Just imagine walking into McDonalds a few decades from now and ordering a Big Mac for your junk food hunger and a Big Shot for whatever ails you. Both from the same cow.
Cow-human cross embryo lives three days
HUMAN-cow embryos have been created in a world first at Newcastle University in England, hailed by the scientific community, but labelled “monstrous” by opponents.
A team has grown hybrid embryos after injecting human DNA into eggs taken from cows’ ovaries, which had most of their genetic material removed.
The embryos survived for three days and are intended to provide a limitless supply of stem cells to develop therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and spinal cord injuries, overcoming a worldwide shortfall in human embryos.
Couldn’t they use sheep for irony….
In the future, you could say “My mother-in-law’s a cow” and really mean it! (Drum roll…)
To tell you the truth, I never could understand the hubbub over stem cell research. I understand the moral argument except that the US aborts well north of 1,000,000 fetuses a year. It’s ok to kill the fetus, but not use it’s cells to heal the sick?! I’m an organ donor (not that anyone would want them), and I would be honored if someone could get some good use from my leftovers once I’m done using them.
Sounds like Ancestor is starting. http://www.scottsigler.com/ancestor
#3 – If I cant get my replacement organs from destitute asians, then science had better come up w/ a solution.
Woot Cows FTW
Love how they throw in Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and spinal cord injuries to water down opposition to such things.
Is that Michael Jackson in the picture?
I bet no cannibals complained
To tell you the truth, I never could understand the hubbub over stem cell research. I understand the moral argument except that the US aborts well north of 1,000,000 fetuses a year.
A lot of people die every year. It’s a shame to waste their corpse by embalming it or burning it. If nothing else, it would make OK pet food. For purely emotional reasons, many people might take exception to this, however. It probably has something to do with sentimentality, I guess. There’s certainly no practical reason to waste so much protein.
You mentioned being an organ donor. Why is volunteering necessary? Dead people have no rights; let’s just take the organs and be done with it. I can’t think of a single practical reason why not.
So much waste in the world.
Udder Insanity !!!
We used to steal, improve, even invent, cure, build and produce all kinds of shit right here in the US.
it’s just plain dumb to deprive the US the opportunity to cure everything so that we can just kill ourselves in more creative ways.
Crossing human DNA with animal DNA, and I wonder why I’m having flash-backs to all those creepy Sci-fi flicks I used to watch as a kid.
When will science ever learn, don’t pee in the gene pool. It’s only going to result in the creation a monster, who will eat your face off.
No, I’m serious! I’ve seen those movies a dozen times, and it happend every time…
Holy Cow!!!!!
Needs more cowbells…
#8, Convenient how you skipped over the 1,000,000 abortions every year in your misplaced logic.
If you give the moral argument against harvesting stem cells, then deal the with morality and legality of abortion first.
According to the pro-choice group and the Supreme Court, fetuses have no rights until they are over 6 months old (Last Trimester). Therefore, since they have no rights they can be killed without their permission. It happens over 1,000,000 times a year in the US alone. That’s about one in every 300 people per year.
Since the climate in this country is to kill the fetuses,and since they have no rights, then why not put them to good use? Yes, I know it sounds a little like Josef Mengele in a concentration camp, or maybe Brave New World, but that is the way it is here in the US.
It seems at the very least to be “unthrifty” to kill the fetuses while placing artificial limits on stem cell research.
I mean, since they don’t have any rights and there truly is a great need…
8 UTH. Yeah, we could take out their fillings, throw their hair & spectacles onto piles.
RBG
I found floating around in one of the ancient memory cells of my brain a fuzzy biology recollection that some (most?) eggs & sperm of different animals might combine but would soon begin producing fatal errors, the timing depending upon the evolutionary closeness of the two species.
Like the story above, I wonder how that might sit with religious-types and ethicists who don’t consider either human eggs or sperm to be a unique individual until the exact moment they combine.
Btw: Funny I should see yesterday, & for the first time, that exact cow costume on the ski slopes. It’s disconcerting when it is worn by a male.
RBG
RBG, you can tell???
Just to disagree with everybody:
1. creating stem cells FOR THE PURPOSE OF HARVESTING is morally different than abortion. A mothers rights is not involved to balance the equation in taking potential/actual human life.
2. Fetus’s have rights on instant one. Fetuscide is the law now in many states. Mothers have the unrestricted right to abort in FIRST TRIMESTER ONLY. In second Trimester the STATE gains the right to moderately interfer–such as in requiring parental notification and such (which might apply to first trimester as well?) and so forth. In Third Trimester–State has a competing interest in protecting the life of the fetus==still heavily/mostly tilted in favor of the mother.
Now I actually favor “FOURTH TRIMESTER” rights in the parents as I see kiddies born with defects to be of not much value. Let the parents do as they wish, and can afford. How long should this parental freedom be afforded==I don’t know, probably should end when the kid is fast enough to outrun the parents==and keep going?
Biggest argument against recycling human protein is the danger of disease. Other than that, yes, bodies are a resource we waste now, and won’t in the future. But as with the kiddies, I think the nearest relatives should still have the duty/freedom to control their gene pool as they wish. ie – – The STATE should be about empowering choices, not limiting them.
Bobbo, disease and prions. Has everyone forgotten the “mad cow” mess a few years back?
Embryonic stem cells also have a reputation for causing cancer.
#19–Phillep==like everything truthful==the use of embryonic stem cells has pros and cons. Science is used to separate these issues out so others can tell when to use and not use stem cells. EVERYTHING (ideas as well, not just things and techniques) as good and bad associated with it. To say something is bad ((or good)) is only the first statement by which the discussion should begin.
In my opinion, a mother should have some input into whether her aborted fetus should be “harvested”. Simply because she is not a production machine society can use for its benefit. If the mother has no objection to a fetus being used to further mankind, then great.
The same should apply to all the embryos sitting in cold storage. Instead of wasting them, if the parents consent without preconditions, great. Use them.
I am uncomfortable about using cow cells though. I fear somebody from Utah might show up on my doorstep calling me “Cuz” by way of some distant bovine connection on his father’s size. If you think that is bull, look at what #13 is like.
#8, UTH,
You make a good point worthy of discussion. Instead of a blanket free for all I might go with limited organ retrieval, such as heart/lungs, eyes, and kidneys.
My only argument against would be the sentimentality most people place on their “loved ones” remains. Sheet, I have expressly stated that if any part of my body can help someone, then help them. I won’t be needing those parts anymore.
Waste? Bury me in recycled cardboard and plant a tree over me.
#22, Catshit, I have to agree.
I was wondering, if my unused body was converted to ethanol, how many miles would someone get from me?
#21, That also is probably the best idea of the bunch. If the mother gives consent, then that should be good and fine. Something like donating our body to science.