SCIENTISTS GROW IN-LAB FIVE-WEEK-OLD FETUS BRAIN

[DinoDoc]

Horrific. A living, human brain floating in a jar, with no possible means of seeing, hearing, or other input.

And no way to scream.

Harlan Ellison approves of this post.

[Aeson]

I don't think we should be growing fetus brains in a lab. Any other organ is fine and we should be doing more research there. The brain is apparently rather important for human sentience, but we have essentially no idea how it actually works or when it starts. Only that as the brain develops it becomes more and more likely to have started.

In an abortion there is one known sentient being, and one potentially (and possibly) sentient being involved. We weight the known over the unknown up to a point where that unknown becomes tenuous. This is how a compromise is struck between "kill your baby anytime you want" and "right to life from conception". It is a necessarily arbitrary line giving our understanding ...

In the case of a brain in a jar, there is no mother's interest involved. There's no good reason for even risking that our arbitrary line is set in the wrong place.

[Elok]

This is grotesque and weird, but as a pro-lifer I'm more concerned about actual fetuses killed than ghoulish parts-of-people manufactured. It seems unlikely to me that this disembodied brain would have a proper consciousness at that stage or any other; it has no body to give it the requisite inputs. Possibly some sight from the vestigial eye, but without touch, hearing or any real experiences it simply won't have anything to work with. I imagine there's just this endless mass of incoherent mental static. I don't think it's right, but I don't think it's torture either. But just to be safe, let's not make whole brains, 'kay?

[The Unknown Poster]

The creation of consciousness is inevitable.

[Proteus_MST]

I have to agree with Elok ...
the thing they created is just an assortment of interconnected neurons together with a rudimentary blood suppl,y to give it some depth.

A human brain is much more complex from the beginning on ...
with neurons growing along predetermined pathways in order to form, from the beginning on, centres and complex structures within these ... and their interconnections.
IMHO it is secure to say that the thing that they created is lkess conscious than any animal

[ricketyclik]

if I could make a clone of myself to harvest organs to extend my life by a thousand years, WE SHOULD ABSO****INGLUTELY DO THAT

If everyone did that the place might get a bit crowded.

[Egbert]

Drats! Forgot to put Civil in my title! Aargh! I get it you 2 think I am MWHC. I am not. Please go troll in his threads and let me be! I would really rather enjoy a real debate on the subject of my thread.

Sava spams and trolls EVERYTHING.

giblets is an agreeable chap though, almost all of the time IMHO.

[Egbert]

I don't think we should be growing fetus brains in a lab. Any other organ is fine

I do not like the idea of growing a brain in a jar. Not at all.

I regard a fully functioning human brain as a human as it would presumably have sentience and self awareness.

Any other organ grown in a jar would not have that sentience and may be regarded as just a body part, useful for prolonging the lives of humans with sentient brains.

I suggest certain areas of science may need to operate within the parameters of ethics. The mere fact that we can do something does not mean that we should do it.

[PLATO]

Hmmm....reminds me of the Dune prequels. Bet the Pentagon will be all over this one too.

The Titans soon make the transition into cyborgs called cymeks; through the use of specialized interfaces, their brains are installed inside giant, mobile, mechanized "bodies." These fearsome, weaponized bodies make the Titans virtually immortal — and invincible

from Wiki

[My Hubby Loves Civ]

It would be really awesome if the media would stop creating controversy and unnecessary drama where they should report all of the facts. Admittedly, I am ashamed that I jumped in without digging deeper first, myself.


What is actually happening here:

It has the maturity of a 5-week-old fetal brain, and contains 99 percent of the genes in a fully developed human fetal brain.


“If we let it go to 16 or 20 weeks, that might complete it, filling in that 1 percent of missing genes," Anand said. "We don’t know yet.”

Alzheimer's and other neuro research: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b07addcb447156

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists at The Ohio State University have developed a nearly complete human brain in a dish that equals the brain maturity of a 5-week-old fetus.


The brain organoid, engineered from adult human skin cells, is the most complete human brain model yet developed, said Rene Anand, professor of biological chemistry and pharmacology at Ohio State.


The lab-grown brain, about the size of a pencil eraser, has an identifiable structure and contains 99 percent of the genes present in the human fetal brain. Such a system will enable ethical and more rapid and accurate testing of experimental drugs before the clinical trial stage and advance studies of genetic and environmental causes of central nervous system disorders.

Straight from the horse's mouth: https://news.osu.edu/news/2015/08/18/human-brain-model/


Reading deeper into these links makes me feel like they made a fleshy hard drive and after a few more moments of thinking over it, I guess its not as bad if the brain is not capable of "booting up" so to speak. If it is just a blank brain not capable of much more than giving us test results its not any different than growing an ear, nose, or hand which I do agree with.

[My Wife Hates CIV]

yikes. 20 weeks...

[Elok]

Thank you, spambot, for offering (in Vietnamese) to fix our elevators. I have no idea how your business model works, but more power to you.

[Proteus_MST]

At least he is a nice spambot who tells us that we are very helpful.
Although I don´t know how a thread about artificially grown brains can help a company that installs elevators.

But who knows, maybe they need artificially grown brains for installations into their first version of Happy Vertical People Transporters

[Elok]

I asked my FIL, who's pretty close to fluent in VN, and he says the spambot's post was really gibberish; words were missing critical accent marks, duplicated, or devoid of proper context. Because of the way the language works, it's very hard for Google Translate to translate anything effectively. The elevator thing was just its best shot.

So, yeah. It was saying "here is a post for Search Engine optimization, and a random snippet of Vietnamese so Google will know which market to prioritize it for."

[My Wife Hates CIV]

now what if... just what if, stay with me, drinking here...

they learned how to grow a brain 20 weeks or whatever... and interface it with hardware... other man made devices. someone else here said a brain like this might just be white noise - so feed it with outside world info but controlled, whatever that might be. and let it do it's thing.

you might have a computer with a imagination. I mean... just think about what we have today and people just 100 years ago. a lot can change, very fast. that would be strange!