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Researchers Keep Pig Heart Beating In Baboon Belly For 2 Years (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers report Tuesday that they were able to keep pig hearts alive and beating in the abdomens of five baboons for record amounts of time -- a median of 298 days and a max of 945 days. Previous benchmarks were set at a median of 180 and a max of 500 days, respectively. Currently in the US, 22 people die every day just waiting for organs, which are in constant short supply. To help solve the problem, researchers turned to pigs years ago to see if they could lend useful organs or at least provide temporary "bridge" tissue to those on wait-lists. Pigs were a good fit mainly because their organs' sizes are similar to that of human's. In early studies, successful survival time in pig-to-primate transplants, generally called xenotransplants, were measured in minutes. The swine substitutes naturally have a molecular marker, called alpha 1-3-galactosyltransferase (gal), which triggers deadly blood clots in primates. In the new study, researchers at the National Institutes of Health and colleagues, tweaked the approach; they engineered the gal-knock out pigs to have extra anti-clotting genetic features and used an antibody to selectively shut down the part of the primate's immune system that responds to pig organs. To avoid needlessly killing the baboons and doing extensive surgery, the researchers opted to transplant the pig hearts into the baboon's abdomens, leaving the primates' hearts in place. In the abdomen, the pig tickers hooked up to circulatory system and beat for a record-breaking amount of time.
Hardly anybody here is able to even consider the agonies and suffering of all the animals involved in this torture. Yes, it's torture. But of course, you are unable to feel the suffering of others, so the word is meaningless to you. So is the word 'suffering' - unless it's your own, of course, and then it's the end of the world.
This isn't a toy, a joke, or a game, Human beings are animals, and their ability to feel pain is EXACTLY the same as yours. Therefore this is an atrocity and is morally wrong. What part of that don't you understand?
Don't tell me: "Humans are better than animals" or "Humans are worth more than animals", without any explanation. The only explanation being, of course, "I am a human, therefore I am more important than an animal."
But billions of human beings, the majority in fact, either directly torture and kill about 3,000 animals during their lifetime, or pay somebody else to do it - for no reason other than they can't think for themselves and question the morality of what it is that they are eating. So those human beings, for a start, are morally worse than the very animals they pay people to torture and kill so they can eat them or their milk or eggs. But please try and explain to me why a being that kills 3,000 other beings for no reason is worth more than a being who never kills anybody.