Lab Develops Artificial Womb 841
Meowharishi writes: "According to this article at the Observer, scientists from Cornell University have successfully developed the first artificial womb. Embroys successfully attached themselves to the walls of these wombs and began to grow but were terminated to comply with regulations. Developments like this really offer tremendous opportunities for creating a family for those who cannot have children the old fashioned way."
could this lead (Score:4, Interesting)
Daddy is also mummy? (Score:3, Interesting)
survival of the weakest (Score:2, Interesting)
This is actively working against evolution. I demand this stop immediately. Not only do we allow blind, deaf, ugly, and stupid people to pro-create, but now we're going to start allowing sterile people to procreate? Someday, we'll all end up stuck in the matrix feeding tubes, and it won't be imposed on us by some AI run amuck.... it will be done by our own choice.
For the record, I don't have anything against the aforementioned groups of people, I'm just saying that the proliferation of those traits in our gene pool is not necessarily desired. Not to be misconstrued - I firmly believe that we're all created equal, and should be given ample opportunities to pursue happiness in our own ways. I'll not persecute people based on how they were born, but do we necessarily want to become a people who can't function without the full dependence on technology?
Stephen Hawking claimed that ALS was the best thing that ever happened to his career, note that he didn't say that it was the best thing to ever happen to his life.
Why ethical concerns? (Score:4, Interesting)
How is this different from a couple's child being gestated in a surrogate mother's womb?
How is this different from a different organ - the kidney - being replaced with external machinery (dialysis)?
How is this different from the prosthetic limbs or the artifical hearts in development?
Our bodies are imperfect and sometimes bits don't work properly or break. We have the means to workaround these shortcomings with technology; in this case, we still need parents to provide the genetic material and, obviously, raise the child once it is born.
Re:This has all sorts of possibilities, bad and go (Score:4, Interesting)
Abortion ethics? (Score:5, Interesting)
This device makes it possible for (baby|fetus)s to reach this "viability" mark much earlier...
I don't want to start a flame war, but what effect do you think technological advances such as these will have on ethics relating to unborn children/fetuses?
We have a right to sperm (Score:1, Interesting)
There was an incident at the University of Wisconsin-Madison a number of years back involving a lesbian couple who were denied their application for artificial insemination at the UW Hostpital and Clinics fertility labs. The next day the local feminists were out in force picketing, carrying signs with messages such as "We have a right to sperm". When I suggested to one of the protesters that they could get it the old-fashioned way like everyone else I was nearly run out of town on a rail.
Also reminds me of the lesbian furnace repairman (she actually called herself a repairdyke!) who came to my house once. She insisted I clear the shortest path to my basement furnace and back because she didn't want to be in a man's house any longer than absolutely necessary. She told me she didn't allow her own son into her house. How she managed to get a son in the first place she never said.
However, I will grant that Madison tends to be a regional magnet for such fringe elements and that these sorts of views are not representative of the majority of feminists. They do reflect rather badly on the feminist image, though.
the gay community made up a very small portion of the population, even less if you're talking about gay males.
The widely-believed ten percent figure comes from the flawed Kinsey report of the 1950s. The truth is closer to 4% (about 5% for males, 3% for females). Which means the homosexual lobby in the U.S. has far more influence than mere numbers would dictate they should.
Posted anonymously to avoid the wrath of the Slashdot police.
Re:Pinky (Score:3, Interesting)
A quick search on Google led me to this site [trosch.org] which has a good summary of it.
Brave New World - Actual Text (Score:3, Interesting)
"I shall begin at the beginning," said the D.H.C. and the more zealous
students recorded his intention in their notebooks: Begin at the
beginning. "These," he waved his hand, "are the incubators." And opening
an insulated door he showed them racks upon racks of numbered test-tubes.
"The week's supply of ova. Kept," he explained, "at blood heat; whereas
the male gametes," and here he opened another door, "they have to be kept
at thirty-five instead of thirty-seven. Full blood heat sterilizes." Rams
wrapped in theremogene beget no lambs.
Still leaning against the incubators he gave them, while the pencils
scurried illegibly across the pages, a brief description of the modern
fertilizing process; spoke first, of course, of its surgical
introduction-"the operation undergone voluntarily for the good of Society,
not to mention the fact that it carries a bonus amounting to six months'
salary"; continued with some account of the technique for preserving the
excised ovary alive and actively developing; passed on to a consideration
of optimum temperature, salinity, viscosity; referred to the liquor in
which the detached and ripened eggs were kept; and, leading his charges to
the work tables, actually showed them how this liquor was drawn off from
the test-tubes; how it was let out drop by drop onto the specially warmed
slides of the microscopes; how the eggs which it contained were inspected
for abnormalities, counted and transferred to a porous receptacle; how
(and he now took them to watch the operation) this receptacle was immersed
in a warm bouillon containing free-swimming spermatozoa-at a minimum
concentration of one hundred thousand per cubic centimetre, he insisted;
and how, after ten minutes, the container was lifted out of the liquor and
its contents re-examined; how, if any of the eggs remained unfertilized,
it was again immersed, and, if necessary, yet again; how the fertilized
ova went back to the incubators; where the Alphas and Betas remained until
definitely bottled; while the Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons were brought out
again, after only thirty-six hours, to undergo Bokanovsky's Process.
