Synthetic Human Embryos Created In Groundbreaking Device (theguardian.com) 104
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientists have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells, in a groundbreaking advance that sidesteps the need for eggs or sperm. Scientists say these model embryos, which resemble those in the earliest stages of human development, could provide a crucial window on the impact of genetic disorders and the biological causes of recurrent miscarriage. However, the work also raises serious ethical and legal issues as the lab-grown entities fall outside current legislation in the UK and most other countries. The structures do not have a beating heart or the beginnings of a brain, but include cells that would typically go on to form the placenta, yolk sac and the embryo itself.
There is no near-term prospect of the synthetic embryos being used clinically. It would be illegal to implant them into a patient's womb, and it is not yet clear whether these structures have the potential to continue maturing beyond the earliest stages of development. The motivation for the work is for scientists to understand the "black box" period of development that is so called because scientists are only allowed to cultivate embryos in the lab up to a legal limit of 14 days. They then pick up the course of development much further along by looking at pregnancy scans and embryos donated for research. The full details of the latest work, from the Cambridge-Caltech lab, are yet to be published in a journal paper. But, speaking at the conference, Zernicka-Goetz described cultivating the embryos to a stage just beyond the equivalent of 14 days of development for a natural embryo.
The model structures, each grown from a single embryonic stem cell, reached the beginning of a developmental milestone known as gastrulation, when the embryo transforms from being a continuous sheet of cells to forming distinct cell lines and setting up the basic axes of the body. At this stage, the embryo does not yet have a beating heart, gut or beginnings of a brain, but the model showed the presence of primordial cells that are the precursor cells of egg and sperm. "Our human model is the first three-lineage human embryo model that specifies amnion and germ cells, precursor cells of egg and sperm," Zernicka-Goetz told the Guardian before the talk. "It's beautiful and created entirely from embryonic stem cells."
There is no near-term prospect of the synthetic embryos being used clinically. It would be illegal to implant them into a patient's womb, and it is not yet clear whether these structures have the potential to continue maturing beyond the earliest stages of development. The motivation for the work is for scientists to understand the "black box" period of development that is so called because scientists are only allowed to cultivate embryos in the lab up to a legal limit of 14 days. They then pick up the course of development much further along by looking at pregnancy scans and embryos donated for research. The full details of the latest work, from the Cambridge-Caltech lab, are yet to be published in a journal paper. But, speaking at the conference, Zernicka-Goetz described cultivating the embryos to a stage just beyond the equivalent of 14 days of development for a natural embryo.
The model structures, each grown from a single embryonic stem cell, reached the beginning of a developmental milestone known as gastrulation, when the embryo transforms from being a continuous sheet of cells to forming distinct cell lines and setting up the basic axes of the body. At this stage, the embryo does not yet have a beating heart, gut or beginnings of a brain, but the model showed the presence of primordial cells that are the precursor cells of egg and sperm. "Our human model is the first three-lineage human embryo model that specifies amnion and germ cells, precursor cells of egg and sperm," Zernicka-Goetz told the Guardian before the talk. "It's beautiful and created entirely from embryonic stem cells."
Re:Do they have souls? (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's why they had to be careful not to do the research somewhere like Alabama, where disposing of the synthetic embryos could see you face Class A felony charges.
And if the law doesn't already do this, I'm sure it'll be changed quick smart to cover it. Because all life is sacred, unless gun violence is involved in which case guns are more sacred.
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Good point, I remember when Mom's demanded action to remove swimming pools, b/c of all those drowning kids, oh wait, that didn't happen. But you keep worrying about all those guns, b/c America is so dangerous(well only if you live in the urban centers and some specifically bad neighborhoods in said centers, but that doesn't
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Wow, weakest pro-gun stance I've ever seen. Let me know next time someone brings a pool to a school and uses it to murder 20 kids in 10 minutes.
Re: Do they have souls? (Score:1)
Bad logic. Whether or not an abortion is murder hinges on if the baby is a person yet and is subject to problems that threaten life of mother or child (eg preeclampsia, ectopic, etc). Pro abortion says "is not a person". Anti abortion says "is a person". It has no bearing on the death penalty. Death penalty is ok because a person willfully committed a capital crime. A person cannot be accused of a crime unless said person has understanding and personal responsibility.
