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Scientists Take Step Toward Creating Artificial Embryos (reuters.com)
An international team of scientists has moved closer to creating artificial embryos after using mouse stem cells to make structures capable of taking a crucial step in the development of life. From a report: Experts said the results suggested human embryos could be created in a similar way in future -- a step that would allow scientists to use artificial embryos rather than real ones to research the very earliest stages of human development. The team, led by Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a professor at Britain's Cambridge University, had previously created a simpler structure resembling a mouse embryo in a lab dish. That work involved two types of stem cells and a three-dimensional scaffold on which they could grow. But in new work published on Monday in the journal Nature Cell Biology, the scientists developed the structures further -- using three types of stem cells -- enabling a process called gastrulation, an essential step in which embryonic cells begin self-organizing into a correct structure for an embryo to form.
"At some point, our playing God is going to catch up to us."
- Ogg the regressive caveman, 50,000 BC
Since some coward has mod points and felt the need to post as AC and mod his own posts up just to say we "shouldn't be playing God," I felt it was only right to balance this by claiming we should be playing God.
Science is all about learning how the world works and testing it if you can. If you think science is playing God then you should go back to the jungle with the other monkeys.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Its rather factual now that human's have become God like beings created life artificially and eventually this leads to people losing the wonder of life as we know it. But I think most scientist never believed creation was anything that couldn't eventually be duplicated by science. Its one of those question just because we can doesn't mean we should.
This doesn't solve any moral dilemmas. If you can induce human embryos to come about then those are still human.
Well, if scientists cannot experiment with real embryos due to ethical concerns, the logical thing is to experiment with simulated ones.
Progress needs to be made and the "shouldn't be playing God" mentality cannot have it both ways by ever expanding what's considered a real embryo.
Time to pull your head out of the sand and start asking questions... like:
1. Would an artificial embryo be considered a 'Human' embryo, and would they be subject to the same laws as embryos created in the normal manner?
2. If they are judged to not be a human embryo (why? because definition of a human embryo includes that it comes from a egg and sperm interacting), then are they available for stem cell studies (in the US, most other countries are less regressive)?
3. If they are not a human embryo, then if they mature into a living creature, would that creature be considered human?
so on, and so forth...
And finally, if belief in God requires believing that only God can handle these processes, is either belief in God dispelled, or are Humans now God?
Hold on a second. You mean using artificial embryos which don't come from real eggs and sperms also constitutes "killing unborn babies"?
The process is created exactly to *prevent* real embryos from being used for experimentation.
I'd call this progress in the right direction - this will *save* millions of innocent unborn babies by using artificial, not real, embryos.
If the anti-abortion and/or "no playing God" crowds still protests about this, I'd call it goalpost moving.
It will be interesting to see how this will affect choice rights. Is this considered conception, if so, at what point?
Then maybe the people who want to stop abortions should spend their time educating people about birth control and distributing pill and condoms...
Because those are the only things that have been demonstrated to reduce abortion rates
All we have to do now is combine this with artificial wombs and automate the whole thing in seed ships spreading humanity to neighboring stars...
The only question is who raises the newborns in the seed ship. How many adults do we need to have around? Perhaps a generational with only half a dozen people at any given time but that can spawn thousands once it arrives at the chosen destination.
I can't be the first to think of this concept. Can anyone recommend a sci-fi novel that describes a similar idea?
We murder innocent tumors when we excise them from healthy flesh. If you DNA test a tumor it is decidedly human. (Hyperbole for rhetorical purposes)
A fetus is a part of a woman's body until it can transform it's metabolic rate to survive outside of the womb. Without that tranformation a fetus dies from hypothermia once removed from the womb and must be kept in an incubator until it matures into an independent organism. (Scientifically supported and provable)
It's pure hyperbole to equate abortion to murder. And if you place anti-abortion in a historic and socio-political context it comes from authoritarians that attempt to blame all social woes on impoverished single mothers. (We know social problems are more complex)
First feed, clothe, and educate the children in our poor neighborhoods and I'd be far more receptive to your ideas of what is right thinking.
Is it fair to prioritize living breathing children over a fetus? That should be obvious. Certainly it's not a mutually exclusive choice, we could protect both, but that you can't even protect one calls a lot into question.
Remain a hippocrit and I will continue to dismiss your unscientific position and questionable motives.
See, those embryos are needed for research - to ease human suffering and help our economy - medical treatment for many genetic diseases are extremely expensive and limit peoples' ability to work. Many diseases that may one day may be cured from these artificial embryos will be eliminated. And as someone who lost the genetic lottery and is struggling physically, emotionally and financially because of our obscenely expensive medical system, I am hoping for success - even if it doesn't do me any good. I'm thinking of the future.
