Scientists clone human embryos

[pchang]

Telomeres

The real problem with cloning from adult nuclei is that the telomere chains are already shortened. Thus, the resulting clone will start out "old" and will die of old age relatively quickly. Any humans cloned in this way will suffer from progeria like symptoms. Organs cloned this way will be new, but "old". However, this is not as much as a problem since they will be transplanted into a human of the same "age".

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Would you kill someone to help your mother, Laz?

Yes.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Answer my question. Why should we not remove your organs because by reductionist logic, all you are is a sack of cells? We can save many people's lives by doing so.

Yes, you are practicing reductionism. Completely pointless reductionism...we are who we are because of our neurological capacity. A clump of undifferentiated cells does not have that capacity, ergo, a human and a stem cell are completely different

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk


Would it be possible to, say, use a virus to temporarily reactivate the telomerase gene?

In theory, yes...just that you'd have to infect most cells in the body. And that causes a potential problem of rejection.

[Provost Harrison]

...however a constitutionally active telomerase gene in every cell would be very bad news - at the very least it would allow any tumour to proliferate with ease...the incidence of cancer would go through the roof.

[Starchild]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
imple. A foetus becomes human when it's born. Before, it's part of the woman's body.

Well, more to the point the fetus is a genetically distinct organism that survives by diverting resources away from the mother to fund its own growth, often putting the mother's health at risk. It's a parastic basically, just one genetically programmed to leave roughly after 9 months.

[alva]

It's a parastic basically, just one genetically programmed to leave roughly after 9 months.

Wow,Starchild, you sure are one hell of a romantic

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by Starchild
It's a parastic basically, just one genetically programmed to leave roughly after 9 months.

Shouldn't that be "roughly after 18 years"?

[Sava]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Would you kill someone to help your mother, Laz?

Fortunately, embryonic stem cells aren't human beings... nor could they exist naturally. So your dopey comparisons are extremely false.

[Urban Ranger]

Ben, are you going to continue the debate here, or are you going to start the same old thing elsewhere?

[Odin]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

Which has not been observed or verified, merely postulated.

BULL! Which cells become what body parts is not determined untill our Hox genes activate (right after mesoderm formation, I think).

[Sava]

Ben, are you going to continue the debate here, or are you going to start the same old thing elsewhere?

I know it is tiresome... he seems to have a lot of "compassion" for cells that are less complex than other forms of life that humans arbitrarily exterminate.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sava
I know it is tiresome... he seems to have a lot of "compassion" for cells that are less complex than other forms of life that humans arbitrarily exterminate.

I don't mind debating the issue, though I rather he limits the discussion in one thread. As of now, BK floods a lot of threads with the same thing.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Starchild
Well, more to the point the fetus is a genetically distinct organism that survives by diverting resources away from the mother to fund its own growth, often putting the mother's health at risk. It's a parastic basically, just one genetically programmed to leave roughly after 9 months.

[Provost Harrison]

The only difference here between symbiote and parasite is the will of the host; the mother. It is a symbiote if she is willing to take this short-lived risk to have a child - a parasite if it unwanted. Therefore it is dependent on the desire of the woman whether she wants to host it or not.