damn good if you ask me. Of course, you also answer a lot of questions in your own post: the very recent and very rapid growth in computer and internet technology. Those weren't available in the past, making it difficult if not impossible to achieve progress; good luck creating any kind of strong AI using a supercomputer that's barely as powerful as a modern laptop, let alone the engineering work and number crunching necessary for flying cars, modeling particle physics and testing materials for fusion power, or for building space tourism infrastructure. Honestly, the reason why those things weren't available by the time they were predicted was due to the simple fact that they would have needed the technology we have now to have a shot at making them work. I'm going to remain optimistic because, honestly, we've done really damn well on a lot of things, and in some places completely surprised people with our progress. We'll design the technologies and then have the pessimists do the quality control and testing to make sure they're safe.

Re:Have fun wasting your life on a pipe dream

[Anonymous Coward]

The singularity dream follows directly from what Vernor Vinge wrote in the early 1990s in "The Coming Technological Singularity," but Vinge's essay also contained a lot of pessimism, particularly on the topic of AI friendliness (the linchpin of the whole fantasy).

The whole thing hinges on us inventing super-smart genies who will grant wishes for us, but uncorking that bottle could just as easily spell disaster for humanity...

Oblig. Cosby

[HiggsBison]

It has escaped from the laboratory, and is heading for your house.

You should consider smearing Jello on your kitchen floor and setting fire to your sofa.

Can I buy one...

[Alsee]

...for my ex-girlfriend?
I don't think she ever had one.

-

Re:Can I buy one...

[NeuroManson]

Valentine's day is just a month away, get started now and you could have one Hell of a Valentines day gift. Especially if you make it to pump chocolate syrup.

How about something simple first...

[BlueCoder]

Like growing new arteries for transplant within 24 hrs.

First heart attack might do a little damage to the heart but provided he survives the first year he should have another 25 years before he clogs up the new ones and by then he'll be having regular checkups.

Re:How about something simple first...

[Badgam]

I think it would be scaled up like that, mainly because it makes sense; if the rest of my heart is fine but only a part needs replacement, why go through with a full procedure when I could get the same benefits from a partial one? It would save time and money, among other things. (I imagine it would also mark the days when heart surgery becomes an outpatient procedure...)

not to rain on the parade

[circletimessquare]

but i remember details from high school biology, where you could put heart cells next to each other on a petri dish, and they would synch their beats

so the announcement seems like there is this major advance, heart cells beating in tandem, shaped like a heart. but it doesn't seem to take that much more technical acumen than what has been around for a while, as heart cells will naturally synch up

so they put the cells and grew them in a heart shaped matrix. then biorhythms and mother nature took over

they've been doing that with skin cells for awhile

again, not to rain on the parade, but i think the technical leap implied here is being overstated. it's good news nonetheless, and i cheer it

Great!!!

[Brad1138]

Maybe they'll be able to grow a brain so I can replace this one I got from "A. B. Normal".

Horse cock synthesis

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't they do the same thing with a monster horse cock - rebuild it using your own stem cells and transplant it onto you? It'd sure as hell surprise the wife.

Re:Horse cock synthesis

[cpricejones]

You mean make it beat too?

Archive your optimistic posts now...

[Anonymous Coward]

...they'll be good for a huge belly laugh when you're elderly and have to grow up and actually face the spectre of death.

Technology is surely advancing at a rapid pace, but that does not mean you will become immortal in your lifetime or that a singularity will occur in 10 years and we will all become techno-gods.

There's not much difference between this hopeful "philosophy" and a religion promising a fantasy afterlife. It may be a cliche, but it's also wisdom: plan for the worst as you hope for the best. In your case, that means planning for a mortal life. Don't waste it preparing, in expectation of something that may very well never manifest in your lifetime.

Folks in 1900 were dreaming of moon travel by 1930; folks in 1970 were dreaming of moon colonization by 2000. The progress of technology is only linear in hindsight.

Re:Archive your optimistic posts now...

[Badgam]

The singularity is not meant to happen in 10 years. At best, it would be happening three decades from now; however, that concept itself is hardly my focus or the focus of many other people. I look at the time between now and then, when advances will Technology is obviously not linear, especially in hindsight, or else we would be advancing at the same rate throughout history. Technology would be advancing at the same rate now as it did 500 or 5000 years ago. The most obvious proof is in medicine and computing; we would not have been able to achieve decoding the Human Genome in a little more than a decade when the technology at its initiation was, thanks to its linear perspective, expecting it to take far, far longer. Not everything is advancing exponentially, either due to economics or practicality; some technologies are mature and there simply isn't much left to improve, but the technologies that allow accelerating progress are the ones advancing exponentially. Even so, who knows? We doubled life expectancy in 160 years the first time around, and it had not changed appreciably prior to that for all of human history, so I'm not inclined to believe that it's implausible that it will double again in a similar timeframe. Even if it did, that would still mean living to 170 would be average for most people in the year 2167, and that's pretty damn good no matter what way you look at it. I'm not going to worry about it either way, that's for sure.

