The fact remains that even though adult derived stem cells are a fairly new thing, there have been more actual cures from adult stem cells (greater than zero) than there have been from embryonic stem cells (exactly zero) which have been around longer. Adult derived cells have the added bonus of having no political objections for using them.
On the cures thing, I'm going to repeat myself (this makes three by the way.)
"It's fine to point out that no cures have come from ESC yet, but they do have other valuable uses."
I was talking about research. Research is ongoing, that should be an indication that we don't know enough. 10 years is not enough time to learn all we can about how cells turn from "lump of clay" cells into their final form, and for that we need embryonic stem cells.
No one seems to care that there is basic science to be done here, so let me point out we don't know what's what as far as treatments go either.
ESC have been around longer, thats true and it's not unreasonable to ask why they haven't yeilded any cures. However, when you consider that penicillin was discovered several decades before it started really saving lives, that most of that time was spent figuring out how to purify it, and that anyone who suggested we give up on it after 10 years now is, in retrospect, very shortsighted, you can get some perspective on it. Penicillin was discovered in 1928, it wasn't until 1944 that it was being produced in quantity. While it did cure people pretty quickly, the next year, we're dealing with a much more complicated problem here than killing bacteria.
And it's not like adult stem cells are at the finish line while ESC are tripping over the starting block. Why aren't adult stem cells being used to cure every spinal cord injury? Hint: it's not because doctors hate IVF embryos and people with spinal cord injuries. How would adult stem cells help in diseases where adult stem cells aren't there? There are studies underway with every aspect I just mentioned and adult stem cells, with a few poster children for each, yes, but no technology has yet been delivered, giving up on any of them, even if you're just interested in cures, is foolish.
But of course, we're missing the boat entirely. What is MUCH more promising than either in terms of medical cures are induced pluripotent stem cells. Those are the ones that sidestep some of the "moral" issues AND the tissue rejection issues while delivering all of the potency of ESC. That's been around only for 2 years now, has some of it's own challenges (the oncogenes for one) and I did say "some" of the moral issues. iPSC were made using information gleaned from ESC.
See? That's why we needed ESC research. And, again, we still have much to learn about how embryonic stem cells turn into mature cells in natural development.
So, why on earth would you insist on continuing to research embryonic stem cells? That would be like demanding funding for cold fusion research AFTER another cheap and clean energy source had been found.
That's a good metaphor. We would keep funding it because there's always more to learn, higher goals, even after certain goals are met. If we figured out how to make solar energy cheap, there are applications that solar can't be used for. There are things we would learn about physics by developing cold fusion. We might make cold fusion cheaper than cheap solar. And, of course, we're curious by nature.
In the case of ESC, even if adult stem cells did all that we needed as far as tissue replacement, we'd still want to figure out certain devlopmental processes and diseases. There's as of yet no way to study cortical development on adult stem cells because adult stem cells don't make the cerebral cortex. What are we supposed to say to parents of children born with lissencephaly? "Sorry, we can't tell you any information, but it's okay, because the rest of us have a good cure using adult stem cell therapy?"
A modern game cost what? 15 millions on average? When was the last time you paid 15 millions for a game you played?
The car manufacturing plant is a lot more than they sell the car for. Using your logic, we can see that you don't buy a car, you can drive it as a reqard for you giving money to the car manufacturer. When you sell the car, you act like a car manufacturer yourself. The problem is that you never made the car, you just use the work of someone else to make money. To me, the best word for this is normal.
Your logic is so shoddy I suspect you're a troll. If they were only selling one game, then yes, you'd have to buy it for 15 million in order to not be a parasite, but they're selling more than that.
I wonder if these game publishers (and music, movie and book publishers) ever stop to think about what they are saying. If the logic is that they have some ongoing interest in the product they sell us, then doesn't that imply that as a purchaser we have an ongoing interest in the money we give them? So when GPG takes the money I spent and buys new equipment for their offices, shouldn't I be getting a new monitor out of the transaction as well?
The answer is: yes, they do think about it. And their thoughts boil down to "If we get money from used game sales, then WE GET MORE MONEY! WOOOO!!!!"
