Scientists Grow Two-Week-Old Human Embryos In Lab For The First Time (reuters.com) 140
An anonymous reader writes: According to Reuters, "Using a culture method previously tested to grow mouse embryos outside of a mother, the teams were able to conduct almost hour by hour observations of human embryo development to see how they develop and organize themselves up to day 13."
Brave new world, here we come From the report: "The work, covered in two studies published on Wednesday in the journal Nature and Nature Cell Biology, showed how the cells that will eventually form the human body self-organize into the basic structure of a post-implantation human embryo. As well as advancing human biology expertise, the knowledge gained from studying these developments should help to improve in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments and further progress in the field of regenerative medicine, the researchers said. But the research also raises the issue of an international law banning scientists from developing human embryos beyond 14 days, and suggests this limit may have to be reviewed. 'Longer cultures could provide absolutely critical information for basic human biology,' said researcher Zernicka-Goetz. 'But this would of course raise the next question - of where we should put the next limit.'"
Brave new world, here we come From the report: "The work, covered in two studies published on Wednesday in the journal Nature and Nature Cell Biology, showed how the cells that will eventually form the human body self-organize into the basic structure of a post-implantation human embryo. As well as advancing human biology expertise, the knowledge gained from studying these developments should help to improve in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments and further progress in the field of regenerative medicine, the researchers said. But the research also raises the issue of an international law banning scientists from developing human embryos beyond 14 days, and suggests this limit may have to be reviewed. 'Longer cultures could provide absolutely critical information for basic human biology,' said researcher Zernicka-Goetz. 'But this would of course raise the next question - of where we should put the next limit.'"
good morning, let's fill these orders fast, folks: (Score:1)
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Only if they can choose which redhead. It's an actual scientific fact that they follow a bimodal distribution.
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22 male brown skin, 31 female red hair, and 2 sets of twins. i expect hourly updates.
Ah, so this is that "Lab Grown Meat" we were discussing recently.
I like mine lean . . . just the arms and "wings", you can keep the rest.
Oh, wait, please thrown in a brain for my pet Zombie.
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Trump 2016
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Well, now we know how he engineers his wives.
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I thought he just imports them from Czeckopolakia?
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International Law? (Score:2)
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Those nations also have a habit of being a bit... in the dark ages
The countries in the dark ages are those that allow politicians to put limits on scientific inquiry based on religious superstition.
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There are actual ethical considerations with this sort of thing that have nothing to do with religion or souls or Baby Jesus.
Human rights is easily subverted when you can just redefine who is actually human.
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There are actual ethical considerations with this sort of thing that have nothing to do with religion or souls or Baby Jesus.
Human rights is easily subverted when you can just redefine who is actually human.
But "ethics" is just a societal construct, and varies widely from person to person.
As to redefining who is human, you may recall there are activists who want the Great Apes and chimps to be defined as human -- and other groups who want reasonably advanced robots to be defined as human.
Whether you choose to define an embryo as being human at 9 months, 6 months, or 13.75 days is completely arbitrary.
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There are actual ethical considerations with this sort of thing that have nothing to do with religion or souls or Baby Jesus.
Human rights is easily subverted when you can just redefine who is actually human.
I think the problem stems (no pun intended) from binary thinking. We want to put neat labels on everything - either it is a human, or it isn't.
But that isn't how nature works.
We gradually change, both on a long term scale (evolution), and on a short scale (conception to death), and pinpointing exactly what is a human isn't that easy, because it's a moving target.
I think the question that needs to be asked is how human something is, whether it is an embryo, someone on life support, someone with Down's syndr
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While I agree with your assessment, binary thinking and the arbitrary definitions of boundaries required to make it work in an analog world is not something that is going to go away. It's too useful to those who need the world to be simple enough to wrap their tender brains around.
Q: Who gets Constitutional protections?
A: Humans! Not human? No protections.
