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Artificial Human-Like Fingers Grown

Posted by Hemos on from the fun-with-science dept.

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. "

7 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A thought... by Oo.et.oO · · Score: 3

    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?

  2. The imact of longer life. by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 3
    Right now the population of the planet isn't dying as fast as it's expanding. This is leading to some massive problems as people live longer. Pretty soon we'll have to start finding other places to put people - or deal with seeing crime rates skyrocket, employment crises, major racially motivated wars, etc... the list goes on.


    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).

    1. Re:The imact of longer life. by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 3
      but in the end, the population grows much faster in third world countries. Which causes lots of other problems, because 3rd world countries are in general much less able to support more people (lack of infrastructure and *food*), and generally lead to a much lower quality of life. Which in turn leads to higher birth rates. So essentially it makes one giant circle! But the people are starting to live longer due to medical advances live in developed countries. So if you add all of these effects together, it means there is a significant population growth, and its likely to keep growing until we run out of space


      How so? You yourself point out that the regions in which people are living longer are the regions that have low birth rates, and a _culture_ of few children. There isn't the _transport_ capacity to pull in _billions_ of immigrants - so in the worst possible case, the first world survives (not that that makes overpopulation consequences elsewhere acceptable).


      Now, the point about the feedback effect in third world countries holds true. IMO, the best way of breaking this loop is to work on helping the third world build up its infrastructure, and work on making the idea of small families acceptable within large-family cultures. Both are being attempted, and both have shown promising signs. Keep this up for a few decades, and population growth in the third world may look like less of a problem. We'll see what happens.

  3. Very cool but also scary by Shafik · · Score: 3

    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.

  4. Extra fingers? by DonkPunch · · Score: 3

    Cool. 12 fingers would just about make Emacs usable.

    /* It's just a joke! */

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    Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
  5. Re:A thought... by Valdrax · · Score: 3

    Would you rather we tested on humans first, or would you rather we just not tested at all?

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  6. Re:A thought... by CJ+Hooknose · · Score: 3
    We use up natural resources, destroy ecosystems for short term gain, screw around with the genetics of virulent diseases...

    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:

    1. Learn as much as we can as fast as we can
    2. 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]

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    Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.