Kind of completely ignored my post, didn't you? Again, not everything in biology is for immediate use. Biology is a science. Cell biology as a scientific inquiry into the workings of the cell, ESC have already proven themselves as valuable research models. Again I'm pointing to IPSC as one of the biggest successes with ESC research.
It's fine to point out that no cures have come from ESC yet, but they do have other valuable uses.
Too bad the public at large doesn't understand this concept.
Fixed that for you. The anti-ESC crowd is running a very successful misinformation campaign. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not. It's all the more astounding because so many scientists who work on this are professors, teachers, yet they have so far been totally unable to get across to most people that these are never from aborted fetuses, they never can be.
Even GP got it wrong
Aborted fetuses aren't used as a source of stem cells since all the cells would be dead.
Not true, plenty of studies are done off of live aborted tissue. For example, studies on human brain development. The reason aborted embryos aren't used is that the ideal time for harvesting ESC is at 5 days, before the embryo implants and before you would know you're pregnant. That, and there are thousands of IVF embryos not being used for anything.
In fact, I am not sure that there has been even one single break through that wasn't from adult stem cells.
Plenty of research is going on in embryonic stem cells, right now. Induced pluripotent stem cells were made using lessons learned from embryonic stem cells. That's a huge one right there. And the discovery of ESC itself was a significant advance.
You might not think of biology as being important beyond what diseases it can cure right now./.ers tend to be annoyed by people who take this approach to computing. Hmm...
Embryonic stem cells don't come from aborted fetuses. They come from in vitro fertilization. ESC are harvested 5 days after fertilization, abortions aren't performed 5 days after fertilization because you wouldn't know.
If somebody "gives" me $10,000 in music via bittorrent, why on earth should that be tax-exempt?
For one thing, because that $10,000 would probably end up being the value that the RIAA places on it, meaning you'd pay 10% of $10000 for one song, which is absurd. It wouldn't be what I value it, but that's not because the RIAA is right, it's just because the RIAA spends more than I do on lobbyists.
You'll be required to hand over your encryption keys to the government.
I've got to think that if there were locks on your property that the government or police couldn't break with brute force, it would be the same for search warrants of your house.
...not that that changes anything, just that it's typical.
The aim of any modern Western legal system is to make sure that every last citizen is likely to be guilty of something non-trivial.
This is, by the way, direct from the "Cynical, paranoid/.ers guide to government." Which is unquestionably true. If you question it, you're one of them, so you should know already.
I don't know how a startup should go, that's not my buisiness. I'm just saying xbox users are by and large are ignoring the community games section entirely. That might change if and when there is a killer ap out there, like world of goo for the wii.
Sure, everyone loves Mario but at this point it's obvious Nintendo is very stagnant. Most of the stuff on the Wii is pure shovelware garbage...You'd think Nintendo would at least ramp up 1st party games but nope. Most of what is coming out is unremarkable shovelware.
Shovelware doesn't mean "games I don't like." Wii fit is not shovelware, nintendo put effort in there and it paid off. I don't like a lot of what nintendo puts out as of late, but it's not crap they're shoveling out for cheap. Nintendo puts far more effort into it's games than the other two console makers.
... nintendo really needs 3rd party games badly. The fact they went with underpowered hardware really killed 3rd party companies ability to port their games to the system. Which means: No final fantasy 13, no Street fighter 4, No soul calibur 4, etc, etc....
With the wii leading the pack, you've really got to wonder why 3rd parties aren't doing it the other way around: making games primarily for the wii and porting it to the more powerful systems.
They'll spew something about different types of gamers, but most gamers I know bought a wii early on and have nothing to use it for. Even if you're sure somehow only half of wii owners are interested in your game, that's a half that is starved for ANYTHING decent, and half the wii base is still pretty sizeable.
(Yes, I realize that "most gamers I know" is not very scientific. I doubt 3rd party devs are very scientific about it either though.)
can we please have something... fresh? Sure, Mario, Metroid, and Golden Sun are good, but it seems like Nintendo has really stagnated in good games that aren't gimmicks.
Gimmicks? New super mario bros and super mario galaxy were innovative twists on old franchises that worked. Really well. Those were great games. Galaxy remains the highest rated wii game and definitely my favorite wii game. Nothing gimmicky about it.