Re:Archive your optimistic posts now...

[headkase]

I'm not even optimistic about it the only thing I *am* sure of is that humanity as an entity will have the capability to do these things. Humanity is accelerating faster than ever before with each new development increasing the speed. Now what actually makes it into the hands of an individual is the only part thats open for debate.

Re:Archive your optimistic posts now...

[Badgam]

And, of course, pretty much every business forecaster is listing the facts: product adoption cycles are accelerating and companies that do not plan for this will be badly hurt. Obviosuly, in medicine, some factors such as FDA regulation remain, but even that is not enough to slow down advances to the point where they are not hitting the market at a faster rate. However, it's certain that the regulatory process, as well as the additional more tools with which to more quickly assess the safety of these technologies, will be reformed to better suit the new direction of medicine. It will happen whether people like it or not, and I'd rather us as a society be prepared for it rather than have the rug pulled out from under us because other nations adopted a more progressive stance.

Re:Archive your optimistic posts now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if immortality-tech does arise in your lifetime, you may be denied access to it for any number of reasons. Have you prepared for that possibility - dying in spite of the technology existing?

Re:Archive your optimistic posts now...

[Anonymous Coward]

It will happen whether people like it or not, and I'd rather us as a society be prepared for it rather than have the rug pulled out

I feel the same about you and the inevitability of death. :(

Re:Archive your optimistic posts now...

[headkase]

I'd be happy to live 600 years before I'm archived into Mother Brain.

Re:Archive your optimistic posts now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure the singularity is 3 decades away? Computers have been shown to double in computational ability for the same price every 1 to 2 years. In 2009, a japanese company plans to have a supercomputer with the computational ability (~10 petaflops) of a single human brain, in 3 decades, supercomputers will be 16,000 times more powerful than a singal human brain, I think it's a stretch to say the singularity will require 16,000 times the processing power of a human brain in one supercomputer to happen. I believe it won't take much more than a computer with a couple of times the processing power of a human brain (2012/2013 era supercomputers) to start a singularity. At that point it should be trivial to design nanobots and then people will rush to make them, nanobots will take care of the rest. Kurzweil misses this in his writings I believe, he always assumes a PC has to be capable of AI before the singularity arrives, but why? So some soccer mom working in her free time can design, simulate and produce nanobots? That's foolish, it will be done on early supercomputers by teams of nanoscientists, physicists, etc.

Re:Archive your optimistic posts now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you believe these Earth-shaking technological developments will occur in a social vacuum with unlimited resources?

There are governments to deal with. You think dangerous technology such as this will progress freely to the point where individuals can possess uncontrolled doomsday power? Humanity currently has access to a bevy of technologies which, if put in the hands of regular individuals, would result in incredible change (or devastation) as it is now. That level of technology is kept tightly controlled, and the current superpowers actively work against anyone attempting to duplicate or otherwise acquire it.

There are resource constraints. Amazing technology from past ages which would permit great individual freedom and increase an average person's capabilities a thousandfold (submarines, personal aircraft, rockets) is still out of the reach of most due to expense and government restrictions.

Apotheosis will be a WMD-level threat and subject to intense control. The transcendent humans from this generation, if there are any, will be the political and military elite. You will not be invited to join in then, any more than you are invited on to shuttle missions today. There will be no housewives with general assemblers.

Re:Archive your optimistic posts now...

[Badgam]

That's also true and a very good point; I think their definition of a Singularity is based on the idea that AI will take us there, but if things move ahead faster than expected, it ends up pushing that date forward. I honestly think the Singularity is going to be something we only see in hindsight; I mean, to a person from the year 1800 the time we're living in would appear to be a period of blindingly fast technological and social change (even to a person from the 1950's or even the 1970's for that matter), but to us it is not seen as the same kind of rapid change. Since we are by and large acclimated to this development rather than having it suddenly thrust upon us, it's simply not going to be as noticeable as it would if we were to view it in hindsight. I'm personally interested in the ramifications of D-Wave Systems' work on their quantum computer; it is a real, actual quantum computer that has demonstrated its ability to solve problems far faster and far more effectively than a regular PC, and given how fast they plan to scale it up, it may have huge effects on everything else. This kind of computer is effectively 30 years ahead of its time, and that's going to mean a lot going down the road. I don't think we're going to wake up one day and say "We're in the Singularity", but rather it's going to be something we'll look back on 5, 10 however many years later and say "Yeah, that was the turning point."