"Bokanovsky's Process," repeated the Director, and the students underlined
the words in their little notebooks.
One egg, one embryo, one adult-normality. But a bokanovskified egg will
bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and
every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into
a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one
grew before. Progress.
"Essentially," the D.H.C. concluded, "bokanovskification consists of a
series of arrests of development. We check the normal growth and,
paradoxically enough, the egg responds by budding."
Responds by budding. The pencils were busy.
He pointed. On a very slowly moving band a rack-full of test-tubes was
entering a large metal box, another, rack-full was emerging. Machinery
faintly purred. It took eight minutes for the tubes to go through, he told
them. Eight minutes of hard X-rays being about as much as an egg can
stand. A few died; of the rest, the least susceptible divided into two;
most put out four buds; some eight; all were returned to the incubators,
where the buds began to develop; then, after two days, were suddenly
chilled, chilled and checked. Two, four, eight, the buds in their turn
budded; and having budded were dosed almost to death with alcohol;
consequently burgeoned again and having budded-bud out of bud out of
bud-were thereafter-further arrest being generally fatal-left to develop
in peace. By which time the original egg was in a fair way to becoming
anything from eight to ninety-six embryos- a prodigious improvement, you
will agree, on nature. Identical twins-but not in piddling twos and threes
as in the old viviparous days, when an egg would sometimes accidentally
divide; actually by dozens, by scores at a time.
"Scores," the Director repeated and flung out his arms, as though he were
distributing largesse. "Scores."
But one of the students was fool enough to ask where the advantage lay.
"My good boy!" The Director wheeled sharply round on him. "Can't you see?
Can't you see?" He raised a hand; his expression was solemn. "Bokanovsky's
Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!"
Major instruments of social stability.
Standard men and women; in uniform batches. The whole of a small factory
staffed with the products of a single bokanovskified egg.
"Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!" The
voice was almost tremulous with enthusiasm. "You really know where you
are. For the first time in history." He quoted the planetary motto.
"Community, Identity, Stability." Grand words. "If we could bokanovskify
indefinitely the whole problem would be solved."
Solved by standard Gammas, unvarying Deltas, uniform Epsilons. Millions of
identical twins. The principle of mass production at last applied to
biology.
Listen former fathers with NO choice (Score:2, Interesting)
As one of few pro-life anarchists out there I would like people's opinion on this.
forgive my website trilucid.com flaked out and I lost most of my pages
Hatched? (Score:2, Interesting)
I wasn't worried about being cloned without my permission. I knew that no woman (other than dear ol' Mom) would want to carry a copy of me arond for 9 months. However, this changes everything.
A couple of things..
1)I wonder if a live fetus was miscarried, could it be placed into the artificial womb till birth.
2)This will be the end of that "re-birthing" craze. What re-birthing will renew my life? Well, sorry but I wasn't born that way. I was born by cracking my "shell". Which brings up...
3)You can't call this being born. You have to call it being hatched.
Nine Months in a Sensory Deprivation Tank? (Score:5, Interesting)
What kind of psychological impact will it have if a baby is brought to term without any of the rocking, singing, ooh-ah, coo-coo, dinner, conversation, love and life of the mother in close contact? An "artificial womb" will presumably be a dark, enclosed tank with little or no human contact. There is substantial evidence to indicate that prenatal stimulation is important. I wonder what kind of messed up people will come out of these chambers.
Re:Pinky (Score:2, Interesting)
It was yet another case of Catholic power struggles. The nobility and curch always had power battles at this time, and the Crusades were an attempt to silence the nobility.
The pope, and his goons, basically told the nobility that if they would not go fight for the holy land, they would be ex-communicated. So, all the nobility sailed off to go fight (some took the land route too). Of course, to some of them, the crusades were a great opportunity to expand their wealth and territory.
I'd have to say that to the great many of nobles that went to fight were not there for god. There are a few examples of those who were, however, such as Fredrich Barbarosa. But, even in his case (being the so-called Holy Roman Emperor [of the Germanic tribes]), it was more of an ego-booster than anything else. He wasn't even invited, but had to go so not to loose face.
