We may never be able to make a viable colony off world. The moon is fairly pointless, Mars is hostile as hell, and our choices just get worse.
But sooner or later, we won't be able to stay here. We'll burn up too many resources. A pandemic we can't manage will come along. A larger proportion of the population decides science is evil, and technology is a physical manifestation of that. A big-freaking rock hits us. I dunno. But something will happen and all we are and all we have done will pass into dust. And the universe will go on, none-the-worse for our absence.
It's just, all I know, is that as horrible, small minded, hateful, and destructive as humanity is, we're also generous, creative, beautiful, and, as far as we can tell, unique in the universe. I think we're worth saving, some how.
I'm not saying that we're the only thing out here, I'm not saying we're better than any of a googleplex of theoretical aliens, I'm just saying we're the only thing in the universe we can know for damn sure is alive, aware, and capable of doing what we do, and damn it all, I think that's worth preserving.
Yeah, the article was more of a "warm fuzzy" piece about his life being saved by a donor, with confusing and poorly explained biology littered throughout. As has been noted several times before in this thread, there is nothing particularly world-shattering about this. It's great he survived, and it's interesting that it looked like both donor lines were present for a while before the female line disapeared (and given the small amount of cord blood that can be harvested each time, darned lucky of him that the male line was established enough to complete repopulation), but that's about it.
It's ok. Calm down. Deep breath. This is actually not a terribly uncommon event when bone marrow transplants are used. The news seems to be that instead of transplanted bone marrow, he had stem cells from two different donors infused, and for a while both were found in his blood, but after a period of time only one of the lines seemed to survive. The "news" seems to be that this used stem cells which differentiated into new bone marrow for the patient.
If it had been a "traditional" bone marrow transplant, he would STILL have had a second set of DNA found in his blood. This is becasue for this therapy to work, all of his native bone marrow is destroyed, completely. He will be physically incapable of making his own red, white, and platelet cells. The donor donated marrow is then given to him in the hopes that it will "take root" where his now-ablated marrow once was, and will take that function. It's just like a kidney or heart transplant, just much wetter.
As for offspring due to the implanted cells, not gonna happen. The Gonads are very well protected from things like this, and just like with a transplanted solid organ, this only affects the somatic cells, not the germ cells created in his testes.
So, just remember, think of the bone marrow and blood as another organ, and this is just another organ transplant. His biggest concern would be the effects of his chemo and radiation on his gonads, not the transplanted cells. Make sense?
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We may never be able to make a viable colony off world. The moon is fairly pointless, Mars is hostile as hell, and our choices just get worse.
But sooner or later, we won't be able to stay here. We'll burn up too many resources. A pandemic we can't manage will come along. A larger proportion of the population decides science is evil, and technology is a physical manifestation of that. A big-freaking rock hits us. I dunno. But something will happen and all we are and all we have done will pass into dust. And the universe will go on, none-the-worse for our absence.
It's just, all I know, is that as horrible, small minded, hateful, and destructive as humanity is, we're also generous, creative, beautiful, and, as far as we can tell, unique in the universe. I think we're worth saving, some how.
I'm not saying that we're the only thing out here, I'm not saying we're better than any of a googleplex of theoretical aliens, I'm just saying we're the only thing in the universe we can know for damn sure is alive, aware, and capable of doing what we do, and damn it all, I think that's worth preserving.
Yeah, the article was more of a "warm fuzzy" piece about his life being saved by a donor, with confusing and poorly explained biology littered throughout. As has been noted several times before in this thread, there is nothing particularly world-shattering about this. It's great he survived, and it's interesting that it looked like both donor lines were present for a while before the female line disapeared (and given the small amount of cord blood that can be harvested each time, darned lucky of him that the male line was established enough to complete repopulation), but that's about it.
It's ok. Calm down. Deep breath. This is actually not a terribly uncommon event when bone marrow transplants are used. The news seems to be that instead of transplanted bone marrow, he had stem cells from two different donors infused, and for a while both were found in his blood, but after a period of time only one of the lines seemed to survive. The "news" seems to be that this used stem cells which differentiated into new bone marrow for the patient.
If it had been a "traditional" bone marrow transplant, he would STILL have had a second set of DNA found in his blood. This is becasue for this therapy to work, all of his native bone marrow is destroyed, completely. He will be physically incapable of making his own red, white, and platelet cells. The donor donated marrow is then given to him in the hopes that it will "take root" where his now-ablated marrow once was, and will take that function. It's just like a kidney or heart transplant, just much wetter.
As for offspring due to the implanted cells, not gonna happen. The Gonads are very well protected from things like this, and just like with a transplanted solid organ, this only affects the somatic cells, not the germ cells created in his testes.
So, just remember, think of the bone marrow and blood as another organ, and this is just another organ transplant. His biggest concern would be the effects of his chemo and radiation on his gonads, not the transplanted cells. Make sense?
On behalf of all A-10 lovers, I must object. THIS is one ugly aircraft! And Godbless those engineers who made it so! *grin*