Re:Archive your optimistic posts now...

[Badgam]

Yeah...if I don't get it, I die. That's it. Nothing I can do about that one, since that's what would've happened anyways without such an option; there's no reason to worry about such a possibility because if it ends up being the case, it would be no different than if it were never available. At least I'd have the confidence of knowing others would be able to reap that benefit, which is a tad bit better than it being completely unavailable. Of course, that's also why I'd save my money, invest it wisely, take care of myself and work hard to ensure I have the money necessary to pay for it. The best part is, if I do that, I'll still be well off in the event that I can't achieve indefinite lifespan. It will hardly be anywhere near as good, but it's better than nothing.

Re:Archive your optimistic posts now...

[Badgam]

The only problem is, you can't control it. It's not like a nuclear weapon or a submarine, which are by and large obvious and easy to keep track of; a transhuman could simply conceal much of their potential should it be required, and the actual technology involved, once leaked, would be far easier to accumulate and provide. Given the amount of supposedly classified or restricted technical knowledge that was leaked, and the sheer profit potential of this market, attempting to control it would fail just like every other attempt at containing knowledge has failed. It might take a while, but it will inevitably fall. And, of course, there's the old-fashioned black market...all those AK-47s, tanks, airplanes, and a wide variety of other dangerous technology still manages to get to market even though it's tightly controlled. Why do you think governments are so afraid of dirty bombs, rogue WMDs and other threats? Because every attempt at fully controlling these things does not work and will inevitably fail. Just look at the inability of the world to realistically control nuclear proliferation, the arms trade, or any other illicit venture, and then realize that this technology is so profitable and so powerful that there will be more people trying to get it than there are people trying to protect it. The thing is, it is a lot easier to get transhuman technologies using the precursors without raising any questions; given that all of their predecessors would be generally medical devices used for the impaired, any research group so inclined could proceed in to these fields using the work already accumulated. There are plenty of very wealthy, very powerful people willing to spend a lot of money to get the things they want, and I can guarantee you that many of them will jump on these as soon as they get the chance. A shuttle or submarine costs billions of dollars, a specialized launch facility, specialized crew, and a wide variety of other extremely costly infrastructure to operate. The average person can't get to that. However, a person can achieve limited and fully legal human enhancement right now with LASIK surgery or off-label modafinil, and what follows from here will be similarly inexpensive (relatively speaking), similarly easy to obtain, and similarly difficult to track. Attempts to control it will be a costly, losing battle, one that will make the War on Drugs look like child's play. The question is whether or not you'd rather these technologies be safe, available, and tested or have them fall in to the hands of those who are far more likely to use them to do harm...and the only way to keep them safe is to make them widely available. Otherwise, there won't be anybody to stop some nutjob from using their enhanced abilities to kill huge numbers of people or take something over. The only defense against the dark side of technology is to ensure the people who want to use it for good are one step ahead in the game...otherwise, you're going to lose and you're going to lose painfully.

Not good news

[phaggood]

From the article:
Taylor said. "It opens a door to this notion that you can make any organ: kidney, liver, lung, pancreas - you name it and we hope we can make it,
Great, now I'm going to get even more emails about making my friends envious of my "mannishness". No, wait, she means 'internal organs'. Whew!

Re:Not good news

[Jesus_666]

From the article: Taylor said. "It opens a door to this notion that you can make any organ: kidney, liver, lung, pancreas - you name it and we hope we can make it,

Also Hammond organs?

Thank you, I'll be here all week. Tip your waitress.

0ppr07un1ty 0f a l1fetime

[Anonymous Coward]

are you finding that you are needing something biggger to please your female partner? Act nows to re-engineer your manhood! In two weeks you too can be experiencing a new life whit our home growing kit. Act now and post attachment enl;argement pillls will be thwon in for free!

Be

[hansoloaf]

Be still my heart

My dream with genetics.

[AnotherUsername]

This is wonderful news. I've always wanted my own Triceratops, ever since I was a young child. And if these benefits work, and I get one, I could even go on to get more and more kinds of dinosaurs! I figure I can set up some kind of biological preserve somewhere off the cost of Costa Rica(I've heard the island rental rates there are awesome). Then I just have to invite a few paleontologists, for science, a mathematician, for more science, a lawyer, for legal issues, and some kids, to see if it is fun. What could possibly go wrong?

Re:My dream with genetics.

[StalinsNotDead]

What could possibly go wrong?