Q: What is
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It isn't just religious "superstition". Religious objections and actual humanist objections are one and the same - that each individual human being has a basic right to dignity and life, and to not be used as disposable lab rats.
On a strictly objective level, fetal experiments and (yes, Godwin) Dr. Mengele's experiments are based on the premise that the subjects were not considered to be human, in spite of having human DNA and the fact that they are individual distinct beings.
Prove otherwise if you can.
To b
Re:International Law? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure there are plenty of nations that don't give a shit and would welcome research labs.
i am sure there are plenty of nations that wouldn't "give a shit" to test on adult humans in said research labs too.
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in the end question is what is the limit on scientific testing, that harms text subjects, but benefits other humans?
limits at present are arbitrary and irrational (though imperfectly practical); we don't allow healthy humans and late more developed embryos, but allow early ones, we allow some animals, not others, but feel squeamish and hold protests.
at the same time we kill and eat animals(sometimes the same ones) and allow even very late embryos to ripped out and burned, and end their "life" in garbage.
all that uncertainty and irrationality inevitably flow from of moral relativism and utilitarianism, which are main components of dominant secular ideology of modern west.
if you buy in to that ideology, accept inevitable ethical chaos and irrationality.
deal with it! and live(if it lets you live) with it!
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i am sure there are plenty of nations that wouldn't "give a shit" to test on adult humans in said research labs too.
It's inevitable, and it probably won't be just the nations you would suspect.
There will be mistakes and abuses, as with all human endeavors; especially if this proceeds before we completely understand the consequences of altering this strand for that advantage.
perhaps more of a political choice (Score:3)
I don't particularly approve of the legal restrictions. Nevertheless, for early development, there is no significant difference between humans and primates (or even many other mammals) at the level of these studies, so they wouldn't have to use human embryos.
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Only if I have to use that toilet after you.
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The seat, dude. You know the kind of aim guys have when they're pissing, now imagine how well they aim when they're ... let's say a bit preoccupied.
Sorry about the pun (Score:2)
Where I come from the seats are designed to lift up.
Mass murder (Score:2, Funny)
Let the heathen spill them
On the dusty ground
God will make him pay for
each sperm that can't be found...
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Do you ejaculate fertilized eggs when you wank off into the toilet? Unless you do, your comparison is not applicable. No one, not even the Pope, actually believes a bunch of sperm are a separate person.
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If this is happening in the US, the decision will probably be made on grounds of the sensibilities of someone's imaginary friend rather than science or anything else that has anything to do with reality.
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You might be too young to remember the outcry that surrounded artificial insemination. Unnatural, against god's will and all that shit.
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You might be too young to remember the outcry that surrounded artificial insemination. Unnatural, against god's will and all that shit.
Or birth control: http://www.motherjones.com/med... [motherjones.com]
Freaky shit.
Sex - It's like ethanol and cannabis consumption except with a biological imperative. People are going to engage in sex, even have a drive to do it, and not many want to end up like the Duggars. Suppressing it leads to all kinds of whacky stuff.
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As the late George Carlin said it, do you think there's more rape at the North Pole or the jungle? People would think it's in the jungle, 'cause people are naked and there's a lot of fucking going on. I say it's exactly the other way around. Because people are naked and there's a lot of fucking going on. Less pressure, ya know?
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Maybe they think the soul forms on day 14.
Re:perhaps more of a political choice (Score:5, Informative)
One guesses the 14 days thing is that this is when gastrulation occurs. That is the point in which the developing bundle of cells reorganizes itself into three layers of cells and is no longer able to split into two or more groups and make twins, triplets etc.
As such it is not the arbitrary point in time that a lot of commentators are presuming it is.
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I think that almost any point in time is arbitrary. For just about any stage / time, you could point out a first that occurs. 14 days is especially arbitrary because it's 2 weeks of calendar time. Plus, it's especially arbitrary in the context of abortion discussions (which cast a long shadow over everything related to human development), because religious people typically point to the fertilization of the egg as 'the' moment when it gets a right-to-life. 14 days is irrelevant to that.
