Scientists Grew Stem Cell 'Mini Brains' That Developed Rudimentary Eyes (sciencealert.com) 83
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: Mini brains grown in a lab from stem cells have spontaneously developed rudimentary eye structures scientists report in a fascinating new paper. On tiny, human-derived brain organoids grown in dishes, two bilaterally symmetrical optic cups were seen to grow, mirroring the development of eye structures in human embryos. This incredible result will help us to better understand the process of eye differentiation and development, as well as eye diseases. Brain organoids are not true brains, as you might be thinking of them. They are small, three-dimensional structures grown from induced pluripotent stem cells -- cells harvested from adult humans and reverse engineered into stem cells, that have the potential to grow into many different types of tissue. In this case, these stem cells are coaxed to grow into blobs of brain tissue, without anything resembling thoughts, emotions, or consciousness. Such 'mini brains' are used for research purposes where using actual living brains would be impossible, or at the very least, ethically tricky -- testing drug responses, for example, or observing cell development under certain adverse conditions.
Previous work in the development of organoids showed evidence of retinal cells, but these did not develop optic structures, so the team changed their protocols. They didn't attempt to force the development of purely neural cells at the early stages of neural differentiation, and added retinol acetate to the culture medium as an aid to eye development. Their carefully tended baby brains formed optic cups as early as 30 days into development, with the structures clearly visible at 50 days. This is consistent with the timing of eye development in the human embryo, which means these organoids could be useful for studying the intricacies of this process. There are other implications, too. The optic cups contained different retinal cell types, which organized into neural networks that responded to light, and even contained lens and corneal tissue. Finally, the structures displayed retinal connectivity to regions of the brain tissue. The research has been published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Previous work in the development of organoids showed evidence of retinal cells, but these did not develop optic structures, so the team changed their protocols. They didn't attempt to force the development of purely neural cells at the early stages of neural differentiation, and added retinol acetate to the culture medium as an aid to eye development. Their carefully tended baby brains formed optic cups as early as 30 days into development, with the structures clearly visible at 50 days. This is consistent with the timing of eye development in the human embryo, which means these organoids could be useful for studying the intricacies of this process. There are other implications, too. The optic cups contained different retinal cell types, which organized into neural networks that responded to light, and even contained lens and corneal tissue. Finally, the structures displayed retinal connectivity to regions of the brain tissue. The research has been published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
The brain from Planet Arous (Score:2)
This isn't what I meant. (Score:5, Funny)
When I said some of these weird experiments needed watching, this wasn't what I meant.
Look out Doctor! (Score:4, Funny)
We've created the first Dalek!
"or at the very least, ethically tricky" (Score:4, Funny)
Well, I'm glad they found a solution that clearly raises no ethical questions.
Re:"or at the very least, ethically tricky" (Score:5, Interesting)
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More importantly will it see things we things we wouldn't believe? Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion or C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate? These are the important questions.
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I had one job....
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Nope, this type of life is not to be allowed. Time to die.
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Ah, but the candle that burns twice as fast burns half as long. And you have burned so very, very brightly my friend.
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At this point, that crowd has no leg to stand on considerig they have shown they don't care one bit about children dying from covid [cnn.com], or the 630,000 people who have already died. All they keep talking about is, "Muh freedum! [cnn.com]"
In fact, this same group seems to be going out of its way [cnn.com] to have as many people
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the "human life begins at conception" crowd
At this point, that crowd
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the two groups above are indistinguishable.
Though there may (and certainly are) people who are members of both groups, being a part of one does not make you a part of the other. Anyone who claims to simultaneously hold both views is an imbecile, as they are fundamentally incompatible.
Your premise is invalid, which renders your argument nonsensical. Please try to refrain from conflating the two in future to preserve the validity of your arguments.
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The "human life beings at conception" crowd has never had a problem with stem cell research per se, only with harvesting aborted embryos in order to do that research. Thankfully, science has found ways to produce stem cells from adult cells, so that source of stem cells is no longer required.
Abortions are going to happen anyway. No point in pretending they don't.
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Regardless, there is no reason why one should change one's moral view of an act just because it happens a lot.
Re:"or at the very least, ethically tricky" (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are women getting pregnant so often if they don't want children?
I don't know. Perhaps you could do a study. You may not get good results though because a lot of them are likely to tell you to MYOFB.
There are about 1 million abortions/year in the US. There's no reason that many unwanted pregnancies should be happening these days unless the women are lazy or just know they can get an abortion, anyway.
Judgmental much? One million does not seem like a lot for a country that size. In my experience women (and men) who don't want a child usually take precautions. Those are kind of like vaccines though, eminently worthwhile but not 100% effective.