And let's remember this is necessary because some very misguided people think fertilized eggs, blastocysts and embryos are "human lives" and are morally against use of embryos in any scientific research - but have no problem with living people suffering because of the politicization of science. (And condemn those that have to be on disability as some sort of lazy freeloader.) And it's funny that many of the unused frozen embryos used in fertility clinics are trashed after a while. And of course many don't even become fetuses after implantation - but we'll ignore all those inconvenient facts.
Hold on a second. You mean using artificial embryos which don't come from real eggs and sperms also constitutes "killing unborn babies"? The process is created exactly to *prevent* real embryos from being used for experimentation.
I'd call this progress in the right direction - this will *save* millions of innocent unborn babies by using artificial, not real, embryos.
If the anti-abortion and/or "no playing God" crowds still protests about this, I'd call it goalpost moving.
That makes no sense to me.
If you induce a human embryo to develop from human cells, then what you have is a human embryo. Implanted, it would develop and mature.
The whole point is that you want to experiment on human embryos. So it's a human embryo.
You haven't solved any ethical problems at all. You've just found another hand waving way to try to say that these human embryos aren't human, because argle fargle.
Females can be quite unpredictable, what if they were to all go on a sex strike or something. Lol Or just unable to have children... who knows.
[($)]
The only things needing to be tracked back to their lair and killed are a drooling conservative morons pretending to give a shit about babies.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Well, if scientists cannot experiment with real embryos due to ethical concerns, the logical thing is to experiment with simulated ones.
Progress needs to be made and the "shouldn't be playing God" mentality cannot have it both ways by ever expanding what's considered a real embryo.
"Simulated"?
These would be real human embryos, created by an unusual method.
A "simulated" embryo would be a computer simulation or something.
I think the core of the argument boils down to 'what is and what is not human', and since this is new, the one side could easily use the 'looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, therefore it's a duck' argument; doesn't matter if you assembled it molecule by molecule, if it's indistinguishable from a naturally-occurring human zygote, then it's the same regardless, and (to follow the pro-lifer thought train) therefore it could be a 'vessel' for a human 'soul', and 'experimenting' on it is therefore an atrocity and a crime against God. Keep in mind the driving force behind the pro-life movement is the idea that humans need to have as many babies as possible, regardless of the consequences, so that all the souls in Heaven can be born. That's how these people think.
Ol' Ogg still got what was coming to him.
I think the core of the argument boils down to 'what is and what is not human', and since this is new, the one side could easily use the 'looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, therefore it's a duck' argument; doesn't matter if you assembled it molecule by molecule, if it's indistinguishable from a naturally-occurring human zygote, then it's the same regardless, and (to follow the pro-lifer thought train) therefore it could be a 'vessel' for a human 'soul', and 'experimenting' on it is therefore an atrocity and a crime against God. Keep in mind the driving force behind the pro-life movement is the idea that humans need to have as many babies as possible, regardless of the consequences, so that all the souls in Heaven can be born. That's how these people think.
The whole point of inducing it to form would be that is is a human embryo.
So, we're the mumbo jumbo people, because we won't chant along with you that these particular biologically-human human embryos are not really human because hand waving?
If you think I'm getting drawn into a pro-life versus pro-choice debate then you're completely wrong, that's about as smart as a land war in Asia. Bugger off.
I for one welcome my GodEmperor
I haven't seen that in ages. Completely forgot about it. Thank you, it's wonderful.
"Real"?
For even more controversial ethical reasons, there is not a chance that these cells will be attempted to be developed into a foetus.
Therefore, nobody will know for sure whether or not they'll be viable foetuses. There'll simply be no evidence to support the "realness" of these lumps of cells that happen to look like early embryos.
A "real" embryo would be those created through an egg and a sperm.
If you induce a human embryo to develop from human cells, then what you have is a human embryo. Implanted, it would develop and mature.
There is only one way to find out. Has anyone implanted one of these and see it mature?
At some point, our playing God is going to catch up to us.
Well all know here on Slashdot that monopolies are bad . . . why should God have a monopoly on creating life . . . ?
He must have paid off some politicians to get the monopoly.
I'll bet those meddling Russian kids put Him into power . . .
God really shouldn't be playing God either, when you think about it.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The whole point of inducing it to form would be that is is a human embryo.
Incorrect. The point of inducing it to form would be that it is similar enough to a human embryo such that conclusions drawn from experimentations on these cells can be reasonably applicable to real ones.
There is a minor but huge difference between the two.
