The first work cited above refers to the use of adult stem cells to help cure heart disease. This work was not done with embryonic stem cells. There is no ethical objection that I know of to using adult stem cells. In fact, the Bush administration has argued in favor of research using adult stem cells. Further, they have channeled research funds toward researchers using adult stem cells and that has caused irritation amongst some other researchers. (I disagree with many things done by politicians of every stripe, but prefer to criticize with accuracy.)
The second work cited refers to the use of "mesenchymal stem cells". These stem cells can also be harvested from adults. These cells do not require the use of embryos. The work cited does involve genetic modification and that can be dangerous. Sadly, multiple individuals have died in experiments in the US and France that utilized genetically modified cells, hence great care must be taken in testing these therapies.
Research in adult stem cells is exciting and is progressing rapidly. These stem cells can be taken from individuals cultured and them reinjected and there is no danger of immune rejection. Cells taken from existing embryonic cell lines can cause rejection. Patients receiving these cells may be required to take immune-suppressive medicines for the remainder of their lives ( as kidney transplant patients do now.)
The FDA has stated that new adult stem cell procedures require approval before they can be used in humans. Approvals have always been required for new drugs. Stem cell therapy is new and unfortunately some types of stem cells may become cancerous when injected into humans. The FDA position according to a Detroit News article is "extensive animal experimentation and human dosage trials would be needed before Beaumont's procedure would be considered for FDA approval." (Beaumont is the heart researcher.)
I think that the FDA is afraid of another metaphorical "thalidomide". The FDA under any administration would, I suspect, be cautious. The FDA medical panels can and do take into account research done outside the US. Also, adult stem cell research can proceed through human dosage trials and continue forward. Let's all hope for great success!
This slashdot thread is very disappointing. Perhaps the key participants are afraid, but trepidation is unnecessary when simply stating the obvious. The "Total Information Awareness" system already exists. It has existed for years, and it grows more comprehensive each year. Poindexter's so-called "plan" is a trial balloon. He and his group are trying to gauge the public reaction and to prepare people for future adumbration of the truth. Relax this is not really true. It is meant to be "humorous". I think.
Anonymous Coward said:...I almost can't believe this. Read the mother
of all demos link - demo'd mouse, word
processing, hyperlinks, and a host of other
stuff back in 1968! Is this for real? How
come I've never heard of anything like
this before?
What Engelbart accomplished is extraordinary but there were significant precursors to his work. In 1945 Vannevar Bush proposed a system called Memex that contained a preliminary form of pointers between textual data items and photographic data items. His proposal used "microfilm replicas" because that was the most advanced technology available to embody his ideas. Click
here to read his article entitled "As We May Think". For a very broadly conceived "Timeline of Hypertext History" click
here.
Bill Gates claims that he never said 640K was enough memory. His denial appeared in an interview in the New York Review of Books. In fact, he says that he believed the opposite. (The slashdot audience can decide on his veracity.) Below is a quote from the article "He's Got Mail" by James Fallows:
One quote from Gates became infamous as a symbol of the company's arrogant attitude about such limits. It concerned how much memory, measured in kilobytes or "K," should be built into a personal computer. Gates is supposed to have said, "640K should be enough for anyone." The remark became the industry's equivalent of "Let them eat cake" because it seemed to combine lordly condescension with a lack of interest in operational details. After all, today's ordinary home computers have one hundred times as much memory as the industry's leader was calling "enough."
It appears that it was Marie Thérèse, not Marie Antoinette, who greeted news that the people lacked bread with qu'ils mangent de la brioche. (The phrase was cited in Rousseau's Confessions, published when Marie Antoinette was thirteen years old and still living in Austria.) And it now appears that Bill Gates never said anything about getting along with 640K. One Sunday afternoon I asked a friend in Seattle who knows Gates whether the quote was accurate or apocryphal. Late that night, to my amazement, I found a long e-mail from Gates in my inbox, laying out painstakingly the reasons why he had always believed the opposite of what the notorious quote implied. His main point was that the 640K limit in early PCs was imposed by the design of processing chips, not Gates's software, and he'd been pushing to raise the limit as hard and as often as he could. Yet despite Gates's convincing denial, the quote is unlikely to die. It's too convenient an expression of the computer industry's sense that no one can be sure what will happen next.