Regardless, there is no reason why one should change one's moral view of an act just because it happens a lot.
You are entitled to your moral view. Many people's moral views don't resemble reality though, nor in many cases should they.
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Kant gave us a sim
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Part of morality is based upon objective necessity - there are rules without which society cannot exist.
I agree. And those generally represent things that are considered immoral by most if not all religions and non-religious people alike - murder, robbery, etc.
While most people consider lying immoral, there are not many places where it is illegal (or all the politicians would be in jail), the exception being where it is an integral part of that first list (eg fraud, which is effectively theft, obstruction of justice, etc). I don't think a universal law against lying would work out well.
Kant gave us a simple test for determining whether or not an act is objectively moral - Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
Sharia is about
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Third trimester pregnancies are different. If those are terminated, there should be a heroic effort to bring the fetus to term whole and alive. So, terminate the pregnancy and sav
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No, that argument doesn't work very well. Hell, what about murder? Murder are going to happen, why not chop up the victim for spare parts and research? The victim's
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No, that argument doesn't work very well. Hell, what about murder? Murder are going to happen, why not chop up the victim for spare parts and research? The victim's family is already horribly traumatized, adding a little more on top of that won't hurt too much, right?
I'm pretty sure murder victims donating organs is not an unheard of thing. Yup, Google indeed says it happens.
https://apnews.com/article/16f... [apnews.com]
Should that be prohibited because the recipients are effectively profiting from crime?
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"human life begins at conception" crowd
I'm in the minority but I believe life begins at 65.
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That isn't a religious conviction it is one of science. A new and unique human life does begin at conception or fertilization. That is the first point where you have a new self-replicating cell with unique human DNA from there everything that happens is a function of that DNA's instruction including how it reacts to environmental conditions. The only reasons anyone tries to justify some other point where 'human life begins' are political. The cells this process begins with a
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if there never was a moment of "conception" can these really be considered living human beings? What if it develops cardiac tissue with a heartbeat? What if we advance the technology far enough to develop it to term and create a living, breathing infant? Will it be human from a religious perspective? Will it have a soul?
It will not have a soul. If it's only brain cells, it will be useful for neural gel-packs for our computers (and starship navigation). If we bring it to full term human-looking beings, that's still no problem, because of the built-in 2 year lifespan. Plus, if they get upppty, we can always just Retire individuals.
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And before you ask, I don't know, it just felt/sounded better than "between".
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...without anything resembling thoughts, emotions, or consciousness.
You would think they'd know we have enough politicians already.
No Consciousness? (Score:1)
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Re: Indeed (Score:2)
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Your guy is raining people from planes and you are still exhibiting TDS? Sick.
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They just make that up. To calm themselves. It's denial.
Thinking/feeling/emoting and not thinking/feeling/emoting is not an either/or on/off switch. Just like dead and alive.
It's a gradient. There is something for every possible step in-between.
Neurons, by their very definition, "think" (a bit). Even a single neuron. It's just that the fewer neurons you have, the lower the mental resolution.*
Separating emotions from that, is weird and inappropriate from a neurological standpoint. Or the not mentioned feelin
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Too late.
Re:No Consciousness? (Score:4, Insightful)
Emotions, as we understand and experience them, require a brain structure called the "limbic system." These mini brains don't have such a neural structure, nor anything close. If you want to make the argument that there might be some simpler category of emotional experience that is available to even the most primitive brains, that's fine, but the topic on hand is the familiar experience of human emotions, not some other, more pedantic but less useful, meaning for the word.
The same goes for thoughts and consciousness. In the context of human thinking and awareness, there are neural structures, firing patterns, and stimulus responses required to demonstrate the presence of these things, and these mini-brains have none of these.
How do we know that rocks aren't conscious? We don't, but the point is moot. Consciousness "itself" is unavailable to direct observation. With the right tools, the neural firing patterns that happen when a person is thinking are available to observation, as are the ordinary conscious responses such as answering when asked a question. Based on the associations we can see that connect overt conscious behavior with neural structures and activity (and the absence thereof in obviously unconscious people), we can draw conclusions about the minimum level of neural capacity and activity needed.
And these mini-brains are nowhere close.
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There are people that do not share your conclusions about consciousness, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/
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Panpsychism suffers the same defect as the poster up thread - they extrapolate with no evidence. In other words, they, like flat Earthers have elevated their imaginings into beilefs.
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But it is quite easy to see and prove the Earth is not flat, as it involves well understood physics.
Consciousness is a much more difficult phenomenon that is not at all well understood.
So making definitive statements about it as as the poster I replied to did is not warranted.
And it probably a good idea to be a bit more cautious and also consider some opposing views.
