Slashdot Mirror
Brain Cells Made From Urine
Press2ToContinue writes "Scientists have found a relatively straightforward way to persuade the cells discarded in human urine to turn into valuable neurons. The technique, described online in a study in Nature Methods this week (abstract), does not involve embryonic stem cells. These come with serious drawbacks when transplanted, such as the risk of developing tumors. Instead, the method uses ordinary cells present in urine, and transforms them into neural progenitor cells — the precursors of brain cells. Researchers routinely reprogram cultured skin and blood cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, which can go on to form any cell in the body. But urine is a much more accessible source."
The future might include pee brains in addition to pea brains.
...of thinking with my penis. Guess who's just got the last laugh now?
Whoa there dude! Check your keyboard, somebody might have slipped you a Dvorak.
Where "getting pissed" means an injection of new brain cells, not killing the ones you already have.
... ...Thou shall not take of the piss that thou'st passeth after a heavy night at the inn and make of it an addition to thine body, or use it to adorn thyself, or for any medical purpose whatsoever.
42.
43. For the Lord thy God is a fastidious god, and does not like to see people messing around with things that are iccky. Nor does he want to give an opportunity for the unbelievers of Phillistine and Gath to make stupid puns about 'taking the piss'. Thine body is made in the image of the Lord, and if He had wanted you to employ the spillings of thy loins to improve thy brain, he would have made thy member long enough to place in thine ear. Nor yet shall ye retain this water in any kind of receptacle, lest ye be tempted by Satan to do what is unclean, but ye shall cast it out onto unshriven ground, where the dogs may smell it as they please.
44. And Abraham spoke and said unto the Lord: "Lo, thy words are as a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. But what shall our brethren do if they are caught short at a party and cannot reach a station of comfort? Or, as it may be, some of thy handmaidens are already in there and taking their time about coming out?
45. Then the Lord waxed exceeding wroth, and swore at Abraham, saying "Thou dissembler! It is not for the likes of thee to question my instructions! Should you try to catch out the Lord thy God again, thy throat will catch fire, and not one of thy tribe shall be found who may pee in your mouth....
from the third Book of Emissions (Golden Showers edition)..
Not to step on the joke, but while your feces do have a lot of your cells in them, they're mostly dead cells which would be useless for induced pluripotency. Furthermore, I've heard it's about one third bacteria, so you'd have contamination problems. Urine, on the other hand, is much more sterile and free from bacteria, and it would presumably be much easier to spin down urine and collect living cells than it would be to separate cells out from feces.
Most importantly, the reason they were using urine was not to make brain cells from weird places, they had previously discovered that kidney cells took much less time to turn pluripotent than some other cell types, such as skin cells. I'd assume that colon cells wouldn't have this advantage even if you did isolate them living from poop. And I'm not going to test that hypothesis either...