Sequels?

Was the doctor's name...

[autophile]

Was the head doctor's name Herbert West?

(ba-dump-bump. Bump-bump. Bump-bump...)

--Rob

a whole new meaning

[Oliver Hope]

I knew there was a reason for the term "Minnesota nice".


If you don't agree with what they are doing (Religious bastards)...well...have a lil' heart

I can already see the change in SPAM

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Click h33r f0r y0ur |33+ 6 chambered tr0us3r sn4ke!

Syndicate

[B4D BE4T]

Reminds me of the game Syndicate. For those who haven't played it, you play as the head of a corporation in a future in which corporations battle each other for world domination using cyborg agents. One of the objects of the game is to research more advanced body parts for your agents. One possible upgrade is a new, more advanced heart. I remember this being a really fun game when it was released, wish I could find the CD...

Re:Syndicate

[PReDiToR]

I would bathe in glorious recollection rather than trying it out on your (assumed) nice new P4/Athlon system.

I wasn't given this advice and found that DOS4GW (as I remember) just wasn't made for 1GHz+ machines.

One to avoid.

Question Is.....

[Anonymous Coward]

When will "significantly larger" replacement organs be developed?

singularity

[wikinerd]

If something was totally unthinkable in the past and now approaches reality, this can mean only two things: either people don't have imagination or the technological advancement is increasing a lot, perhaps even exponentially. If you can predict clearly where the state of the art will be 50 or 100 years from now then the advancement is probably linear, but if you cannot predict anything then the advancement is probably nonlinear.

pfffft..

[bronney]

Wake me up when they invent the beating mouth.. ZzzzZzz

Next up: The Chicken Heart

[Tumbleweed]

*THUMPTHUMP* *THUMPTHUMP*

Sadly, this hilarious joke will be too old a reference for most of you kids. *sigh*

Re:Next up: The Chicken Heart

[Talinom]

Sadly, this hilarious joke will be too old a reference for most of you kids. *sigh*

Wrong! It was the first thing that I thought of when I read the headline.

Bill Cosby = Wonderfulness.

Finally

[uberjoe]

Sweet! Dune comes to life. It's a Ghola.

Perfect valentine's day gift

[jollyreaper]

If we could modify this technology, it will become possible to literally give your girlfriend an artificial dick in a box. Er, on second thought, I don't like where this is vangoghing.

Unsatisfied with your love life?

[Nautical Insanity]

No more male enhancement pills! Now offering custom-grown penises!

If you're going to take that POV...

[riseoftheindividual]

... then come on, football is a doping league. As another poster put it, you don't get that many lightening fast 300lb people naturally.

But seriously, they only use steroids accidentally in the MLB:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmDKsAuHooo

cool, but...

[CodeMunch]

does it:

1. blend
2. run linux

Heart Shell

[Sithech]

TFA contemplates using either cadaver hearts or non-human (pig is the readily available animal with a compatible sized and structured heart). De-cellularizing those would remove the antigens that trigger rejection. Then using compatible stem cells to create a new histocompatible heart using the old framework. Pop into the patient.

Currently we use a de-cellularized pig heart valve as an implant. The patient's own cells invade the matrix and set up housekeeping, very much the way the fetal cells did in this demonstration.

One other advantage would be that the new organ would be 'young', not whatever age the donor might have been.

Re:Heart Shell

[Wiseman1024]

I'm sure the pig would have wanted to live. This is so "heartless". I hope you fail. And no, I'd rather die if my heart fails than accept something that took countless lives to create.

Re:Heart Shell

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... I don't think so
Meat is a common food everywhere, and it's not artificially grown. The same pig used to take the heart could be used to make foot.

Sorry if you're vegetarian

Depends, how much is that single life worth?

[SmallFurryCreature]

And the question is not WE, but you. How much are you willing to put into saving YOUR life. Don't worry, you are young, there will come a time when you realize just how close death is when you will feel very different. It is called getting old. All of sudden you will think it is a good idea to shovel all the money made into care for the elderly and that those young whippersnappers should just thoughen up and carry the burden you didn't want to carry for your elders (or even yourselve).

I' m cleaning my shotgun already....

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea would be to develop transplantable blood vessels or whole organs that are made from your own cells, said Doris Taylor, Ph.D.

Reportedly an offshoot of this research involved acheiving decellurisation using a virus created by Dr. Taylor as a vector, Umbrella corp is rumored to be financing this research in cooperation with the government.

Refer to...