Re:No Consciousness? (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of crazy, no-evidence beliefs get passed off as "philosophy." I have studied philosophy formally and in-depth, and its greatest value is in the presentation of rigorous analytical methods, including higher-order questioning, fallacy recognizing, critical thinking, etc. But when people submit claims that are, in essence, religious doctrines, and call that "philosophy," I take exception.
There is no way, even in theory, to gain evidence that an electron is conscious. The same goes for any subatomic particle. So any claim that subatomic particles are "conscious" is non-falsifiable, and therefore religious in nature. The claim that other animals are conscious, but maybe "less so" than humans, is one for which evidence is easily gathered and readily available so long as we begin by accepting the premise that complex behaviors in response to sensory stimulus is evidence of the presence of consciousness. But by that same premise, anything lacking in a nervous system is already "out," given the lack of such behaviors.
It is fun to speculate about how "mechanical" matter gives rise to our inner experience of qualia, but the moment our conclusions say more than our data we have crossed the line from science and into religion.
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Emotions, as we understand and experience them, require a brain structure called the "limbic system."
Hence it is safe to hurt animals not evolved enough to have a limbic system? They will not experience negative emotion, after all.
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I am unsure what you are getting at. It would be "safe" to hurt animals if you have them in a cage so they can't defend themselves. Maybe you mean something like "morally safe?" That would depend entirely on what your moral values are. The science doesn't tell you what your values should be, it merely gives you the facts that would factor in to your evaluation.
Many animals have simpler limbic systems than ours, and they clearly demonstrate emotionally-charged behavior. But that doesn't stop us from eat
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its more like "... as we say so to suit our convenience
Eyeoids? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, that's not creepy at all.
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Here's a video of a being with eyeoids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Me too stem cell brain, me too (Score:3)
My wife's always accusing me of having rudimentary eyes as I often don't see what's right in front of my face.
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> I often don't see what's right in front of my face.
Usually people have air in front of their faces. It is hard to see which is why most people don't see it, but there is a trick to it. You need a parabolic mirror, video camera, small point light source, razor blade and something to warm the air. You can also replace the razor blade with a glass panel that is divided into two parts with different colors.
Here is a video of the setup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
This is what they tell us about... (Score:3)
In some lab somewhere in China, Russia, or some other country with dubious levels of oversight, there is no telling what horrors exist in labs and what tests are being done on unwilling participants.
I remind your our own military performed horrific tests on unknowing soldiers in the 50s and 60s...
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Right, because in the USA we'd never do something as horrible as human experimentation on say minority females giving them horrible diseases
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All you had to do was at least read their second sentence before jumping in...
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Wrong, that was talking about soldiers. Pay attention before jumping in.
The human experimentation I'm talking about is on civilians, various kinds into 1980s at least. The specific one I alluded to was on black women infecting them with syphilis without their knowledge. Other experiments have been done on inmates, minorities, orphans and juvenile detention centers with children.
That's who different matter, since soldiers gave up their rights according to court rulings.for most our nation's history...
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halfway to the first sentence you could already tell it is bullshit. the second sentence is just there to make the poster not look like a total bigot but it is obviously already too late and only makes matters worse :-D
A huge sigh of relief in many corporations: (Score:2)
"Good, now we can outsource all middle management" /s?
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Why do you need the brains or eyes for that?
Mmmmm (Score:2)
zombie snacks
Big Whoop. (Score:2)
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Uuum, what would having a source of that quote change?
I wish Randall had never made that [[citation needed]] comic. It's exactly what's wrong with Wikipedia.
Because it boils down to an "appeal to authority" fallacy.
When really, what's required, is a way to *verify* it. Aka the "original research" that Wikipedia strongly forbids.
Mmmm Brains... (Score:2)
They've created "Zombie Tots"!
That's unpossible!!! (Score:2)
It's just a meaningless clump of cells... (Score:2)
...watching you with its eyes as you flush it down the toilet.
They've developed a new snack food! (Score:2)
Another week or two of growth (Score:2)
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Still more brain cells than that man currently has.
They can theoretically grow anything, right? (Score:3)
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Not spontaneous at all (Score:1)
The summary characterizes the eye development as 'spontaneous', yet later on it says they "added retinol acetate to the culture medium as an aid to eye development."
Retinol acetate (Score:2)
Retinol acetate is just nutrition, vitamin A [wikipedia.org].
I have no mouth but I must scream (Score:2)
Or who knows, maybe since it's being fed all the free nutrients it wants it's in heaven right now enjoying the shit out of the good life?
New optics? (Score:2)
So...can we grow new eyes and harvest the nice brand new crystal clear lenses to transplant to correct cataracts?
Nice (Score:2)
Lots of people never had any brain in their life.
Not even in soup.
Okay, getting real close to the line now. (Score:2)