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That could either go the "the book says nothing about this but i will say no", or the "let's spend hours imagining this advanced set of rules that would work with what we know of reality and come with some pretty horrible hypothesis such as that some machines may have souls as well"
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the book says nothing about this but i will say no
No they'll probably use some obscure psalm or something against it. Much like Nostradamus's quatrains, you can use the bible to predict anything, and psalms are ripe for it for basically the same reason. Besides, they've already let one of these brainless embryos carry to term. He posts to slashdot all the time:
https://slashdot.org/~The+Evil... [slashdot.org]
You just asked the fundamental ... (Score:1)
... question of the Age of an all-out fundamentally trans-humanist Cyberpunk society. I would answer that question like this:
It it has a mind it is capable of reflection.
If it is capable of reflection, it is capable of language and speech.
If it can speak, it has a will.
If it has a will, it has emotions.
If it has emotions, it has a character.
If it has a character, it has a soul.
Ergo:
Synthetic humans are humans.
End of discussion.
Define better (Score:2)
You would need to put a bit more effort defining what you mean by "speak".
Even the predictive text autocomplete on your phone is able to put a coherent string of words. Not to speak about chatGPT which boils down to the same, but turned up to 11 and needing a whole datacenter full of GPUs to do slightly better strings of words.
But neither of them has anything remotely close to a "will".
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BingAI definitely has a soul.
Cursed (Score:2)
BingAI definitely has a soul.
We do not speak about cursed souls on this forum. :-D
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"Soul" was an invention of the Greeks before Christianity picked up on it, remade in their own image, and declared it was given by G-d. Why Kali would do such a thing, no one has ever asked her. Well, she wears a necklace of skulls so no one has yet dared.
Re: You just asked the fundamental ... (Score:1)
It's much older. It's documented at least as far back as Sumeria and can be easily implied by archaeologists for prehistoric peoples.
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... question of the Age of an all-out fundamentally trans-humanist Cyberpunk society. I would answer that question like this:
It it has a mind it is capable of reflection.
If it is capable of reflection, it is capable of language and speech.
If it can speak, it has a will.
If it has a will, it has emotions.
If it has emotions, it has a character.
If it has a character, it has a soul.
Ergo:
Synthetic humans are humans. End of discussion.
I'd argue the opposite.
Souls are just made up.
Neither have a soul.
Therefore it's irrelevant.
Synthetic humans are humans.
End of discussion.
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Re: You just asked the fundamental ... (Score:1)
"If A then B" does not mean "if -A then -B".
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If it can speak, it has a will.
So mimes are out then.
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The religious nutjobs will simply claim that G-d pokes a soul into any of these sprogs when they first created, and then argue they cannot be destroyed. Once they achieve full-sproghood, they'll declare them free to fend for themselves and, please don't be asking us for our money.
Re: Do they have souls? (Score:2)
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Simple. There's a little sound you can barely hear in the room. It's like a very faint dog fart noise.
Seriously.
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The religious nutjobs will simply claim that G-d pokes a soul into any of these sprogs when they first created, and then argue they cannot be destroyed. Once they achieve full-sproghood, they'll declare them free to fend for themselves and, please don't be asking us for our money.
I wonder if these same nutjobs refuse to use medicines created through the use of fetal stem cells [arstechnica.com]. Wouldn't want them to be hypocrites and go against their "beliefs".
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I wonder if these same nutjobs refuse to use medicines created through the use of fetal stem cells
Perhaps you aren't aware that they refuse vaccines created using aborted fetal tissue. Much the same way that you (probably) would refuse a vaccine created from murdered adult tissue. They don't see a value difference between a fetus and a human that has been granted personhood.
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I wonder if these same nutjobs refuse to use medicines created through the use of fetal stem cells
Perhaps you aren't aware that they refuse vaccines created using aborted fetal tissue. Much the same way that you (probably) would refuse a vaccine created from murdered adult tissue. They don't see a value difference between a fetus and a human that has been granted personhood.
