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Artificial Blood Made In Romania
First time accepted submitter calinduca writes "Artificial blood that could one day be used in humans without side effects has been created by scientists in Romania. The blood contains water and salts along with a protein known as hemerythrin which is extracted from sea worms. Researchers from Babe-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, hope it could help end blood supply shortages and prevent infections through donations." Wikipedia's entry on hemerythrin explains its unusual oxygen binding mechanism.
Transylvania is in Romania
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Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
heh. Romania, Dracula, Artificial blood, Halloween ... the late night talk show writers should have a field day with this one if it isn't some sort of elaborate ruse.
I just used my last karma point on the pen-testing post, but I was thinking similarly.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
But the fake stuff will do in a pinch.
Would something like this be accepted by groups like Jehovah's Witness' that do not accept blood transfusions?
Does this mean True Blood will become a reality?
Sent from my TARDIS
I can't help myself but to notice the similarities between this and the fictional "TruBlood" as I'm sure everyone else will, too. Maybe this is just the precursor to the vamps integrating with our society! (not like the current versions we have in the US serving in Congress)
announced on Halloween...
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
in vampire country make trublood on halloween - good show!
to spell names correctly?
It's Babes-Bolyai University http://www.cci.ubbcluj.ro/,
Thank you,
AC
It looks like all the vampire jokes are covered already, so on to the actual subject.
From the summary and the wiki-link, this is a mixture of saltwater and an oxygen carrier molecule from certain worms. As long as it doesn't trigger any sort of allergy, this should work well for short duration needs (like surgery) and the simplicity of the chemicals suggests that it can bypass the protein marker issues with human blood supplies.
And thus begins the plot of Daybreakers.
The film takes place in a futuristic world overrun by vampires. A vampiric corporation sets out to capture and farm the remaining humans while researching a blood substitute. Lead vampire hematologist Edward Dalton's (Ethan Hawke) work is interrupted by human survivors led by former vampire "Elvis" (Willem Dafoe), who has a cure that can save the human species.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Have we forgotten about PolyHeme? It isn't truly artificial (it is made from human hemoglobin), but it is not infectious and is not type specific. And it can be stored for a year at room temperature.
I worked the trail backwards to a Romanian news source because it was just too coincidental, but since I don't read Romanian I stopped there.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
This project was sponsored by the Romanian government in the hope that the last of the remaining transylvanian vampires would be able to come out of hiding and live without persecution.
If it acquires resources on instantiation like a duck, then its a shared_ptr<Duck>
Brian Lumley wrote about something very similar. Except the worms were vampires.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Cold open to new Will Smith movie: the Worm People.
ok haha very funny with the vampire jokes anyway,- i think this is a good project and smart as well!
You would thing the best and easiest way would just be to filter/treat cow blood in some way.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The one you are remembering was probably PolyHeme. It wasn't a hundred years ago, but there technical and industrial barriers blocking the development of this type of product didn't really fall until the 70's.
The non-consent trial (technically opt-out, but you had to do it before you got your trama injury) for PolyHeme weren't just disturbing, Polyheme didn't perform well in these trials (for example, the chicago trial). This is probably why you haven't heard much about this since that time.
Because of the blowback from the Polyheme trials, one of the competing products at the time Hemopure never made it to similar trials and went BK. Part of the concern was that at least Polyheme was made from human blood, where Hemopure was made from cow blood.
This Hemerythrin stuff is chemically different, but may face the same issues as the earlier synthetic blood products in clinical trials and the inevitable marketing.
Do Romanians celebrate Hallowe'en? It is celebrated in the Celtic nations such as Scotland and USA. In England, they only started celebrating it relatively recently.
to make a Dracula joke. It would just be too easy.
The washington times story is just a copy/paste of the other article linked in the summary. The other link you provided is a list of all the publications Radu Silaghi has put out, this one is not listed there as far as I could tell.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Crap...now we're stuck with Edward for centuries to come.
With luck this will end the vampire book and movie genre as we know it. Expect kinder and gentler vampires from now on. -SG
Isn't it bad enough that we get so many of these bogus stories on April 1st?
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Triduum of All Hallows is a (Roman) catholic holiday starting today. I see no reason why that might not have bled over. Regardless of origin, once it's part of Catholic tradition, it tends to get around a bit.
(I'm aware that romania is mostly orthodox)
Pleasing taste ... some monsterism.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Strange. I had heard about this concept back when I was a kid and was curious as to why I hadn't heard more about it since then.