Usenet Born at the Same Time - Synchronicity
on
Blizzard Births BBS
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The impetus to electronically intercommunicate was strong. Usenet was born in 1979, one year after the creation of the CBBS. I was an undergraduate at Duke at that time, and recall being shown a prototype of the project by Tom Truscott. The early messages included arcane comments about operating system programming for "Unix wizards". I told Tom it was excellent, but with my limited horizons I internally felt that the early games "adventure" and "Zork" were more exciting. In retrospect, Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis and the other creators captured the zeitgeist and deserve lavish praise. A full Usenet feed topped 500 gigabytes in 2002, a mind-boggling size circa 1979, and the leviathan keeps growing.
Tom and Jim were great people. They were enthusiastic, friendly, and helpful even to a "lowly" undergraduate. They were always trying to improve Usenet and spoke extensively about how the data structures of the news program had to be redone. Even in 1979 more sophisticated structures were needed to scale up and handle the growing number of news articles. The Duke graduate school did not have a budget item for long distance telephone calls to swap Usenet news items. Luckily, Bell Labs charitably became a hub of the early network and subsidized the long distance calls.
Jim Ellis enjoyed reading SF and his programming skill helped make one positive SF scenario, inexpensive fast electronic communication, come true. I never had a chance to thank him for all his help and for suggesting I read "Shockwave Rider" and "Forever War". Thanks - via the celestial internet.
Branson Missouri calls itself the "Live Music Capital of the World". They have more than 30 theaters and over 60 shows. Many of the theaters are owned by the musical performers. You may not have heard of it because it is primarily a mecca for country music and not pop or rock. I think a place like Branson can succeed even if music is freely downloadable or sold at cost on CDs.
Some mega-rockstars complain that their major tours simply break even. That is probably true for some stars who have large entourages and extensive light-video shows. But a fixed theatrical location saves significant amounts of money. The rotund version of Elvis made millions singing in Las Vegas. The Branson model probably will not work for all genres of music, but music creation and innovation will continue even without CD sales.
Todays New York Times has an
article
about stem cells which are harvested from the bone marrow of adults, instead
of from embryos. These cells are "multipotent" which means
that they seem to be as versatile as embryonic stem cells in
their ability to differentiate into many types of cells.
The discovery of these cells by
Dr. Catherine M. Verfaillie at the
University of Minnesota is a fantastic accomplishment
with extraordinary potential.
Adult stem cells which are harvested from a body and then
used to construct tissue for reimplantation will
automatically match up immunologically.
The therapeutic cloning approach of the Stanford researchers
also has great potential, but the process of creating and destroying
embryos to harvest stem cells seems to be more complicated
than using adult stem cells.
Further, some experiments in which embryonic stem cells were
reimplanted ominously gave rise to carcinomas.
Many research scientists think both approaches should be pursued.
Slashdot Mirror
The post above gives a mistaken impression.
The first work cited above refers to the use of adult stem cells to help cure heart disease. This work was not done with embryonic stem cells. There is no ethical objection that I know of to using adult stem cells. In fact, the Bush administration has argued in favor of research using adult stem cells. Further, they have channeled research funds toward researchers using adult stem cells and that has caused irritation amongst some other researchers. (I disagree with many things done by politicians of every stripe, but prefer to criticize with accuracy.)
The second work cited refers to the use of "mesenchymal stem cells". These stem cells can also be harvested from adults. These cells do not require the use of embryos. The work cited does involve genetic modification and that can be dangerous. Sadly, multiple individuals have died in experiments in the US and France that utilized genetically modified cells, hence great care must be taken in testing these therapies.
Research in adult stem cells is exciting and is progressing rapidly. These stem cells can be taken from individuals cultured and them reinjected and there is no danger of immune rejection. Cells taken from existing embryonic cell lines can cause rejection. Patients receiving these cells may be required to take immune-suppressive medicines for the remainder of their lives ( as kidney transplant patients do now.)
The FDA has stated that new adult stem cell procedures require approval before they can be used in humans. Approvals have always been required for new drugs. Stem cell therapy is new and unfortunately some types of stem cells may become cancerous when injected into humans. The FDA position according to a Detroit News article is "extensive animal experimentation and human dosage trials would be needed before Beaumont's procedure would be considered for FDA approval." (Beaumont is the heart researcher.)