Then should also not use any medicine created through the use of fetal stem cells. Singling out just vaccines is hypocritical considering the number of medicines in general derived from fetal cells.
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i don't know about soul but this AI i can stand behind.
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Sure, they have souls. Buddhists believe that even grasshoppers have souls. Why not? Some religions believe that trees have souls. Or even rocks.
synthetic intelligence (Score:4, Interesting)
The real life Matrix will be way more creepy than the concepts in the movie.
God wants us to do it (Score:3, Interesting)
If God didn't want us to do it, he would have made it impossible by laws of physics/chemistry. I mean, God doesn't want us traveling faster than the speed of light, so he blocked it. God doesn't want us making free energy devices, so he blocked it. If God didn't want us to make synthetic embryos he would have made it impossible. Also, nothing in any religious text prohibits this. Surely God would have known humans would advance to this point. Her could have easily put something in the Bible prohibiting it.
Re: God wants us to do it (Score:1)
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Oh yeah? Why can't I make a free energy device or a perpetual motion machine?
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You won't with that attitude! If it's not working you just need to believe harder.
Re: God wants us to do it (Score:1)
Because they're self-contradictory.
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Eh, God screwed up pretty badly when he created a universe with so much suffering, and a human body so prone to developing faults. He doesn't even provide a warranty, that's how little faith he has in his creations.
One of his sales staff tried to claim that all the suffering and defects are actually features, but I'm not buying that. "The next version will be great, just wait until die and respawn" isn't much of a sales pitch if you ask me.
Re: God wants us to do it (Score:2)
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Politicians will block this (Score:1)
This could allow gay couples to have biological kids, there is no way conservatives would allow that. They believe that only man+women can have a kid, and if science+nature allows it they'll block it rather than be proven wrong.
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I can't tell if this is satire or serious. Please tell me this is satire. Nobody is this dumb.
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Nobody is this dumb.
[citation needed]
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Someone has not read " The Brave New World" I see....
In the past the major discussion on /. was if we live in "The Brave New World" or "1984" and if both apply, what is the ratio.
How have the mighty fallen.
Re: Politicians will block this (Score:2)
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Were in for trouble now! (Score:1)
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What synthetic human embryos are for (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to grow babies. We literally have sperm and egg method we can do pretty well in a lab setting. There is no need to reinvent the wheel on this. Synthetic embryos are targeted to grow particular lines of cells and because of the manipulation done with them, it is not likely that synthetic embryos would ever develop past the earliest stages of development. Does that mean it is impossible? Well there's not a good simple answer for that outside of "no one really knows, but it is probably really complex, no one has really studied those complexities, and thus not really possible at this point. But no one knows any of that for 100% sure at this point in time."
At the moment there are a ton of bans that prevent researchers from ever wading too deep into the waters to really know. Like, human synthetic embryos can only be cultivated for 14 days, after which they must be destroyed. Human synthetic embryos cannot be used to grow implantable tissue so there's not even an attempt in any of the current methods to make these remotely viable that they can continue in utero. Case in point, for monkeys, it was actually tried [wired.com]. It did indeed trigger some of the same responses as in pregnancy but the animal's body began resorption. That indicates that there are other things at play that indicate to the uterus the authenticity of the ovum. So, can we figure out what those complexities are? Sure. Are we going to? Highly unlikely in the amount of time that most people on this site have left on this planet. But who knows? Tomorrow something might happen and suddenly we're having to clone for our survival ala "Up the Long Ladder" TNG episode. Anything is possible.
The main point of synthetic embryos are for target cell lines to test all kinds of medicine in and would provide way better alternatives to animal models. So artificial embryos offer ways for labs to test all kinds of things on legit human cells and the means of production allow particular lines to be developed for all kinds of purposes. We could take actual fetal cells or egg+sperm it ourselves to get those cells, but there's various laws that ban all of that. So these kinds of embryos allow the development of say a five week old human cell line within the 14-day limitation. The versatility of "programming" stem cells allows particular targets that one just couldn't get in a lab in the current legal limitations. If one, sperm+eggs their way, they have to sit on it for five weeks to get a five week old line. To use an oversimplified analogy, with the old fashion way, we just have to start at the beginning and run the program all the way to the target point. With stem cells researchers can "jump" straight to the point they're interested in and build from there, no in between needed so long as the researchers take care of some of the prep work that would have already happened.
