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Scientists Turn Skin Cells Into Beating Heart Muscle
An anonymous reader writes "By taking skin cells and turning them into stem cells, a technique that is already well known, researchers at Technion Israel Institute of Technology were able to generate beating heart cells — a medical first. 'We have shown that it's possible to take skin cells from an elderly patient with advanced heart failure and end up with his own beating cells in a laboratory dish that are healthy and young — the equivalent to the stage of his heart cells when he was just born,' Lior Gepstein, study author and professor of medicine said."
Biochemist medical student here. Propagating genetic errors is certainly a concern here, but the same concerns exist for genetic transfer in breeding generally. While skin cell are exposed to more radiation, the cells preferred for sampling here are typically from buccal (mouth) sources or are relatively deeper than the layers where most melanoma form. ... I'm and idiot ....
Honestly, the more prime concerns are with imperfect "stemming" or imperfect conversion to heart cells.
Then again
...... and idiots rule the world....
Overpopulation is not a problem. That is a myth that has been perpetuated since the latter half of the 18th century. Do the math.
Perhaps even the brain... someday. There's nothing inherently mystical or supernatural about the brain that must make it impossible to transfer knowledge and identity from one to the other. We just don't know how... yet.
Without a doubt. I anticipate that it will start becoming a regular occurrence for people to augment their physical and even mental abilities with machines well before the end of this century.
No.
If it were true, so what? You need a heart replacement or you will die, soon. If the procedure might give you cancer in 20 years, isn't that still a good trade?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on