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Reprogrammed Skin Cells Turned Into Baby Mice
InfiniteZero writes "According to this WSJ story, 'Two teams of Chinese researchers working separately have reprogrammed mature skin cells of mice to an embryonic-like state and used the resulting cells to create live mouse offspring. The reprogramming may bring scientists one step closer to creating medically useful stem-cell lines for treating human disease without having to resort to controversial laboratory techniques. However, the advance poses fresh ethical challenges because the results could make it easier to create human clones and babies with specific genetic traits.'"
I am sure I am not the only one who is tired of hearing about ethical challenges that come with every small new incremental step in stem cell/cloning research. The issues haven't changed, they are the same as when cloning was first brought to the public spotlight when dolly was cloned; and they are the same as have been discussed in science fiction circles way before that.
Seriously, they freakin' took skin and turned it into another living creature! That is by far the coolest thing I've heard this week, and the only thing you can think of to say about it is something about ethical issues? That's like saying, "I invented artificial intelligence, but I don't know what to do about my ugly computer case, where can I get a nice one?" seriously, this is a problem that, while somewhat interesting, can be solved, is not particularly relevant, and really doesn't need to be discussed here.
Qxe4
I really don't understand how this experiment could be seen as controversial, as the cloning effort was to prove that an adult's cells could be reprogrammed to form any type of tissue, as opposed to harvesting our own young, which is clearly a practice with ethical question marks all over it. The focus was not cloning. We can do cloning well enough now. The technology already exists. What this research does mean is a glimpse into a future with no waiting lists for donor organs, no harvesting from the dead and far fewer rejection issues for new organs, as they would be your own tissue, from your own cells. Good stuff.
sudo mount --milk --sugar
the point is, we should be given the freedom to get to the point where we need to answer such moral questions like "when is an cloned organ donor human?" for ourselfs, and not have that taken away by the moralist right.
Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean its not right. Or are you ok with the "moralist right" saying that we were created because they have the right to answer it for the world? You see, the problem is, you end up possibly killing someone else if you are wrong. And really, the least you can say is that its not human even though it is A) living B) has human DNA and C) if developed would be a functioning human being. But I'm sure you also believe that each parent can choose what to do with their kid including abusing or even killing them right?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
this is exactly what i'm talking about - i don't agree that a couple of cells constitutes a human being, so why should someone like yourself who this has zero impact on get to deny 100,000's of people potentially life saving treatments? i'd like to see these people against stem cell research look a kid dieing from organ failure in the eye, and tell him they don't believe cloned organs are worth looking into.
i think part of the problem is a lot of people have romanticised the idea of conception, if they were to actually go to a lab and see what they are protesting about they might alter their views.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I for one find it ridiculous that a single cell would enjoy the same rights as a real person with a personality, experiences, and so forth. The moment a single cell can be a legal human is the moment I'll embrace the concept of 'lesser' humans that can be slain for the convenience of 'superior' humans (where one human would be superior than another one when the cellcount of the former is at least 9 orders of magnitude larger than the cellcount of the latter.
No wait, screw that. Why again does being a 'human being' make something special? Maybe that's worth examining.
That's interesting information regarding fetal development timing, but I'd be careful about what you mean by "sentient" here. Is a cow sentient? It has a quite well-developed nervous system, interacts with its surroundings, and will attempt to avoid being killed. Does that mean hamburger is murder? I've never seen any evidence that infants in the womb, or even recently outside of it, possess the sort of self-aware consciousness that we tend to consider uniquely human.
I'm also somewhat skeptical of your math regarding birth control, because I know too many people with active sex lives who have somehow managed to have neither abortions nor babies over the years. It might work out in theory, but in practice...not so much.
Bobb9000 - raised by the wolves,
Oxford education as phrased by the wolves.
Um... no... First of all at the 18th day of pregnancy fetuses have a rudimentary nervous system, they have no provable manner of sentience. Furthermore any attempt of a baby of that age to "fight off" an abortion has never been shown to be a conscious action and is much more likely to be reflex loop. Finally statistics don't work like that, in reference to the pill. Now, please don't refute it as a moral argument without any shred of supporting evidence. Please read "Principles of Biomedical Ethics" by Beauchamp before wasting other peoples time.
Thanks!
Biomedical Engineer