If one can simulate on a computer at a molecular level, and repeat the same experiment to form a "cell" in-silico
(with progress we're seeing, it won't take that long for it to happen)
Can it still be a 'vessel' for a human 'soul'?
So, we're the mumbo jumbo people, because we won't chant along with you that these particular biologically-human human embryos are not really human because hand waving?
No, you're the mumbo jumbo people because you think some invisible sky daddy is miracling a magical "soul" thingy into a petri dish.
In other words, you can't defend your position and have no arguments, so you won't participate aside from grossly misrepresenting the side you disagree with.
Why bother posting then? Just to virtue signal?
No; indeed there were Muslim invasions and occupations in Europe (mostly eastern Europe, and mostly the Turks)... but these were after the crusades, not before.
Would you consider Spain part of Europe? The Umayyad invasion forces landed in Gibraltar in 711; the first crusade started in 1095. You're wrong by more than 3 centuries.
Go read some history books
I would say the same to you.
Which is ironic given your post.
Yeah, and also, a problem with religion is that humans have very powerful imaginations, where you imagine that certain practices are highly pure and saintly, and you just build stories around that. Whereas reason uses some feedback loop with causes and effects and by controlling variables. But in the imagination it just has to work as a story, and it could be anything, like wind energy is clean, veganism never kills anything, covering your face is dignified and pure, etc. Not that rational people don’t support these things too, just that there’s plenty of people who live in their imagination on these things too. So yeah, they can just double down on their imagined sanctity of life by claiming your experiments are abominations and so give themselves even more story material to imagine themselves as the pure and good characters of the saga, and so take comfort in how they are going to heaven and you aren’t. I guess TV isn’t enough for some people. The power of the imagination for satisfying ego needs is used more in Eastern religions as exercises, but at least there they do it in a more conscious fashion.
God murders more millions of unborn babies than abortion ever can. In the natural state god made humans, the majority die either in the womb or before they're toddlers. Would you rather follow His example with abortions galore, or "play god" by trying something that doesn't kill any viable lumps of cells?
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Bad, bad assertion.
If you purposefully suppress (you hope) the evidence that would convince you, of course you'll never find it. By the way, those embryos didn't "happen" to look like. It was on purpose and they *are* early embryos.
Stated as fact, but still an opinion. My opinion differs, so at this point it's a push.
How ironic, in so many ways, that someone named after Mary Magdelene would lead a team creating the initial phase of artificial humans. Philosophy students and scholars are going to be busy with that.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
So, we're the mumbo jumbo people, because we won't chant along with you that these particular biologically-human human embryos are not really human because hand waving?
No, you're the mumbo jumbo people because you think some invisible sky daddy is miracling a magical "soul" thingy into a petri dish.
Really?
Because I believe that a human embryo is human, because of biology, regardless of what intentions it was created with, I'm the irrational one?
No, you're the irrational because you think some invisible sky daddy is miracling a magical "soul" thingy into a petri dish.
OK, point; I was thinking of the Turkish expansion into Europe. The caliphate's conquest of Spain ("Al-Andalus") was indeed much earlier. But the crusades were not a "response" to Islamic Spain, as the original anonymous coward stated; they were in a different direction and with a different objective.
From the makers of Sim City comes.... Sim Embryo. (Simbryo?)
(randomly reminds me of loving the idea of Sim City 2000 + Sim Copter.... and also liking that demo of Sim Tower that I had) (also Simbryo makes me remember always wanting to play Sim Earth....)
That's not even wrong. "Non human" isn't a property, it's a category.
I'm not the one talking about invisible non measurable properties or categories. You'll have to ask him. I think genetically human embryos would be human. He doesn't, apparently. Not sure why.
Your reading comprehension skills really suck.
They're not "prevented". There will simply be no evidence. Period. If there's no development, there would be no "result".
"how will you distinguish between the result of a cell tricked into development and one from an inseminated egg?"
The burden of proof is on those who say it is real. How can you be sure they're the same? The TFA only shows one facet of similarity.
If you purposefully suppress (you hope) the evidence that would convince you, of course you'll never find it.
Except that the "evidence" itself is also the definition of what is real.
By the way, those embryos didn't "happen" to look like. It was on purpose and they *are* early embryos.
Since when does purpose implies equality? An Accord is built on purpose to be like a Camry, but it is not a Camry.
Stated as fact, but still an opinion.
Nope. Fact. Fact is I have seen egg and sperm develop into a real human. To prove that another lump of cell is real, development needs to happen first. The burden of proof is on those who declare they're real, not on those who say they're not real - because they're different from real ones as we know it.