One way of looking at it is they're being loyal to all their customers by not making them spend money on upgrades?
(I doubt that viewpoint will be very popular on/. though.)
PC gamers are what made valve? Bah. Money spent on the 360 version was just as real as the money spent on the PC version, and valve's fans who play on machines you hate for some reason are just as much fans as those who game on platform b. Valve has earned my respect, I trust they aren't just doing this to make money, and instead are doing this to try to deliver good games to the most number of people.
Anyway, don't take pride in your gaming machine of choice, that reeks of having nothing else in your life to take pride in.
Granted, it's been almost 2 years since ep2, but it also seems to me that most of the game in L4D is the multiplayer aspect, there's less in the way of plot, cutscenes, and maybe level area, though I'm not sure. Also seems like zombies might be easier to program than enemies who are supposed to be thinking. I have absolutely no experience on videogame making, but it seems like the half life episodes would naturally take longer than the L4D games.
I'm assuming they have different teams for different games, and I'm equally sure the half-life team is, in fact, concentrating on wrapping up the half life 2 series.
Plus, in my opinion, TF2 outshines HL2 and the episodes, even though they were amazing themselves.
miRNA-145 sounds like it represses transcription of the 3. The current study isn't using transcription of those proteins, the proteins are directly applied to the cells.
Additionally, making sure all cells from an iPSC culture are expressing miRNA-145 before you implant them doesn't strike me as being easy. You could maybe set up some type of screen, to where only cells that express miRNA-145 would live, but then you're again dealing with transgenic tissues, which is generally frowned upon when talking about putting cells into people.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact remains that even though adult derived stem cells are a fairly new thing, there have been more actual cures from adult stem cells (greater than zero) than there have been from embryonic stem cells (exactly zero) which have been around longer. Adult derived cells have the added bonus of having no political objections for using them.
On the cures thing, I'm going to repeat myself (this makes three by the way.)
"It's fine to point out that no cures have come from ESC yet, but they do have other valuable uses."
I was talking about research. Research is ongoing, that should be an indication that we don't know enough. 10 years is not enough time to learn all we can about how cells turn from "lump of clay" cells into their final form, and for that we need embryonic stem cells.
No one seems to care that there is basic science to be done here, so let me point out we don't know what's what as far as treatments go either.
ESC have been around longer, thats true and it's not unreasonable to ask why they haven't yeilded any cures. However, when you consider that penicillin was discovered several decades before it started really saving lives, that most of that time was spent figuring out how to purify it, and that anyone who suggested we give up on it after 10 years now is, in retrospect, very shortsighted, you can get some perspective on it. Penicillin was discovered in 1928, it wasn't until 1944 that it was being produced in quantity. While it did cure people pretty quickly, the next year, we're dealing with a much more complicated problem here than killing bacteria.
And it's not like adult stem cells are at the finish line while ESC are tripping over the starting block. Why aren't adult stem cells being used to cure every spinal cord injury? Hint: it's not because doctors hate IVF embryos and people with spinal cord injuries. How would adult stem cells help in diseases where adult stem cells aren't there? There are studies underway with every aspect I just mentioned and adult stem cells, with a few poster children for each, yes, but no technology has yet been delivered, giving up on any of them, even if you're just interested in cures, is foolish.
But of course, we're missing the boat entirely. What is MUCH more promising than either in terms of medical cures are induced pluripotent stem cells. Those are the ones that sidestep some of the "moral" issues AND the tissue rejection issues while delivering all of the potency of ESC. That's been around only for 2 years now, has some of it's own challenges (the oncogenes for one) and I did say "some" of the moral issues. iPSC were made using information gleaned from ESC.
See? That's why we needed ESC research. And, again, we still have much to learn about how embryonic stem cells turn into mature cells in natural development.
So, why on earth would you insist on continuing to research embryonic stem cells? That would be like demanding funding for cold fusion research AFTER another cheap and clean energy source had been found.
That's a good metaphor. We would keep funding it because there's always more to learn, higher goals, even after certain goals are met. If we figured out how to make solar energy cheap, there are applications that solar can't be used for. There are things we would learn about physics by developing cold fusion. We might make cold fusion cheaper than cheap solar. And, of course, we're curious by nature.
