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The Military Plans To Regrow Body Parts
Ponca City, We Love You writes "The Department of Defense has announced the creation of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine to 'harness stem cell research and technology... to reconstruct new skin, muscles and tendons, and even ears, noses and fingers.' The government is budgeting $250 million in public and private money for the project's first five years, and the NIH and three universities will be on the team. The military has been working on regrowing lost body parts using extracellular matrices and scientists in labs have grown blood vessels, livers, bladders, breast implants, and meat and are already growing a new ear for a badly burned Marine using stem cells from his own body. Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker explained that our bodies systematically generate liver cells and bone marrow and that this ability can be redirected through 'the right kind of stimulation.' The general cited animals like salamanders that can regrow lost tails or limbs. 'Why can't a mammal do the same thing?' he asked."
I wonder if they're going to grow that ear on a mouse.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Being able to do something and being willing to pay for it are two seperate things. Just because the military is pioneering this research doesn't mean they are going to make it available for free to the young men and women they are responsible for maiming. They could just try and make a profit from it.
Furthermore, 300,000 soldiers are coming back from Iraq with some kind of mental disorder. You can't grow a new happy mind in a petri dish.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
blood vessels, livers, bladders, breast implants, and meat
Really? I didn't think that people lost breast implants in accidents very often.
Mmmmm, I thought I had already killed that one...
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Adamantium skeletons?
...Oh well, time for a trip to the respawning tank...
I wonder if this can be used to grow certain bodyparts that transexuals for a very obvious reason are missing.. Not entirely sure whether you can mess around enough to be able to do that, but it would be very interesting to see if it's possible.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
get shot up, get repaired, get sent back in
:)
good for morale
"scientists in labs have grown ... breast implants..."
So soon those penis enlargement ads won't be just a scam?
Not that I need anything like that...
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
For example, when people lose their personality due to Alzheimer's disease, the location to where their personality is stored isnt damaged per-say, they end up losing synaptic connections between the neurons and neurofibrillary tangles start to develop. If these were restored through stem cells, the personality is restored.
So I guess what I'm saying is that as long as where personality is stored isn't physically destroyed, and studies in neuron restoration improve, it can be possible to give their personalities back.
I can has mah PREHENSILE tail nao?
K, THX!!!
So, the US military is looking to fund a project to re-grow body parts, including meat, and PETA is offering money to someone who can create artificial meat. That sounds like a match made in Soylent Heaven to me; "It's your *own* meat; how could it not be ethical to eat it? You didn't suffer did you?"
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I just read this Scientific American article on the subject, and it seems a lot farther away than the Slate article is implying. I wonder if some of the funding is going to the researchers who wrote the SciAm article.
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
If you think a little you might figure out the real, long term agenda of their research.... Just think about that sharks can already regenerate lost fins. But how about the things attached to their head? Mmmmm, do you get it....
I can see it now... an Iraqi dissident is hiding in a ditch near Baghdad, determined to ambush the next American patrol, then reconsiders because he's distracted by the sergeant's spectacular breasts....that might just work. Hooraay! Fake Tits for everyone!
I wonder how much it will cost the general public once the technology matures. An arm and a leg?
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
There is plenty of research that is paid for by the military (through taxes) and then comes around to benefit civilians in the long run.
I can think of a few off the top of my head...
1) The internet (ARPA)
2) Jet power and most anything involving aviation
3) Many types of cold weather gear
4) Alot of medical research was done to save people in uniform
5) Satellite technology
If it wasn't for the military alot of these things just would not have gotten the funding they deserved because they wouldn't have been needed at the time.
There is in fact research into regrowth of fatty breast tissue from stem cells. There are a number of reasons for pursuing "natural" materials for reconstruction. For total reconstructions due to mastectomy, birth defect or injury the man-made implants are not cosmetically convincing. Some women are allergic or otherwise do not tolerate silcone in the implant envelope. Many women are not excited about having foreign material implanted in their bodies and especially for mastectomies would prefer to be reconstructed with their "own" tissues. It's a prosthetic versus regrowth issue... just like it is for the rest of the article.
How about an analogy: If you lost your pecker, would you like to have prosthetic replacement implanted under grafted skin or a regrown, fully functioning "member" from your own stem cells just like the original.
I would. There's too much to do in this world for one lifetime. Especially when you're a procrastinator from the start. Plus, I want to see the future ... the first manned Mars landing. The first interstellar probe. The singularity. Who knows what else. Just because you're happy with a handful of years and a geological instant, doesn't mean everyone else is.
Who would want to live forever?
Seems to me a lot of religions are centered around achieving eternal life.
(See Matthew 19:16-17; Mark 10:17-19; Luke 18:18-20 for Christianity, for example.)
While I agree eternal life sounds like more than I'd want, I think I could tolerate living a few hundred or even a few thousand years. After all, I want to play Duke Nukem Forever one day!
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
> Who would want to live forever?