And note, that "jumping around" is me highly simplifying the process for stem cells. Researchers have just started on this kind of stuff. We are nowhere near a point where we can jump straight to growing a full liver or heart out of stem cells, that's really far off and likely 3D printing organs will fair a lot better anyway. So do note, jumping to five week old cells, hard but not impossible for specific kinds of cells. Jumping straight to a 23-year old's lungs, yeah not even in the correct stellar system yet, much less ballpark.
But hell as some have pointed out. I'm sure someone in some Legislative chamber is getting ready to ban all of this entirely, "just because". So I wouldn't bank on this ever replacing animal models any time soon.
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Or anybody could possibly even think of breaking these current laws.
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It could help people who normally can't have kids. For example: gay couples, older women, anyone with a problem producing normal sperm or eggs, people who have a risk of passing a genetic disease to their offspring (the DNA of the bad gene can be edited/fixed prior to induced totipotency or embryo formation).
Re: What synthetic human embryos are for (Score:2)
This far in... (Score:2)
... and no mention yet of Axolotl Tanks?
Bible doesn't outlaw two men from having a kid (Score:1)
If God didn't want men to have kids he would have said it is an abomination for two men to have kids. As I understand it, he only didn't like two men "laying with each other as with a woman" but not two men having kids. Nowhere is anything like cloning or generating egg cells from male skin cells banned or even frowned upon. the Bible which is the definitive legislative text of God doesn't say anywhere not to do it. There's no religious basis for outlawing this.
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That lying together bit is a bit odd. The Bible also tells men to not have pointed beards, and that no one should weave cloth of two different kinds of fibers. The "conservatives" simply troll through the Bible and pull out what suits their agenda and ignore everything else; they cherry pick.
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"laying with each other as with a woman"
So basically if I have sex with another man I shouldn't play with his breasts or enter his vagina. Got it!
Tleilaxu? (Score:1)
Perfect for the WEF (Score:2)
No, it does not! (Score:2)
"However, the work also raises serious ethical and legal issues as the lab-grown entities fall outside current legislation in the UK and most other countries."
Since there's no law, there are no legal issues, until the religious nutjobs make some.
Re: No, it does not! (Score:1)
No. It follows from the fact that at least in the US it is unacceptable to experiment on people without their consent (eg Tuskegee and syphilis, mkultra, etc). If an embryo is a person, then there is a problem because an embryo cannot express consent. If not, no problem.
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This is not an embryo, that's kinda the point of the article.
The Next Political Football (Score:2)
Pro-Clone v. Anti-Clone-Choice
Nani? (Score:1)
AI soon to get a dirtly little secret? (Score:2)
Embryonic Stem cell (Score:3)
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It's hard to make induced totipotent cells in humans. It can be done in mice, because more scientists work on mice and funding is more available. Few scientists research it in human because the moment you start talking about embryo and totipotency that triggers all kinds of oversight, funding requirements, and other BS.
sounds like the Bene Tleilax (Score:2)
have invented axolotl tanks for us
Novel problems, novel solutions (Score:2)
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China (Score:2)
Does China have the same legal limit?
How many chromosomes do they have? (Score:1)
What, it's a *device* ? (Score:1)
Not a tool or a tecnique, but some automated device where you put stem cells in one end, and embryos come out the other?
Gotta get me one of those for the gf - oh, wait...
Frankenegg (Score:1)
Remember Dolly? It was also cloned from a stem cell and had a short life of debilitating genetic defects. Not to mention that 277 of her siblings died before adulthood.
Cloning human embryos from stem cells is highly unethical and must be stopped.
Seriously - THINK about this... (Score:1)
Now imagine the human race as the monkey, and all of this unregulated technology (AI, AH (Artificial Humans)...) as the gun.
Raises lots of questions, wouldn't you say?!
Ever hear of the book "Future shock"?
How about we allow ourselves time to catch up?!