In the case of ESC, even if adult stem cells did all that we needed as far as tissue replacement, we'd still want to figure out certain devlopmental processes and diseases. There's as of yet no way to study cortical development on adult stem cells because adult stem cells don't make the cerebral cortex. What are we supposed to say to parents of children born with lissencephaly? "Sorry, we can't tell you any information, but it's okay, because the rest of us have a good cure using adult stem cell therapy?"
A modern game cost what? 15 millions on average? When was the last time you paid 15 millions for a game you played?
The car manufacturing plant is a lot more than they sell the car for. Using your logic, we can see that you don't buy a car, you can drive it as a reqard for you giving money to the car manufacturer. When you sell the car, you act like a car manufacturer yourself. The problem is that you never made the car, you just use the work of someone else to make money. To me, the best word for this is normal.
Your logic is so shoddy I suspect you're a troll. If they were only selling one game, then yes, you'd have to buy it for 15 million in order to not be a parasite, but they're selling more than that.
I wonder if these game publishers (and music, movie and book publishers) ever stop to think about what they are saying. If the logic is that they have some ongoing interest in the product they sell us, then doesn't that imply that as a purchaser we have an ongoing interest in the money we give them? So when GPG takes the money I spent and buys new equipment for their offices, shouldn't I be getting a new monitor out of the transaction as well?
The answer is: yes, they do think about it. And their thoughts boil down to "If we get money from used game sales, then WE GET MORE MONEY! WOOOO!!!!"
Kind of completely ignored my post, didn't you? Again, not everything in biology is for immediate use. Biology is a science. Cell biology as a scientific inquiry into the workings of the cell, ESC have already proven themselves as valuable research models. Again I'm pointing to IPSC as one of the biggest successes with ESC research.
It's fine to point out that no cures have come from ESC yet, but they do have other valuable uses.
Too bad the public at large doesn't understand this concept.
Fixed that for you. The anti-ESC crowd is running a very successful misinformation campaign. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not. It's all the more astounding because so many scientists who work on this are professors, teachers, yet they have so far been totally unable to get across to most people that these are never from aborted fetuses, they never can be.
Even GP got it wrong
Aborted fetuses aren't used as a source of stem cells since all the cells would be dead.
Not true, plenty of studies are done off of live aborted tissue. For example, studies on human brain development. The reason aborted embryos aren't used is that the ideal time for harvesting ESC is at 5 days, before the embryo implants and before you would know you're pregnant. That, and there are thousands of IVF embryos not being used for anything.
In fact, I am not sure that there has been even one single break through that wasn't from adult stem cells.
Plenty of research is going on in embryonic stem cells, right now. Induced pluripotent stem cells were made using lessons learned from embryonic stem cells. That's a huge one right there. And the discovery of ESC itself was a significant advance.
You might not think of biology as being important beyond what diseases it can cure right now. /.ers tend to be annoyed by people who take this approach to computing. Hmm...
Embryonic stem cells don't come from aborted fetuses. They come from in vitro fertilization. ESC are harvested 5 days after fertilization, abortions aren't performed 5 days after fertilization because you wouldn't know.
Oh the horror of operating out of the Cayman Islands! Laying on the beach, raking in cash! Will you show us no mercy?!
Jokes on them, I just delete the spam, and they'll probably get a melanoma from all that sun.
... I'm too late. I had hope after seeing the first post was about launches. Alas. In soviet russia, anonymous coward posts YOU first.
Sort of, I was thinking of poo. And by sort of, I mean "gross."
If somebody "gives" me $10,000 in music via bittorrent, why on earth should that be tax-exempt?
For one thing, because that $10,000 would probably end up being the value that the RIAA places on it, meaning you'd pay 10% of $10000 for one song, which is absurd. It wouldn't be what I value it, but that's not because the RIAA is right, it's just because the RIAA spends more than I do on lobbyists.
You'll be required to hand over your encryption keys to the government.
I've got to think that if there were locks on your property that the government or police couldn't break with brute force, it would be the same for search warrants of your house.
The aim of any modern Western legal system is to make sure that every last citizen is likely to be guilty of something non-trivial.