Accidents will get you, eventually. Someone (I forget who) calculated a few years ago that perfect long-term medical care and a total absence of disease just raises the Average Life Expectancy to about 400 years. Less if cancer cannot be cured, just treated (especially brain cancers).
Anyway, you could always refuse extraordinary measures, even when they have become as ordinary as hydration and intravenous feeding is now.
Go, speak for yourself.
Just because *you* are bored with your current existence and don't know how to fill another livespan doesn't mean others will feel the same.
I'd definitely welcome a society of eternal life, because that means that people will need to drive away from current quarter-based, short-term oriented thinking. Instead, the long-term perspective becomes focus again, therefore potentially leading to real breakthrough as opposed to "look, this mobile phone now comes in fluff and it even has a camera attached!" kind of technological advantages.
Also, we then *desperately* need to find a way to (a) optimize our resource use (harvesting e=mc^2 instead of just burning oil) and (b) spread to other planets, at least spread over our solar system. Both things I've been told as a kid to be lucky to experience by Y2K -- still, I await that badly to happen.
They probably don't fit into a quarter-based revenue plan...
Plus, by not aging conventionally, I may be able to decide to learn something entirely new every 20, 30 years when my previous occupation starts to bore me.
So why again do you think somewhat eternal life will become dull? There's so much to see.
Besides, you'll always have the option of riding the Suicide Booth.
Imagine how many more soldiers they will get with the this advertising. Serve now and get a 12" penile enhancement!!!! Just 3 inches per tour!!!!
Why is it that this is just surprising everyone all of a sudden? Growing body parts has been on the agenda for years and years and years. That was the original intent in the beginning of stem cell research. This is obviously a first step in getting the acceptance of the public.
While people are vocal about saying no to stem cell research, they are also saying yes to re-growing their body parts. I find this hypocritical, to say the least of this.
I'm thinking of the future, here, and I wonder when I will hear someone say "well, we regrow arms and livers and legs... why not a whole body? Why not stay alive forever?" I personally do NOT want to see George W. Bush live for another 100 years, when my yet-unborn-grandkids will be having their own kids, and will have to witness the destruction of our environment and of democracy altogether when W. takes power for a 3rd term. It's like Dr Evil all over again.
Before the military start using this, shouldn't there be a universal law passed for the entire planet, saying that we will not misuse this stuff? I see moral, religious, political, military, and more, implications in this kind of technology, and that this kind of thing is important cannot be ignored just by saying "Hey, what about my penis implant?"
Sébastien Ferland couzin2000@gmail.com freedom | liberté | libertad | freiheit | libertà libertade |
How can we be expected to believe these contracts will do anything but make some "biotech entrepreneurs" rich, without ever showing any medical benefit to the general population, when Bush's Pentagon won't even fund normal veterans services like healthcare, insurance, education, or even reasonable salary increases?
I know the Pentagon is sending badly wounded soldiers back into fighting in Iraq. But how do they expect people to volunteer to go through the ringer without keeping our promises to these making the ultimate sacrifices, especially if the only medical care they'll get will be to rotate their tires after they get blasted to bits, until there's nothing left to put together and send back?
Although I guess a draft combined with regrowing body parts could do the trick. "Frankenstein's Army" for the 21st Century. I'll be scanning the Pentagon budgets for new funding for zombies, the real cutting edge.
--
make install -not war
Growing new muscle tissue is a waste of time, unless one solves the problem of regrowing nerve tissue, including getting it to reconnect at the severed spot as well as migrating through the new tissue to its intended connection target. Without nerve connection the muscle is useless and will atrophy. To see what happens, look at Stephen Hawking. His illness is MOTOR neuron disease, loss of nerves that operate muscles.
We *can* regrow neurons as we have natural stem cells that do so. The problem with either natural or induced growth is getting them to follow the path they're supposed to rather than grow into a tangled heap called a neuroma. Those can be more of a problem than no regrowth, as they can regrow nerve endings on the tangle, and so be extremely sensitive in the wrong place.
I had a damaged nerve in my foot excised. The end of the nerve grew a neuroma. If I ran, or even walked too hard, it was like stepping on a nail. Couldn't run, so couldn't fight. The Army put me out. Over the next 10 years the neuroma faded away. And the nerve regrew properly. I now have full feeling in the area served by that nerve. This is not the usual course of healing -- I was just damn lucky.
The military is willing to pay to have human tissue regrowth rather than lose the entire investment in a service member. They paid around $200,000 total for all my training. When I was capable again, I was too old. If I'd have been able to have this happen over the course of a year or so I could have been kept in and on medical leave, returning to service when finished.
My concern is that the military will effectively experiment on its service members by applying this technology to their healing before it's perfected. Someone still in service has a duty to try to continue, and they carry implied consent to take necessary medical treatment, by passing informed consent when pressure to accept treatment is applied. Refusing treatment can be taken as refusing to serve through one's contract. If the treatment were being offered through the Veterans Administration, fine. Through the military, I'd be wary until it's proven good enough for the civilian market.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B