[octaene]

`That Hideous Strength`, by C. S. Lewis.

story on nature

[Anonymous Coward]

Well here is the newsstory on nature:

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080113/full/news.2008.435.html

Seems they removed cells from a rat heart and implanted the extracellular 'scaffold' tissue with heart cells from new-born mice. They got a contracting heart with 2% of normal heart capacity. Quite an achievement, but still quite a bit away from clinical use.

Cartooon

[hacksnuts]

there is a very original and artistic anime concerning biophysics and sci-fi myths, along with a complex political plot and inversed archetypes, left alone the eerie japanese ethics. It is quite fucked-up for the layman, and those versed in these sciences might also find it particularely interesting. Here's a wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TexhnolyzeTexhnolyze. I know, the name sounds cheesy, but it is a series of 30 episodes each worth 22 minutes, so it won't be very time consuming, and it is really worth buying\leeching. Hopefully the /. effect won't bring wikipedia to it's knees :)

Instead of already writing the oh-so-obvious i'll let this cartoon do the speaking. The days some of us will have the honour to be "texhnolyzed" may or may not be far off, despite my general lack of credibility in the human race. Of course, the merge between machine and man is only a cliche topic in that anime, but it really stands out as a different philosophy - how far can we go?
Not that i'm against bioengineering, i actually wish to pursue a career in the field and I feel that today's society and mass-media flutter might actually inhibit the developement. As an unproud son of some technofobic parents I really feel this is the case, despite most of you slashdotters would embrace such news, perhaps some of you even researching further for academic papers on the matter.
However, if ethics was such a big issue when they cloned Dolly, imagine what kind of idiotic debates will this subject rise.

Pythons

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

- Listen! I can't give it to you now. It says, 'in the event of death'.
  - No one who has ever had their liver taken out by us has survived.

Blog Slashvertisement?

[Futurepower(R)]

Avoid blog spam. Read the actual news release: U of M Researchers Create Beating Heart in Laboratory.

At this time, all previous comments are off topic

[Futurepower(R)]

Avoid blog spam. Read the actual news release: U of M Researchers Create Beating Heart in Laboratory.

I don't know what is worse, a blog spam blog Slashvertisement, a huge number of comments by people who have no interest in the subject, or moderators who moderate up off topic comments.

To keep things simple, rip off what works

[LordZardoz]

At this point, we have yet to create a mechanical heart that is capable of being a universal replacement. Normal hearts beat, and the human body seems to work fine with that. If you want to reverse engineer a replacement, you may as well rip off what works.

END COMMUNICATION

Nevermore!

[PPH]

Edgar Allan Poe would be pleased.

Re:Nevermore!

[laejoh]

Edgar Allan Poe would be pleased.

Tell the tale!

Re:Nevermore!

[PPH]

Sorry. I seem to have misplaced it.

Would 1000 years be enough?

[jotaeleemeese]

10000 years?

How long do you think it could possible take?

If we don't destroy ourselves first, what is there to stop us?

Decades! Really? That much!

[jotaeleemeese]

Man, my head is hurting! Are you saying than progress happens only in the mythical decade sized span of time?

Do you mean nothing can happen on 1000 years of scientific progress?

Oh, the smallness of imagination and ambition.

How idiotic.

[jotaeleemeese]

In Roman times people could not expect to live more than 30 years in average.

In developed countries we are almost tripling that already.

In 2000 years more who is to say that we don't triple this again (to 300 years)?

The lack of ambition and imagination of some people is astounding, specially considering the great scientific leaps we have made in 100 years.

110 years ago we could not even fly. Now we have visited the Moon, are planning on visiting Mars and have sent probes to all planets in the solar system and a couple even beyond that. If you have said this to somebody in 1900 they would hve looked at you as an irreparable idiot.

Yes.

[jotaeleemeese]

The government will provide this, unless they want a revolution that will make 1917 in Moscow look like a walk in the park.

Stop beating up that strawman

[Anonymous Coward]

Your non sequitur is very "foreign-seeming" and makes me wonder if English is your first language. I hope not.

Who said anything about a 2000-year timeframe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you argue against irrelevant strawmen?

Do you not understand the discussion because you are not a native English-speaker or have you just not taken the time to read what you are contributing to?

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nature would remove genetic defectives from the gene pool.

Why are we so busy trying to keep them in the pool?

Actually...

[Deja]

Not to argue the point to a finite, or to be a prude but the experiment was only done with a rat's heart. The heart was rinsed with detergent to kill off all living cells in order to create a shell/matrix. When rat stem-cells were introduced to the shell they reciprocated the matrix to it's original function.
The goal is to be able to use a pig's heart and introduce the stem-cells of said person-of-many-ailments so their body will not reject it as has been done in several transplant operations.
The method is still under-going some further tests, but that's the story in a nut-shell.