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Google "snowflake babies". yes, there are religious organizations that are baptizing fertilized zygotes, so that their unborn souls can be with Jesus.
I really wish I was making this up.
Snowflake Children [wikipedia.org] are frozen embryos that are implanted via IVF into a woman who's not the biological mother. If you're pro-life, and believe that embryos are human from the moment of conception, it's a logical step.
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So even if you don't believe the Bible
And if so are you a chair of philosophy at an Ivy league school? I hear that is a career advantage in that field.
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Those "embryos" are babies.
So even if you don't believe the Bible ...
There is nothing from the Bible the pertains to abortion or "embryos".
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Do you believe your neighbors are okay to murder?
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Ireland, Germany, Poland, Italy, and other countries like that are much more into "imaginary friends" as the basis of research legislation:
http://www.mbbnet.umn.edu/scma... [umn.edu]
http://www.techinsider.io/what... [techinsider.io]
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Yes, the trouble is that it isn't true. The influence of churches and religion on US politics is much less than in many European countries. So, the OP remains flamebait, and you're simply ignorant.
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Yes, you are correct, I am ignorant of the current state of law making in European countries, and am only vaguely aware that the origins of law over there are more heavily rooted in religion than in the US.
I guess my counter argument is why does it have to be a comparison? "My country uses less religion in crafting new laws than your country" still makes absolutely no sense to me. I don't care what country we are talking about, religion has no place in law making. I understand that the men and women craftin
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"Opportunist" is a bigoted, anti-American European who used this issue to try and get in a dig at the US. And the kind of ignorance he is peddling, unfortunately, has taken root in the US, with Americans themselves having a distorted view of their own country and making bad political decisions by trying to emulate Europe. Just look at the kind of rhetoric that has been coming from people like Sanders and Obama. So, people like you mindlessly
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It is? The whole "teaching the controversy" bullshit could have fooled me.
But then, why do I complain? I'm in Europe! If the US descends into medieval times, we can take over as the leading power in international development again.
Hint: If you want to see what it's like when religion rules, take a good look at the Middle East. Iran, Afghanistan, that's your future. Well, sans oil money. Since you're pretty much using your juice yourself.
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You mean having countries like Germany that ban gay marriage, gay adoption, and limit choice to the first trimester? You mean a continent in which many nations have God in their constitutions and law, have state churches, ban embryonic stem cell research, and subsidize churches massively with public funds?
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Despite the existence of problems of the type you mention, this doesn't go for all scientists.
In addition, science has a self-correcting mechanism, something no religion has.
That constant pull to compare everything with reality does get us results.
People should be taught the difference between faith and blind faith. Blind faith is when you bank on your parents being right about religion and not checking whether what you're told matches reality. Faith is what you can have after checking without confirmation
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I hate to break it to you, but there is extensive evidence that there is never very much difference between humans and other primates at any level of development. The differences are minuscule compared to the similarities.
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Yeah sure, there isn't much difference if you want to make selective comparisons: we all have two legs and two arms, for instance.
This is a dumb "factoid" that belies the reality that at some point, you're probably more comfortable letting a human drive you to work than one of those other primates that are "not very different".
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Hey, I'm fine with abortion as birth control, fetish, or whatever in the early stages. But doing this with human embryos seems weirdly irrelevant and provocative - or 'human exceptionalist' at best, which is pretty non-scientific.
Certainly from an embryological point of view, the significant differences between a fully-formed human and chimp (or pig, for that matter) are minuscule - at least as relates to the kinds of discovery that could be made from observing an embryo in its first few weeks. I assume w
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I hate to break it to you, but that is wrong. While there are no gross anatomical differences during early development, there clearly are later in development. Furthermore, there are molecular, biochemical, and genetic differences from the beginning, including drug interactions and common
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Re:perhaps more of a political choice (Score:4, Insightful)
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There are fewer primates than humans, I think.
