[HN Gopher] Frog skin cells turned themselves into living machines
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Frog skin cells turned themselves into living machines
Author : tartoran
Score : 44 points
Date : 2021-04-02 16:08 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencenews.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencenews.org)
| samus wrote:
| The article calls out the researchers that they were acting
| carelessly, for such experiments carry severe ethical questions.
| However, I am actually glad that the researchers carried out
| these experiments with frog cells instead of human cells.
| echelon wrote:
| We should be doing this with human cells. There's so much to
| learn and gain.
|
| I've made a post in this thread about the extent to which we
| should take this manner of research.
| [deleted]
| beefman wrote:
| Quanta article on this, also from March 31:
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/cells-form-into-xenobots-on-t...
| tmabraham wrote:
| For reference, here is the actual journal paper:
| https://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/6/52/eabf1571
|
| Also, I think this is the first paper on this topic:
| https://www.pnas.org/content/117/4/1853
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenobot
|
| The term comes from the genus of the frog:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_clawed_frog
|
| It joins the list of things that we argue about whether it is
| alive:
|
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-life-its-vast-diversi...
| echelon wrote:
| Biology is going to have its technological leap forward when we
| start to use cells and whole organisms as the _machines_ they
| are.
|
| Cells are no different than the stored programs concept that
| kicked off modern computing. They're machines that encode and run
| themselves. They manufacture useful resources: insulin,
| antibodies, heart tissue, etc. The same applies at the organismal
| level.
|
| Once we get into regenerative cloning, we'll have an unlimited
| supply of blood for transfusions, organs for those needing
| transplants, and a research test bed that is orders of magnitude
| better than the methods we use today.
|
| What I'm getting at is that we'll eventually create monoclonal
| brainless humans. Turn off brain development or surgically remove
| the brain during early development. Without a brain, these
| thoughtless bodies are not persons and are 100% ethical resources
| to use for the betterment of mankind. We'd be growing plant
| versions of higher level human tissues, and that unlocks so much
| new potential.
|
| You'd probably birth them in chimeric pig uteruses until
| something wholly artificial is developed. You keep alive
| artificially through mechanical innervation and "life support".
| This requires a lot of research and development, but we're not
| that far off.
|
| Different lines could be developed for studying certain cancers.
| When you can reproduce cancer and study it repeatedly at the
| organismal level, you can develop novel strategies for detection
| and clearance. We could make so much more progress.
|
| The "transplant" lines would lack HLA markers that cause tissue
| rejection, making their tissues safe for transplant into anyone.
| Nobody would need to take life-altering immunosuppressants ever
| again.
|
| We could probably start replacing thymuses and other tissues that
| deplete over time, potentially regenerating youth in humans and
| extending lifespan dramatically.
|
| Biology is an evolved machine. We should start treating it as
| such. Then we'll truly be advanced.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Is there a ghost in the machine without/with a brain? ;)
| flobosg wrote:
| > Biology is an evolved machine.
|
| "Evolved" meaning a tinkered, duct-taped, convoluted,
| purposeless, billion-year old Rube Goldberg abomination of a
| machine. Any analogy with a man-made device will, at best, be
| incomplete.
| klyrs wrote:
| > Without a brain, these thoughtless bodies are not persons and
| are 100% ethical resources to use for the betterment of mankind
|
| We haven't even reached consensus on aborting a fetus a day
| afer its heart tissue has differentiated...
| temp0826 wrote:
| >> Without a brain, these thoughtless bodies are not persons
| and are 100% ethical resources to use for the betterment of
| mankind.
|
| Is this not slightly dubious or debatable? One might consider
| their heart to be their center, or the seat of their soul. I do
| think there is a lot of opportunity along these lines. Our
| ethics haven't quite evolved enough for me to not wince at that
| paragraph though. Not saying we can't get there, of course
| edsemail123 wrote:
| echelon, it doesn't really sound like you understand the
| underlying mechanisms of how the human body works.
|
| Without a brain, running an entire body would Require a
| replacement to that brain, so what you are suggesting is
| unlikely to be very useful.
|
| Rather, we are already creating scaffolding for individual
| organs, and we already have technologies that continue to
| develop that allow us to test against actual human tissues,
| such that the end-game you point to of 'in situ' testing
| already is and will continue to be accomplished.
|
| Rather than wasting time and energy attempting to clone an
| entire human (with all the potential ethical and moral
| considerations), it is Far easier to simply clone organs, which
| then allows for direct build/replace scenarios on an 'as
| needed' basis, And with the full agreement of the
| source/destination.
|
| Further, as we learn more and more about all the detailed
| methods and ways that various subsystems, grow, develop,
| operate, and interact, we can simply create more and more
| detailed simulations of Any human (or any other creature for
| that matter) to distinguish proper vs improper function, and
| investigate and even optimize potential solutions Far more
| quickly and effectively than spending precious time and other
| resources.
|
| That is why computational capabilities are and will likely
| remain our focus moving forward, rather than the arguably
| cruder and generally Much slower approach which you outlined.