This is, by the way, direct from the "Cynical, paranoid /.ers guide to government." Which is unquestionably true. If you question it, you're one of them, so you should know already.
Disco stu: "Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continues... AAY!"
I don't know how a startup should go, that's not my buisiness. I'm just saying xbox users are by and large are ignoring the community games section entirely. That might change if and when there is a killer ap out there, like world of goo for the wii.
Compare to Xbox Live Community Games: anyone with a PC, a C# book, and $794* can get started.
Compare the sales of wii games (wiiware or normal) to sales of Xbox Live Community Games and you'll see that all you'd be doing is wasting $800.
Sure, everyone loves Mario but at this point it's obvious Nintendo is very stagnant. Most of the stuff on the Wii is pure shovelware garbage...You'd think Nintendo would at least ramp up 1st party games but nope. Most of what is coming out is unremarkable shovelware.
Shovelware doesn't mean "games I don't like." Wii fit is not shovelware, nintendo put effort in there and it paid off. I don't like a lot of what nintendo puts out as of late, but it's not crap they're shoveling out for cheap. Nintendo puts far more effort into it's games than the other two console makers.
Calling mario a gimmick is just flamebait.
... nintendo really needs 3rd party games badly. The fact they went with underpowered hardware really killed 3rd party companies ability to port their games to the system. Which means: No final fantasy 13, no Street fighter 4, No soul calibur 4, etc, etc....
With the wii leading the pack, you've really got to wonder why 3rd parties aren't doing it the other way around: making games primarily for the wii and porting it to the more powerful systems.
They'll spew something about different types of gamers, but most gamers I know bought a wii early on and have nothing to use it for. Even if you're sure somehow only half of wii owners are interested in your game, that's a half that is starved for ANYTHING decent, and half the wii base is still pretty sizeable.
(Yes, I realize that "most gamers I know" is not very scientific. I doubt 3rd party devs are very scientific about it either though.)
can we please have something... fresh? Sure, Mario, Metroid, and Golden Sun are good, but it seems like Nintendo has really stagnated in good games that aren't gimmicks.
Gimmicks? New super mario bros and super mario galaxy were innovative twists on old franchises that worked. Really well. Those were great games. Galaxy remains the highest rated wii game and definitely my favorite wii game. Nothing gimmicky about it.
Will you look at that, nintendo finally starts making video games again!
Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe you have to use the wii fit board to move mario...
PC gamers are who made Valve what they are today.
One way of looking at it is they're being loyal to all their customers by not making them spend money on upgrades?
(I doubt that viewpoint will be very popular on /. though.)
PC gamers are what made valve? Bah. Money spent on the 360 version was just as real as the money spent on the PC version, and valve's fans who play on machines you hate for some reason are just as much fans as those who game on platform b. Valve has earned my respect, I trust they aren't just doing this to make money, and instead are doing this to try to deliver good games to the most number of people.
Anyway, don't take pride in your gaming machine of choice, that reeks of having nothing else in your life to take pride in.
Half life 2: 2004
episode 1: 2006
Episode 2: 2007
Granted, it's been almost 2 years since ep2, but it also seems to me that most of the game in L4D is the multiplayer aspect, there's less in the way of plot, cutscenes, and maybe level area, though I'm not sure. Also seems like zombies might be easier to program than enemies who are supposed to be thinking. I have absolutely no experience on videogame making, but it seems like the half life episodes would naturally take longer than the L4D games.
I'm assuming they have different teams for different games, and I'm equally sure the half-life team is, in fact, concentrating on wrapping up the half life 2 series.
Plus, in my opinion, TF2 outshines HL2 and the episodes, even though they were amazing themselves.
miRNA-145 sounds like it represses transcription of the 3. The current study isn't using transcription of those proteins, the proteins are directly applied to the cells.
Additionally, making sure all cells from an iPSC culture are expressing miRNA-145 before you implant them doesn't strike me as being easy. You could maybe set up some type of screen, to where only cells that express miRNA-145 would live, but then you're again dealing with transgenic tissues, which is generally frowned upon when talking about putting cells into people.
No kidding. "Full-Body Controller-less Gaming" has already been invented. It's called "sport".
Or, if you're into FPS, it's called "murderous office rampage."