Face it, the only people who cared about god back then were either poor (and thus naieve, and that almost certianly meant you could not read--especially the Bible, which was next to impossible for even a noble to obtain), or were the type of extremist zealots that we see today (meaning that they were probably mentally ill or something).
But, I wholly agree with your point. It's far too easy for most people to do something wrong, then either shrug it off, or buy forgiveness from the local spiritual dealer.
As an aside, I think that alot of the things muslim people do, or have done, is as much a public phallic fencing match as the christians, or anyone else. They feel they have to defend the good word of Mohammed (or even worse, prove themselves superrior), just like the people who bomb abortion centers convince themselves that killing a doctor justifies saving another fetus; when in reality it dosen't. They all ultimately hurt their cause, however noble and moral it really is.
I say let Allah, God, Jehovah, or whoever the hell runs this joint sort 'em out in the end.
/end mindless blabbering
Re:survival of the weakest (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure it means that a whole bunch of blind retards reproduce, but maybe one of those blind retards has a mutant gene that by pure coincidence will make them immune to some futur plague. Then that precious gene will be in the pool, and by ten we'll hopefully have gene-therapy, another unnatural way to play the natural selection game, and we'll all get to be saved from the plague by the reject's mutant gene.
If our big brains give us more ways to reproduce, it makes the species stronger, not weaker. And if artificial reproduction methods lead to a weakened human race that can't survive, the Amish will still be there to perpetuate the species.
Its not as if the whole world will abandon natural childbirthing to go to the axolt tubes.
I couldn't have said it better. (Score:2, Interesting)
As I posted earlier, I think this sort of thing could make us "God children" (see G.A.T.T.A.C.A.) become inferior as superior, disease and disability-free children are born from laboratories.
*sigh* Perhaps I'm just overreacting.
Re:survival of the weakest (Score:2, Interesting)
Advance technology like spears is making it too easy for the slow among us to hunt. This must also be banned to 'strengthen the species'. No more cooking food. If your digestive system can't handle raw food you don't deserve to live. It is also time to give up all modern sanitation. All this washing and cleaning is letting people with weak immune systems survive their childhood's! Its just scandalous that we are using technology to thwart evolution!
Since when did anyone start praying at the altar of evolution? Yes, we understand how evolution works, but that doesn't mean that the criteria that makes a lion successful should be applied to humanity. What makes humanity the most successful creature on the planet? Our brains. Not our ability to breed fast. Not our ability to run fast. Not any of our 'natural' athletic abilities put us at the top of the food chain. The yard stick to measure humanities success is completely different than for any other creature. Our ability to change the environment to suit us is what makes humanity successful. This advance is no different from using a lever. It is a technology that we can use to enhance our abilities.This is how humans could travel to distant stars (Score:2, Interesting)
I imagine that if human civilization ever came to accept this type of technology, it would be possible to one day use it to colonize far away solar systems. Instead of massive self-sustaining 'generation' ships, we could send unmanned robotic prospecting missions out to look for life-sustaining planets. If the ship found a promising new home, it would drop landing vehicles and build temporary shelters. Food plants could then be grown indoors from seeds transported in cold storage, and the planetary atmosphere tested further. If everything checked out, the ship could then start to give birth to and raise a "crew" from a cold-store of embryos.
The crew would grow up and be taught how to build more complicated structures and machinery; one day they would move out of the temporary shelters and onto the land itself. They would have access to an archive of our culture and knowledge to guide them as they adapted to the land and built a new culture from available resources. Maybe one day they would decide to 'phone home...', and we would meet aliens from space... ourselves!
Obviously, I am talking science fiction here; anyone who has seen a 2-year-old on a rampage realizes that it would require insane artificial-parent technology to bring about a new genesis of humanity on a far away planet, (I don't think the talking Barney and a VCR would cut it), but I do think that advances like the artificial womb are exciting, and bring all of this speculation closer to the realm of the possible.
For supposed techies, what a bunch of wimpy posts! (Score:1, Interesting)
crap anyway? This could be just about the
crowning acheivement of our species, and all
I can hear is WHINE WHINE WHINE.
Have any of you actually SEEN a birth? I have -
including caesarian. IT'S HORRIFYING.
The fact is that our evolution of HUGE HEADS has
pushed right up against what can be squeezed
through a human pelvis. How many MILLIONS of
women have died in childbirth? Can you imagine
the total amount of SUFFERING that has been
undergone, just to keep our species going?
What the fsck do you think technology SHOULD
be helping us do, anyway, play more realistic
GAMES or something?
Get your heads out of your asses and you might
realize that this is a truly heroic effort
to free ourselves from a blind and monstrous
nature - red in tooth, claw and vagina!!!