I think that the FDA is afraid of another metaphorical "thalidomide". The FDA under any administration would, I suspect, be cautious. The FDA medical panels can and do take into account research done outside the US. Also, adult stem cell research can proceed through human dosage trials and continue forward. Let's all hope for great success!
This slashdot thread is very disappointing. Perhaps the key participants are afraid, but trepidation is unnecessary when simply stating the obvious. The "Total Information Awareness" system already exists. It has existed for years, and it grows more comprehensive each year. Poindexter's so-called "plan" is a trial balloon. He and his group are trying to gauge the public reaction and to prepare people for future adumbration of the truth. Relax this is not really true. It is meant to be "humorous". I think.
Bill Gates claims that he never said 640K was enough memory. His denial appeared in an interview in the New York Review of Books. In fact, he says that he believed the opposite. (The slashdot audience can decide on his veracity.) Below is a quote from the article "He's Got Mail" by James Fallows:
One quote from Gates became infamous as a symbol of the company's arrogant attitude about such limits. It concerned how much memory, measured in kilobytes or "K," should be built into a personal computer. Gates is supposed to have said, "640K should be enough for anyone." The remark became the industry's equivalent of "Let them eat cake" because it seemed to combine lordly condescension with a lack of interest in operational details. After all, today's ordinary home computers have one hundred times as much memory as the industry's leader was calling "enough."
It appears that it was Marie Thérèse, not Marie Antoinette, who greeted news that the people lacked bread with qu'ils mangent de la brioche. (The phrase was cited in Rousseau's Confessions, published when Marie Antoinette was thirteen years old and still living in Austria.) And it now appears that Bill Gates never said anything about getting along with 640K. One Sunday afternoon I asked a friend in Seattle who knows Gates whether the quote was accurate or apocryphal. Late that night, to my amazement, I found a long e-mail from Gates in my inbox, laying out painstakingly the reasons why he had always believed the opposite of what the notorious quote implied. His main point was that the 640K limit in early PCs was imposed by the design of processing chips, not Gates's software, and he'd been pushing to raise the limit as hard and as often as he could. Yet despite Gates's convincing denial, the quote is unlikely to die. It's too convenient an expression of the computer industry's sense that no one can be sure what will happen next.
Click here to read the full article.
The impetus to electronically intercommunicate was strong. Usenet was born in 1979, one year after the creation of the CBBS. I was an undergraduate at Duke at that time, and recall being shown a prototype of the project by Tom Truscott. The early messages included arcane comments about operating system programming for "Unix wizards". I told Tom it was excellent, but with my limited horizons I internally felt that the early games "adventure" and "Zork" were more exciting. In retrospect, Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis and the other creators captured the zeitgeist and deserve lavish praise. A full Usenet feed topped 500 gigabytes in 2002, a mind-boggling size circa 1979, and the leviathan keeps growing.
Tom and Jim were great people. They were enthusiastic, friendly, and helpful even to a "lowly" undergraduate. They were always trying to improve Usenet and spoke extensively about how the data structures of the news program had to be redone. Even in 1979 more sophisticated structures were needed to scale up and handle the growing number of news articles. The Duke graduate school did not have a budget item for long distance telephone calls to swap Usenet news items. Luckily, Bell Labs charitably became a hub of the early network and subsidized the long distance calls.
Jim Ellis enjoyed reading SF and his programming skill helped make one positive SF scenario, inexpensive fast electronic communication, come true. I never had a chance to thank him for all his help and for suggesting I read "Shockwave Rider" and "Forever War". Thanks - via the celestial internet.
Branson Missouri calls itself the "Live Music Capital of the World". They have more than 30 theaters and over 60 shows. Many of the theaters are owned by the musical performers. You may not have heard of it because it is primarily a mecca for country music and not pop or rock. I think a place like Branson can succeed even if music is freely downloadable or sold at cost on CDs.
Some mega-rockstars complain that their major tours simply break even. That is probably true for some stars who have large entourages and extensive light-video shows. But a fixed theatrical location saves significant amounts of money. The rotund version of Elvis made millions singing in Las Vegas. The Branson model probably will not work for all genres of music, but music creation and innovation will continue even without CD sales.
The therapeutic cloning approach of the Stanford researchers also has great potential, but the process of creating and destroying embryos to harvest stem cells seems to be more complicated than using adult stem cells. Further, some experiments in which embryonic stem cells were reimplanted ominously gave rise to carcinomas. Many research scientists think both approaches should be pursued.