Slashdot Mirror
Artificial Human-Like Fingers Grown
Ristoril writes "Scientists in the Kinki (I'm not making this up) University Hospital in Osaka, Japan, have created artificial fingers in cooperation with Harvard Med School in Boston, Mass. Read the whole story about artificial cow fingers from Yahoo! News. "
The fingers would probably be tasty.
hawk, who is amazed at McDonald's ability to charge a higher price than its competitors for a product with no flavor, and didn't realize the obvious analogy until he typed the first part of this run-on fragment
He also did the "East of Eden" (or was it West???) series, in which very primitive, pre-technological, humans stumble into intelligent dinosaurs with advanced biotech . . .
Many other good things too, but the stainless steel rat stuff are still my favorites.
you are nuts if you think this is worse than what the cosmetic testing animals go through. I have no idea what is required to imbed a biodegradable polymer matrix in a mouse and grow human like tissue in it... but what the animals in cosmetic testing labs go through is not to be believed. think about all those chemicals that say on the label that they will cause blindness or death if they come in contact with your eyes or soft tissue. how do you think they figured that out? not by human testing (unless you are talking about gov't testing) ever seen a rabbit whose eye lids have been pinned wide open so a lab tech or computer can squirt super concentrated hair dye or eye makup solutions directly onto the animal's eye balls, only to be left there festering until the animal goes blind dies? ever seen what a chicken or veal farm looks like? 4 hens to a 4 cubic foot cage, cages stacked hundreds high. hens all shitting on each other and pecking each others eyes out because they have goon totally insane, the skin on their feet grown around the chicken wire floor on their cages? and that is just so you can eat them or their eggs. it is enough to make the biggest frat boy go vegetarian! sorry for the little off topic rant... who's superior?
You know.. those sandwitches with fake fingers in them just got alot funnier...
--
Firstly, I'd like to take issue with your conclusion. As long as there is physically room for the population, why would more people lead to fewer jobs? On the contrary, it would lead to more jobs, as more people means more _demand_ for goods and services. The number of jobs available per capita should remain the same.
Secondly, I'm not sure that your first point holds true either. Taken as a whole, the population of the earth is indeed growing. However, break this down by region, and you see huge variances. In many places - most notably North America - the population growth rate is either zero or negative, with immigration making up the difference. This is a cultural effect. Cultures in which families have many children will naturally have populations that grow quickly. Cultures where the average number of children that an individual has over the course of their lifetime is two or less have populations that are stable or declining. A longer lifespan would not inevitably lead to a population explosion - it just means that people would have to have children less frequently in order for the population to be stable (the same number of children per person, just over a longer period of time).
This is stupid. Every species I know of on this planet do not "instinctively" make an equilibrium, they reproduce alot. It is predator/prey cycles, and other various cycles, that keep the population in check. (ie. wolves reproduce, eat too many rabbits, rabbits now scarce, wolves die down, rabbits come back, wolves come back, wolves eat many rabbits, ad infinitum (until outside factors come in)).
Us humans are the same way, we just haven't reached an equilibrium state yet; at least not in many places. Our brains and technical capabilities give us the ability to keep on pushing the equilibrium farther. Things like this also happen when species are introduced into an environment in which they have no natural predators/plentiful prey; this is probably how the South American Marsupials went extinct (when S. America hooked up with N. America).
>lasses fair capatialists
nice looking girl capitalists?
...you mean Laisez Faire?
I think I know what your point is, but man do you look like an idiot the way you put this, dude.
hmm, I guess I'll throw out american heritige - I DID LOOK IT UP!
:-P
Well, you got me :OD
:-)
:-P
I typoed and left out an 's'
I'll still take a typo over not even knowing how the word is spelled at all any day.
And I did look it up (twice now)
It is great maybe in 25 or 50 years we will be able to replace failing organs and such but what will the impact on soceity be? Example if you can now replace dying organs, conceivably we could live many decades longer. So for a criminal with a life sentence, should we extend his life? I mean but are we really extending his life? Would we not just be treating an illness, failure of organs, tissue, etc... so it would really not be elective it would be standard life saving procedures. This is not the only possible dilemma, either. Most people don't talk about issues like this, so I thought I would throw it out.
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy:
"You look great. The extra arm suits you." (or something like that)
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
"...quite a feet." :)
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Cool. 12 fingers would just about make Emacs usable.
/* It's just a joke! */
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Hmmm. Somehow I don't think the Beef Institute had this in mind when they came up with that slogan.
Would you rather we tested on humans first, or would you rather we just not tested at all?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.
this
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Other critters use up resources and destroy ecosystems too. Elephants can deforest areas just like logging companies, albeit more slowly. And bacteria tend to exchange DNA with each other and even with completely different bacterial species through various bacteriophages. Genetic engineering on a small scale, to be sure, but since many bacteria have generations every hour, the rate of evolution is fast.
If the actions of humans can be viewed in a larger sense as perfectly natural then I believe we will find ourselves on the WRONG side of natural selection. Think of AIDS and Ebola as Human Destroyer alpha products. Anybody want to try for beta?
The only thing that's keeping us alive right now is that so far, our learning has advanced just fast enough to keep us from eating/polluting ourselves into oblivion. So as I see it, we have two options:
- Learn as much as we can as fast as we can
- Stop taking advantage of the fruits of technology, go back to the land, and become a world of organic farmers.
I'd say choice #1 has it. Live in a 2-bedroom ranch, or live in a thatched hut? Easy choice. Live with the infrastructure and problems necessary to support the huge industrial complex, or go without TV/your 56K connection/your Honda? Some might opt for going without, but the vast mass of humanity won't. Ever.As for AIDS/Ebola being "Human Destroyers in Alpha," I think the Beta was demonstrated quite well over Hiroshima. [run and cower]
Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.
Any day now, ordering "chicken fingers" could take on a whole new meaning.