Also, the eggs are collected after IVF treatment (desired by the women concerned) and donated with their consent.
A primate would have to be subjected to an unnecessary medical procedure to collect the eggs.
I think the current situation is preferable.
Bert
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There are also fewer cows than humans in the world. Should we start using humans for commercial milk and meat production then?
Why limit it? (Score:2)
Any limit is going to be arbitrary. Let's put it another way: Whoever wants to do something like that has to show why. If there is a good reason to grow a body in a petri dish to 9 months, fine. For shits and giggles, even 14 days is more than you should get.
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You sig is oddly on topic...
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Let China have their superhumans. There's more to existence than being the next person with more technological "progress".
I love science and what we can do with it, but pursuit of it without an understanding of what you're actually trying to achieve, or if that goal is actually desirable, just leads down a path that doesn't achieve actual happiness for anyone. What good is a superhuman if you can't be one? What good is a superhuman if *everyone* is one?
We can do lots of things, that doesn't mean that tho
BUZZ. WRONG. Try Again. (Score:1, Troll)
Pregger women scientists working in the laboratory preggers, just showin' up for work.
Conception has occurred in the laboratory too.
On top of the Van de Graaff generator.
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Conception has occurred in the laboratory too.
On top of the Van de Graaff generator.
I'm shocked, I tell you!
Great (Score:3)
Not that hard. (Score:4)
What I find most tantalising about this is the prospect this opens of artificial uteruses, and with it the elimination of the need to carry one's unborn child along inside one's natural incubator for nine months, at least for humans of the female persuasion. This would also enable same-sex couples to have a child with their DNA, without requiring anyone else to carry the child to term.
This in addition to the things we can learn from studying the development of embryos and stem cells in general, for both current and future humans.
The possible positive impact these advances may have to me at least far outweigh the philosophical musing some people seem to be absorbed in.
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Finally, we can get to a society without women!
Oh wait. We only do that stupid bullshit when it's a story about being able to fertilize an egg in a lab without sperm (or some such other development) and the sexist conclusion is a society without men.
Only *almost* hour by hour? (Score:2)
the teams were able to conduct almost hour by hour observations
Why only almost hour by hour? What stopped them having a sneaky peak at 59 minutes?
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No more than 13 or 14 years (Score:4, Funny)
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*reaches for a bottle of the finest scotch."
The good news is: When they're that old, you are happy with the cheaper stuff.
Bert
How can I be kidding; I don't have them.
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Mine had the "terrible twos" at 15 months. The eldest has just grown out of it (age 7) by apparently jumping straight into teenager mode.
In a way it's an improvement. As long as I ask him questions (like "how was school?") he's completely silent.
Real lack of ethics (Score:1)
The real problem of course is that governments and politicians of the world are limiting human knowledge and discoveries by sticking their shitty hands and noses where they do not belong at all - science. The real problem of ethics is the ignoramuses of the general public and their ignoramus pieces of shit 'representatives' destroying individual freedom of scientists to run any experiments they need to run on cells, tissues just because those cells and tissues can at some point become a human. Well, if the
That's an easy one (Score:2)
Full Term.
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If not, sounds like you're giving them the green light.
You know a "partial birth abortion" involves vaccuuming the baby's brains out, right?
And is against federal law?
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I'm simply suggesting that researchers are the cautious types and can be trusted to make reasonable judgements, with consent, as to what they will be able to safely accomplish here. There certainly is nobody else who is better qualified to make this judgement. I see no ethical problem with
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Actually I'm neither speaking based on my memories of being a baby (of which I have none just like everyone else) nor as a parent. I'm referring to the results of actual objective study of human brain development. As a parent your biological imperative actually negates you from being able to rationally form opinions on the subject. Why on earth you think the perspective of a parent would be more informed or less
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The are a few behavioral traits humans exhibit that have no analog in the animal kingdom. As Twain said, man is the only animal that blushes. There are more formally defined traits too like learned
We need a secular definition of when life begins (Score:2)
To the Likers, a single fertilized cell has full human rights. The Choicers punt until birth, leaving the debate with a huge excluded middle.