|
| For reference, given the incredibly complex and integrated
| nature of almost Any living creature, a body without a brain or
| even without a fully functioning And developed brain would
| (especially in creatures as complex as humans), in addition to
| the issues that I already outlined above (along with those
| raised by others), Also tend to respond Far differently to a
| fully functional human, thus being of rather limited utility,
| regardless.
| [deleted]
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| Friendly reminds that as cool as this sounds, we currently
| can't even: 1. Re-attach a nail to a nail bed. 2. Rebuild tooth
| enamel (mostly homogenous). 3. Grow a hair. 4. Repair cartilage
| (again, homogenous).
|
| This makes all these theories seems far-fetched.
| echelon wrote:
| We can clone a human, we just don't.
|
| We can keep babies born at 22 weeks alive with extensive
| prenatal care, and the technology continues to improve.
|
| We can keep braindead people on life support.
|
| It'll be easier to clone a whole human and remove the brain
| early in development (or genetically stop it from developing)
| than it would be to clone any organ or tissue in isolation
| without all the developmental biology, tissue scaffolding,
| etc.
|
| Since the goal is no longer doing "prenatal care that results
| in quality of life", you can just iterate over and over until
| you improve survival duration.
|
| You can grow the fetuses in pigs to iterate quickly and
| cheaply and probably run batch sizes in the thousands.
|
| This is less ex nihilo than you think, and more like
| horticulture.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Seems likely the same knowledge would unlock cheaper
| alternatives to full body clones (organs and treatments and so
| on).
| samus wrote:
| Breeding brainless humans still raises as much ethical
| questions as abortion and cloning does. Eliminating the
| potential for brain development deprives my clone of a
| possibility of independent existence just as much as abortion
| does. Also, it's debatable whether it is ethical to decide
| differently between the fate of my clone and of my conventional
| offspring. My clone carries my DNA, but I'd argue it would grow
| up to become a rather different person than me.
|
| Even in a jurisdiction where abortion is legal, these above
| considerations cannot be considered to be clarified. Abortion
| represents a certain stance about the tradeoff between the
| rights of mothers regarding their bodies and of the fetus's
| right to live. The former completely disappears if the
| brainless clone is grown in a vat. It is replaced by the
| original's desire for health and a long life.
| echelon wrote:
| > Eliminating the potential for brain development deprives my
| clone of a possibility of independent existence just as much
| as abortion does.
|
| This is a silly argument. Not reproducing during every
| ovulation and spermatogenesis cycle does the same.
|
| Likewise in your argument, cutting someone that is braindead
| from life support could be depriving them.
|
| Persons come about through learning and experience. Cells
| alone aren't persons.
| samus wrote:
| > This is a silly argument. Not reproducing during every
| ovulation and spermatogenesis cycle does the same.
|
| This is actually, sort of, the point of view of many
| Christian organizations: sexuality is to be used for
| procreation only.
|
| > Likewise in your argument, cutting someone that is
| braindead from life support could be depriving them.
|
| The question is always about in which situations it is
| ethical to decide about the existence of another person.
| I'm quite optimistic humans won't ever achieve a consensus
| about this. Which is good - it means that we stay aware of
| those questions.
|
| Sorry about high-roading here - my point was that also in
| this case the ethic questions are not trivial because
| facilitating brainlessness is an active act during a
| similar phase of a human's existence as abortion. Because
| of this, I'm positive that jurisdictions allowing abortion
| will eventually allow growing brainless humans.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Honestly curious, can you name any one of the 80,000
| Protestant denominations that believe sex is only for
| procreation?
|
| Am more familiar with the Catholic view:
| https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-
| family/...
| pegasus wrote:
| You're probably aware that there's a sizable section of the
| population that would emphatically disagree with such ideas and
| would feel that if we'd be implementing what you're proposing
| we'd truly had horribly regressed in our understanding of what
| humanity is about, only to nudge us ever more closely to a
| Great Filter type event.
|
| The idea that we're just machines, if plumbed to its depths,
| can only lead one to self-destruction. Sure, most people never
| go that far in contemplating the consequences of such a view,
| instinctively knowing the danger that lurks there, but it still
| poisons their lives to some degree.
|
| But we don't actually know that all we are is machines. There
| definitely is a mechanical aspect to us and to the world, which
| science is tasked with discovering and describing, but what we
| know is very little and so many of the answers we find only
| raise a multitude of new questions. Also worth checking out is
| Stephen Hawking's stance on the impossibility of finding a TOE
| on the wikipedia page:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything
| albybisy wrote:
| biotech is the missing piece that humans need to develop "life
| forms" to explore and colonize the universe.
| adwi wrote:
| Now _that's_ how you write a headline
| flobosg wrote:
| Speaking of Michael Levin, I find this lecture of his
| fascinating:
|
| What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Outside the
| Nervous System - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjD1aLm4Thg
| ve55 wrote:
| For those that enjoyed this (and it is quite amazing), here is
| a similar keynote lecture from the same person, but a bit more
| recent and with a few other very interesting notes:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L43-XE1uwWc
| inventtheday wrote:
| yeah this was one of the most mind-blowing things i ever
| watched when it first came out
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