[HN Gopher] New Bone Cell Type Identified
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New Bone Cell Type Identified
Author : thomas
Score : 149 points
Date : 2021-02-28 00:37 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.genengnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.genengnews.com)
| 14 wrote:
| The only thing I got from this article is now the cookies banner
| with slide from the right side of the screen and completely block
| the text on one side making it impossible to read through while
| ignoring cookie banner. So I just left the site
| timeimp wrote:
| Ah man, they're gonna need to introduce new characters on Cells
| At Work! every one-to-two years at this rate.
|
| Nice.
| farseer wrote:
| An entire new organ was discovered last year:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubarial_salivary_gland
| gsich wrote:
| There is discussion if this should be called an organ.
| astrange wrote:
| > This, together with the evidence of the new re-fusion processes
| observed by intravital imaging, convinced us that we had
| discovered a new cell type, which we called osteomorphs, after
| the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
|
| This goes with the gene named after Sonic the Hedgehog I guess.
| Supposedly this kind of name makes it difficult for doctors when
| they have to tell people they have cancer caused by a sonic
| hedgehog mutation.
| rrmm wrote:
| Yeah, I suspect doctors would usually just call it by the
| abbreviation, SHH or what not and leave it at that. Osteomorphs
| doesn't sound that bad as long as the doctor doesn't add the
| origin. Sounds like a standard Greek medical neologism.
|
| Patients I guess get to find out when they start researching
| whatever condition on the web. Latin/Greek derived names do
| sound more important though.
| taneq wrote:
| A sonic hedgehog mutation doesn't cause cancer, it causes
| central midline defects (which in fruit flies turns the fruit
| fly larvae into spiky balls, hence the name.)
| agumonkey wrote:
| Now i'm just waiting for the dragon ball oriented scientist to
| finish their discovery about grant-wishing-cell-resuscitation
| ..
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Wait, that gene was literally named after Sonic the Hedgehog?
| Always thought it was some kind of happy coincidence. Not very
| scientific but extremely cool.
| FriendlyNormie wrote:
| Smelly nerd scientists really shouldn't try to be funny ever.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| It's such a tease seeing headlines like these as someone with a
| bone disease. I've started following grants for research on my
| illness 15 years ago, and every few years they reapply having
| discovered a tiny part of the process necessary to understand the
| disease and develop a therapy. As a scientist I know things take
| time and hard, dedicated, work but as a patient it's soul-
| draining to see your life pass you by while waiting for these
| discoveries to materialize into cures or drugs.
| loceng wrote:
| I would recommend keeping an eye on Emcell - they have been
| doing research using donated fetal tissue (there are an
| estimated 50mm+ abortions per year) for 30 years, and they've
| recently been able to ramp up their research efforts due to
| demand and exposure increasing for their existing treatments.
|
| Free documentary on the clinic:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYRcmDySFyE
| conductr wrote:
| This blows my mind that we have something like CRISPR while
| undiscovered cells are still a thing. Kudos to all involved in
| the find.
| witherk wrote:
| Hmmm I wonder how many more types of cells like this there are.
| Is there any reason to think that body wouldn't use a very
| small amount each of an enormous amount of specialist cells.
| T-A wrote:
| The human genome encodes about 1.5 GB of information. How
| many specialist cells can you fit in that space?
|
| https://bitesizebio.com/8378/how-much-information-is-
| stored-...
| odyssey7 wrote:
| A lot of people accept the practice of medicine in just the way
| that they experience it, rather than as it could be.
|
| It's just accepted that there are limits to what medicine can
| do, and often times those limitations are devastating. This
| outlook makes sense for most people, because what else would
| they do?
|
| However, for every high-profile disease process that doesn't
| have a known and rigorously understood cause, medicine as a
| field of study has a major gap in it.
|
| These aren't just gaps. These are major gaps. They're high-
| profile. They cause endless suffering for families across the
| world, they kill people, they make beloved grandparents forget
| everything about themselves and their families as they slowly
| die.
|
| If we haven't been able to pinpoint the root causes of these
| things that are getting huge amounts of attention, imagine what
| else we're missing.
| loceng wrote:
| And then there's the problem of indoctrination of knowledge,
| different paths of indoctrination with more or less
| regulatory and narrative capture, direction guiding on what
| gets researched and what gets suppressed by the different
| industrial complexes - stagnancy and bureaucracies.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| And at the same time doctors have accepted a code of ethics
| and have used thier better knowledge to help the people they
| serve
|
| At some point science and the doctoral profession separates,
| you're unlikely to find a newton again.
|
| Our society exists on specialization and doctors serve
| patients and learn from scientists
|
| It's the same reasons random doctors don't inject unheard of
| drugs into patients, there's a process and with any process
| there are side effects.
| xvector wrote:
| And the fundamental truth that we are too scared to accept:
| death is just another disease. Death is just another way to
| say we did not have the technology or ability to save a life.
| That the limits of modern medicine were, unfortunately,
| reached.
|
| We accept death as a "reality" today, because we have no
| choice. But tomorrow, humans will look back on our age with
| horror - that self-aware beings were doomed to an eternal
| abyss, barely having a chance to live to begin with!