Successful my ass. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not successful until the device can be proven to gestate a fetus to term, and that said fetus be functional and free of defencts (depending on the old truism of garbage in, garbage out with regards to the genetic materials). "Regulations" have allowed for nothing more than a proof of concept. Yee ha. Test it on a pig or something and see if it really works all the way.
Too many people are shooting straight from the hip with moral panic attacks about this- the results of which are essentially as close minded as "640k ought to be enough for anybody." The morally minded need to shut the fsck up and realize that they have no right to have ANY say in the procreation alternatives of other sentient individuals. I cannot assess wether or not this device is practical for reasons stated above- it's not a functional proof of concept until "regulations" (created or pushed through by the morally minded who seem to exist only to restrict the will of others) allow for a thorough test.
Is it a good idea? Of course; it's advancing science. Medical science and NASA would be about thirty years behind where we are now were it not for German scientific data garnered from the second world war.
The only life you have ANY say in is YOUR OWN. Now keep your mouth shut about why cloning and Gattica-style selective breeding is a bad idea.... because simply put, it doesn't presently exist, so we just don't KNOW, do we? It's not your life, it's not your choice, so fundamentally, it's *not your business* unless you're looking to reproduce and have run out of options.
Re:You know, It always puzzled me. (Score:1, Interesting)
http://scientificamerican.com/2002/0202issue/02
Edward O Wilson's books are great, great reads by the way
Cattle and Poultry eat GRAIN...grain needs LAND...arable land to grow on. Arable land is being washed away and depleted at astonishing rates. The math is really quite simple, but the logic I guess is not easily understood new economy types (you can't eat money OR electrons).
from http://dieoff.org/page40.htm
KEY FINDINGS
At the present growth rate of 1.1% per year, the U.S. population will double to more than half a billion people within the next 60 years. It is estimated that approximately one acre of land is lost due to urbanization and highway construction alone for every person added to the U.S. population.
This means that only 0.6 acres of farmland would be available to grow food for each American in 2050, as opposed to the 1.8 acres per capita available today. At least 1.2 acres per person is required in order to maintain current American dietary standards. Food prices are projected to increase 3 to 5-fold within this period.
If present population growth, domestic food consumption and topsoil loss trends continue, the U.S. will most likely cease to be a food exporter by approximately 2025 because food grown in the U.S. will be needed for domestic purposes.
Since food exports earn $40 billion for the U.S. annually, the loss of this income source would result in an even greater increase in America's trade deficit.
Considering that America is the world's largest food exporter, the future survival of millions of people around the world may also come into question if food exports from the U.S. were to cease.
U.S. POPULATION GROWTH AS A PRIMARY CAUSE
Drs. Pimentel and Giampietro have concluded that U.S. population growth is a primary cause of these harsh potential outcomes. The study explains that the United States is the fastest-growing industrialized country in the world, now increasing by approximately three million people per year. This population growth rata is equivalent to adding 58,000 people per week or a city the size of Washington, D.C. to our country every year. The overall growth rate of the U.S. population has escalated in large part because of the unprecedented number of immigrants that have been allowed to come into the United States and their disproportionately higher birth rates compared to the native-born. About half of U.S. population growth is currently the result of immigration.
--
It really frustrates me to read posts by intelligent people who ask for proof about why things aren't so great in the world...like we need any proof. Like I said...do a google search on earth science topics and read up a little bit. Read the research...it's often boring but it's all available on the web.
Imagine what things would be like if Oil ran out...not going to happen tomorrow, but it WILL happen within 100 years. Imagine what the transition will be like. Imagine 200 yers from now when all available gas reserves are depleted. Then what? Every time humans run out of a resource we tend to fight over the remaining scraps before moving onto other technologies. Perhaps we'll just mine fat people eh?
JB
Re:Abortion ethics? (Score:3, Interesting)
Scary!? (Score:2, Interesting)
And for we men, no more hearing about all of it.
Pregnancy is scary. Not this.
What if.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Conception?
Viability outside the artificial womb?
Birth?
Majority?
Never?
My guess is, should such a technology ever reach the point of being able to carry a baby to term, the same rights and limitations will apply to the owners of the technology as apply to women now, for simply practical reasons. Rights as they exist now strike something of a balance between the duty of the state to protect the helpless, the right of the individual for self-determination, and the practical matter of having the right person make the decision.
I cannot derive ethics from first principles, and ethics generally seem to arise from practical considerations anyway. But some people claim to be able to.
And so, if one thinks that it is ethically wrong for a corporation to terminate a healthy blastula, how can one think that it is ethically right for a woman to do the same thing?
Re:Abortion ethics? (Score:2, Interesting)
I--and yes, I'm female--would jump on that option in a minute if I became pregnant and didn't want to keep it. Perhaps some would still find it repulsive, but some people always will...