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An Artificial Womb Successfully Grew Baby Sheep -- and Humans Could Be Next (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Inside what look like oversized ziplock bags strewn with tubes of blood and fluid, eight fetal lambs continued to develop -- much like they would have inside their mothers. Over four weeks, their lungs and brains grew, they sprouted wool, opened their eyes, wriggled around, and learned to swallow, according to a new study that takes the first step toward an artificial womb. One day, this device could help to bring premature human babies to term outside the uterus -- but right now, it has only been tested on sheep. The Biobag may not look much like a womb, but it contains the same key parts: a clear plastic bag that encloses the fetal lamb and protects it from the outside world, like the uterus would; an electrolyte solution that bathes the lamb similarly to the amniotic fluid in the uterus; and a way for the fetus to circulate its blood and exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen. Flake and his colleagues published their results today in the journal Nature Communications.
Read the book.
too many implications.
Since many women feel free to just go to a sperm bank and have a child without a "father" [through artificial insemination], men will eventually be able to go to an egg bank and have a child without a "mother" [by renting an artificial womb].
Of course that is not the primary drive behind the development, but there are so many possibilities. Women with hysterectomies banking eggs to have children later without the risk and complexity of a surrogate. Husbands having children from eggs extracted from their dead or dying wife. Gay couples having children without involving any women. Old couples changing their mind about having children (as long as they planned ahead). "Professional" women who don't want to ruin their jobs or be inconvenienced. Attractive women who don't want to ruin their figures. Governments producing children using extracted DNA.
Those tanks were the exact opposite of those artifical wombs though.
Veal is about to get a whole lot fresher! ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I have no doubt that in countries where abortion is legal, right-to-lifers will be lining up to crowd-fund this research, and to pay for women who would otherwise have an abortion to pop their fetuses into these artificial wombs and brought to term.
And then, of course, they will act boldly to ensure that the fetuses are adopted into loving families...perhaps even their own!
Yeah, right.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
*Should* humans be used to bring sheep fetuses to term, or should they continue using the artificial wombs?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In most wealthy countries, kids are a liability because you have to feed, clothe, and shelter them without them delivering any kind of return on investment. In poor countries they tend to be an asset because they end up being extra farm hands, laborers, etc.
Having kids in western countries is thus a luxury, whereas in places like Africa it's a necessity.
If they're going to spend their brief lives in a steel box before being prepped for someone else's dinner, I guess an immune system doesn't matter that much.
So if this is made to work for humans will it make abortion obsolete?
1. Saving prematures whose parents already have decided they want it.
2. Birth control in underdeveloped countries.
We are not the people to dismiss the child wish of people under 1.
We can act on 2. however, as for instance Bill Gates is already doing with his famous:
“The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care & reproductive health services, we could LOWER that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.”
By the way, scare mongering isn't really necessary, as Hans Rosling argues that
In developed countries, a ratio near 2 parents to 2 children mostly exists and developing nations are getting closer and closer as their childhood health outcomes continue to improve.
which brings him to the conclusion that
Population growth should hit a limit around 11 billion within the next hundred years, as the world equalizes in health outcomes.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
...there is an observation port built into the device.
Then it would be a womb with a view.
Jeez, get a grip - and READ THE ARTICLE.
The apparatus did NOT 'grow' a sheep, it merely kept a premature sheep embryo alive long enough to separate it from the device, and then have it submitted to the knife of the 'scientists' so they could evaluate the effectiveness of the artificial womb.
OK, I am NOT anti-science, and I really do appreciate the accomplishments of this endeavor - - - therefore there is NO reason to blow the accomplishments out of proportion.
THIS 'device' is being put forward as a means to extend the viability of really early premature birth infants so they actually have a chance to survive - - - and NOT as an ARTIFICIAL WOMB with the ability to actually grow an infant from sperm-egg inception to birth.
cheers . . .
redneck geek
Imagine future generations of womankind growing up in a world where women are no longer needed for making children except for their eggs. This is a first step toward that. And that's not the end of the world for women. It's more like the end of the beginning.
Look at how dishwashers and vacuum cleaners worked out - did women think that was the end of the world because so-called "women's work" was in part automated? Noep, noep, and absolutely noep, it freed women to do other things. Patriarchal boneheads at the time complained about women having more free time but in the end only the Tradcon fringe thinks "women's work" is a thing anymore.
The artificial womb will free women from the expectation of motherhood in order to perpetuate the species. markdavis's remark about women being able to build up their professional life without worrying about missing out on motherhood will be just the first symptom of this liberating technology. Perhaps we'll never be rid of the Tradcons, but technology like this will further enable women to not give a crap about what they think.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
This artificial womb will save millions of lives each year and prevent millions more from suffering disabilities caused by premature birth.
Your numbers seemed high, so I looked it up.
Preterm birth complications are the leading cause of death among children under 5 years of age, responsible for nearly 1 million deaths in 2015.
Three-quarters of them could be saved with current, cost-effective interventions.
So if current, cost-effective interventions were applied we'd have about a quarter-million lives lost that could potentially be helped by this new technology.
Assuming it would be even more expensive than existing interventions, it would be available in an even smaller percentage of cases than those. But let's say it was equally available. That means ~62,500 lives saved.
It's just a first step. It doesn't need to be a miracle to be worth doing.
Nope, no sig
Remember, the only difference between incubation and sous vide is final temperature...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Your argument, such as it is, rests on the assumption that the child in the womb does not have its own right to bodily self-determination. And it's exactly that assumption that pro-lifers disagree with.
Though it certainly is simpler to just assume that those you disagree with are innately evil.