Back when I was in school we used to get a little magazine called "Weekly Reader" and back around 1991-ish I remember them having an article about scientists having created artificial blood. It didn't have any disease fighting capability but could carry oxygen (and was apparently white in color before being used).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Sign me up.
Are we getting to where we could create this? IF we can replace blood completely or in part with a substance that has nanites that accomplish some tasks better - perhaps we're ready for SmartBlood.
From a blog synopsizing the technology[1]:
[1] http://underbase.livejournal.com/49019.html
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
This is a Halloween joke right? Tell me this is a Halloween joke like an April FOols joke.
In related news Anna Paquin goes into hiding.
Have gnu, will travel.
Hallowe'en is a Pagan festival to celebrate the Autumn (Fall) equinox. They believed that this was the time of year that the spirits of the dead would wake up for the winter, and it was necessary for young people to dress up as skeletons and ghosts and to have lanterns designed as such in order to confuse them and scare them away. Absolutely nothing to do with the Catholic Church or Christianity, it was around before they came along.
All Saints' Day is tomorrow, and All Souls' day the day after. Those are Christian festivals. But dressing up as skeletons, witches and so on is nothing to do with that, it is to do with the pre-Christian pagan festival.
Please replace the misspelled name with the correct one: Babe-Bolyai University.
http://www.ubbcluj.ro/
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
There aren't enough Jehovah's Witnesses for them to be a major focus of research expenditure. You are right in that the new techniques are often better than what they replace, but it isn't because one group refuses transfusions, it's because blood is a damn precious resource. There is NEVER enough of it when you really need it, and developing a low-loss technique (which can be more difficult to execute, resulting in more specialized training for surgeons and more specialized equipment, which results in bigger costs... at least in the short term) means there's one less drain on an extremely limited, perishable, and valuable resource.
The Witnesses can simply benefit as individuals from something that's good for society as a whole. Good for them, but don't confuse what's driving progress and what's coincidentally benefiting from the results.
And I know someone will trot out some reference claiming that a technique came about because of a Witness patient. But dig down, did that technique get DEVELOPED because of the patient, or was it an experimental or limited procedure that was already known but not widely utilized until that patient forced the issue?
I understand that many people who post here don't share my religious views, but as a person who doesn't believe in accepting blood: This is huge. There have been great strides in bloodless surgery, but an alternative it always great. Thank you to these folks for their continued work
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
True Blood
The Sookie Stackhouse (southern vampire series) books (and the "True Blood" TV adaptation) come to mind as well.
For those unaware of the series: They start from shortly after the big reveal, where the vampires came out of the closet after the Japanese invent a blood substitute that provides adequate nutrition for vampires, allowing them to live without hunting people.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Those missing children...
"Cocaine is undoubtedly bad for the fetus. But experts say its effects are less severe than those of alcohol and are comparable to those of tobacco — two legal substances that are used much more often by pregnant women, despite health warnings.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27coca.html?_r=0
Haven't quite made it to 2008 yet in your TV and Movie backlog, I see..
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Did anyone read the Wikipedia entry?
"Hemerythrin and myohemerythrin are essentially colorless when deoxygenated, but turn a violet-pink in the oxygenated state."
Since much of our skin tone (for lighter colored skins) comes from blood, this is going to make for some VERY interesting looking people!!!
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
I wonder how long it will take the pro cycling communities to start testing for hemerythrin doping. If it doesn't thicken the blood too much, it might actually be a nice performance enhancing treatment for Athletes for training.
THe wikipedia article is intriguing, I never thought much about the different oxygen transport mechanisms out there (except that of lobsters).
It appears that one kind of blood is 1/4 as effective as human blood but has much less affinity for carbon monoxide, others use cooperative bonding which boosts the oxygen transport capability I guess, also a microorganism was found with a similar substance but it includes sulfur, etc.!
I was thinking what if astronauts or deep-sea living argonauts were running out of oxygen, they might choose to exchange their blood for one of these other types and it would be enough to get them through though maybe not enough energy for exciting EVAs..! Pretty neat. The story about the new dna biocomputer code being open sourced though was both neat to the awesometh power but also very scary.. having read blood music as another poster did and remembering what Bill Joy wrote ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_The_Future_Doesn't_Need_Us ). Welp the cat's out of the bag and I guess DHS worrying about explosives is just another quaint trivia item about the 2010s. Seems like we are on the crest of an accelerating wave of great inventions and hope they will be used well!