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Human Mini-Brains Growing Inside Rat Bodies Are Starting To Integrate (inverse.com)
At the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience starting November 11 in Washington D.C., two teams of scientists plan to present previously unpublished research on the unexpected interaction between human mini-brains and their rat and mouse hosts. "In the new papers, according to STAT, scientists will report that the organoids survived for extended periods of time -- two months in one case -- and even connected to lab animals' circulatory and nervous systems, transferring blood and nerve signals between the host animal and the implanted human cells," reports Inverse. "This is an unprecedented advancement for mini-brain research." From the report: That mini-brains can even be grown in the lab is a huge advancement in the first place, as they have many of the same characteristics as living human brains that are in the early stages of development. Though they're not "alive" in the same sense that you and I are, they grow and are organized into different layers like our brains are. They even react in similar ways to stimuli like psychedelic drugs. Organoids are poised to revolutionize research on the human brain since scientists can perform tests on them that would be unethical to attempt on living humans. STAT also reports that a third lab, in addition to the two presenting at the Society for Neuroscience meeting, has successfully connected human brain organoids to blood vessels. This attempt veered into such challenging ethical territory, though, that the lab reportedly paused its efforts.
Ethical is informing someone of the risks, not misrepresent anything for the purpose of obtaining consent.
Moral is can't do it at all because of some taboo.
Mini brains in mice are a clever workaround. As long as we can pretrnd its like growing vegetables, its ok.
Scientists should be careful to ensure they can't communicate meaningfully with these minibrains, because the instant one of those things signals that it's hurting or wants the pain to stop, the ethics and morals will apply again and we will be having strange discussions about whether those mini brains come with souls or not.
That might have to do with who you hang out with and where you live.
I have found that the smartest Republicans are at least as smart as the smartest Democrats. And I have found that both Democrats and Republicans lie about the same.
But I have also found that the smarter the Republican is, the more likely he is to lie to the public and tell the truth to his allies, while the smarter the Democrat is, the more likely he is to lie to his allies and tell the truth to the public.
Personally, I would rather have someone lie to their ally and tell the public the truth.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Nice word vomit. Did a fake research paper alogrithm write that for you?
All humans are swayed by illogical things. Though you can mitigate it, there's nothing you can do to prevent it.
This is horrifying. How could you go home and sleep at night after working on something like this?
Growing extra organs in or on animals is already pretty grotesque, but at least that has obvious and practical applications. But this? This is some shit, man...
Current societal evolution does not favor kind, intelligent, thoughtful, passionate, respectful, people. The best we can hope for is that it never selects AGAINST these traits.
Comforting: one lab paused it's efforts because someone somewhere raised ethical challenges. Excellent as it indicates someone is giving some thought to what is going on.
Discomforting: these things aren't 'alive' in the same sense as you and I so they can be experimented upon in ways that would be deemed unethical. Chilling that someone somewhere sees this as a loophole.
One of the most frightening developments to appear in /. in a while.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.