We have put a lot of thought into determining when life ends, and what we have decided on is cessation of brain activity. Why not define the start of brain activity, about six weeks in, as when life begins?
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The percentage of "Choicers" who punt it to nine months is so vanishing small it's not worth talking about. Most reasonable and rational people who believe in choice thats like 99.9999% of them put the end of "choice" where the foetus is able to survive independently of the mother.
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The percentage of "Choicers" who punt it to nine months is so vanishing small it's not worth talking about. Most reasonable and rational people who believe in choice thats like 99.9999% of them put the end of "choice" where the foetus is able to survive independently of the mother.
With incubators and such, even extremely premature babies (1 pound birth weight!) have survived. At the other extreme, infants and toddlers can't survive on their own for years after delivery from mom.
I believe in both science and God. I believe that all mankind has agency to choose for themselves, so I am against any governmental theocracy or arbitrary laws enforcing a religious set of rules. People should be free to do what they want as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others. That means that
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Speaking religiously, the Scriptures tell us that God formed the physical body of Adam, then put in him the breath of life (often interpreted as spirit). Upon receiving the breath of life, Adam became a "living soul."
Doesn't it bother you to know that Adam is myth? Humans are primates and come from common ancestors of other living primates. Or do you throw all the way and cling to a myth? Just curious.
Adam and Eve (Score:2)
Speaking religiously, the Scriptures tell us that God formed the physical body of Adam, then put in him the breath of life (often interpreted as spirit). Upon receiving the breath of life, Adam became a "living soul."
Doesn't it bother you to know that Adam is myth? Humans are primates and come from common ancestors of other living primates. Or do you throw all the way and cling to a myth? Just curious.
In a word, no. It doesn't bother me if Adam and Eve are a myth or historic figures. I believe that God speaks to man in a way that man understands at the time. Likewise, science is man's best guess based on current evidence. Religion, when perfectly revealed and understood SHOULD NOT conflict with perfectly understood science. Both science and religion are a "what we know / understand now" deal. Either could be refined as more is revealed / discovered.
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From my personal experience with speaking to people, most choicers stop being ok with abortions at 3rd trimester, and most lifers start are fine with abortion at 1st trimester (using abortion as a guide of "when does 'life' begin"). The debate is really at the second trimester. But in the US, the politics/political theater/extreme groups keep glossing over this point, and try to polarize the issue into all or none. This polarization prevents actual civil discourse and resolution. It's rather sad, actually.
Don't be a pussy (Score:2)
"Longer cultures could provide absolutely critical information for basic human biology,"
Why stop at embryos?
Think how much they could learn if they left them for 500, 600 weeks ? I mean hell, go to 2000 weeks and then terminate. Think how much you'd learn!
As a 49 year old, I can pretty much vouch there's little value in studying past that point.
If people can't see the moral qualms here, I'd only offer you a couple of current-world points from which to extrapolate:
- puppy mills
- the fact that China *alread
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- the fact that China *already* treats actual humans like replaceable meaningless bio-cogs
Same as most corporations.
in the field of regenerative medicine (Score:2)
To learn now to regenerate organs or limbs we need to learn how animals that actually can do that do it and not how an embryo is growing.
The amount we learn that is applicable to real treatments for humans is likely very very low. It looks like we do it because we can ...
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There are plenty of animals in the lizarddom that can replace whole limbs, not only a tail.
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Wel, then I used the wrong terminology.
For me a Salamander is a Lizard, sorry. But I seek a bit around, I thought there are non amphibians which can do that, too.
Anyway, a good start is always this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In other news (Score:2)
Coming up later: how Zuckerberg, Gates & Whitman are already planning a scheme to teach them to code.
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Only if they can detect which ones are brown and female. The others are proto-opressors!
Meanwhile back in 1996 (Score:2)