|
| In the far future, I imagine that the unintentional loss of
| even a single self-aware sentience would be both newsworthy
| and devastating. I envy the children of tomorrow that will
| have a choice in the matter of their mortality, much as I
| would envy the luxuries of people of today were I to be born
| centuries ago.
|
| I envy their consciousnesses, distributed amongst computers
| scattered throughout space, operating on timescales that make
| our own lives look like a blink of an eye, able to live out
| whatever reality they desire for however long they wish to
| live, barring the heat death itself.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Death is not a disease. It is part of life. What people
| should be scared of is not dying, which is just an
| inevitability - it is the failure to live while they are
| alive here on the most beautiful planet in the universe.
|
| The future you envy of "consciousness distributed amongst
| computers scattered throughout space" is not living in the
| way that we have available to us now here on earth.
|
| Look up at the sky. Feel the sun's rays. Visit a mountain
| and notice the wildlife in the treetops. Just watch those
| wildlife for a while, until their thoughts become yours.
|
| Talk to somebody you've never met before. Just smile and
| say, how about this weather! What they say will be worth
| more to you than any number of MIPS from a grid in space.
| xvector wrote:
| > Death is not a disease. It is part of life.
|
| Death as we know it is only a part of life because we
| have no other choice.
|
| I guarantee you that if tomorrow people could press a
| button and stave off death and aging for decades at a
| time, we would suddenly end the narrative that "death is
| part of life."
|
| If tomorrow doctors could rejuvenate someone on their
| deathbed to relative youth with the press of a button, it
| would be done in the vast majority of cases.
|
| We are forced to accept death as "part of life" because
| of our current technological reality, just as we were
| forced to accept many diseases and a shorter lifespan in
| the past.
|
| But I think it's clear as day, that if people had control
| over their mortality and youth, we would not look at
| death as an inevitability, a "part of life", but rather a
| choice, perhaps even a failure on our part.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| I don't think being 20 forever would be half as
| interesting as what happens now. Let's talk about it in
| 30 years and see what you think.
|
| Just from a practical point of view, have you considered
| what your miracle elixir is going to do to housing prices
| and the environment?
| wongarsu wrote:
| Just because everyone wants immortality for themselves
| doesn't mean that it's a good thing for humanity.
| Political and social change is almost entirely achieved
| by old people retiring and eventually dying, and younger
| people with different worldviews taking over for them.
| Removing this process dooms a society to stagnation.
|
| Similarly our problems with wealth inequality will get
| much worse if rich people never die and just keep
| accumulating wealth forever.
|
| And what about population? We can't just keep adding
| children to a planet if people don't die in meaningful
| numbers. There are only so many resources to go around.
| coldtea wrote:
| What blows my mind is that we have something like CRISPR and
| people using it with certainty and cavelier "throw caution to
| the wind" attitude, while undiscovered cells are still a thing.
| srswtf123 wrote:
| I feel similarly about SSRI/MAOI drugs. Doctors prescribe
| these as if humans understood brain chemistry. I'm sure we
| understand some things, but we have such an incomplete
| picture.
|
| It wasn't too long ago doctors thought the shape of your head
| could predict a propensity for criminality!
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Doctors prescribe these drugs because their benefits are
| proven by research. Depression in particular has a massive
| impact on society and it is understood that the benefits of
| the treatments outweigh the risks.
|
| Don't think I've ever seen anyone prescribing MAOIs. There
| are better options with less side effects.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| This, one hundred times.
|
| Anyone who's maintained even a five-year-old deliberately and
| well-designed software system knows how unpredictable it can
| be to mess with random components.
|
| Here, we're talking about a system with 3.5 billion years of
| stochastic randomness.
| enchiridion wrote:
| I was just thinking about this. They just found a new salivary
| gland a few months ago. And that was in a relatively accessible
| location... would not be surprised if there are similar things
| waiting to be discovered in the brain.
| sexy_seedbox wrote:
| > _would not be surprised if there are similar things waiting
| to be discovered in the brain_
|
| That's why I'm excited for Elon's Neuralink, there are going
| to be so many new discoveries.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| That's definitely the wrong place for excitement: it's a
| vanity project for someone who imagines that money can burn
| past necessary research.
|
| Look at real biological research programs if you want to be
| excited. Even in computery tech, the recent advance in AI
| protein folding solvers is much more exciting than anything
| likely to come out of Neuralink.
| FriendlyNormie wrote:
| You're a certified dicksucker.
| segmondy wrote:
| It's hard to know what you don't know.
| [deleted]
| kens wrote:
| The thing about biology is that even the "known unknowns"
| form a huge list. There are over 200 different known types of
| cells, but there are probably lots more waiting to be
| discovered. Lots of genes in the body have unknown or hand-
| waving functions. If you look at a cell biology book, there
| are lots of questions marks in the diagrams.
|
| It seems to me that scientists should be putting a lot more
| effort into answering these questions. I consider these
| questions much more important than the questions that
| particle physics is expensively investigating for instance.
| It's as if an advanced alien nanotechnology machine appeared
| and people didn't put all their effort into understanding it.
| parineum wrote:
| Physics has given us the tools to understand our bodies.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| We are still in the stone age with regards medicine, biology,
| and microbiology. The tools we have might seem incredible to
| some, but they're extremely crude by future standards. Sure you
| could say this about any industry but it's especially true
| about medicine.
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