27. mai 2005
Fish, Ball...Weird
Speaking of exhibiting humanlike behavior - I got this from my uncle -
This was a pretty interesting story from The Sunday Wichita Eagle Newspaper a couple of weeks ago. A resident in the area saw a ball bouncing around kind of strange in a nearby pond and went to investigate. It turned out to be a flathead catfish who had obviously tried to swallow a child's basketball which became stuck in its mouth!!
The fish was totally exhausted from trying to dive, but unable to because the ball would always bring him back up to the surface. The resident tried numerous times to get the ball out, but was unsuccessful. He finally had his wife cut the ball in order to deflate it and release the hungry catfish.
You probably wouldn't have believed this, if you hadn't seen the following pictures... (more in the extended entry)
25. mai 2005
Mostly Human
Another thing about stem cells - this one is weird -
Scientists create animals that are part-human
The article is about the mixing of animal and human cells - like growing human livers, etc. inside of sheep so they can be harvested and used to save human lives.
This was the part that interested me most...
Mice with human brains
In January, an informal ethics committee at Stanford University endorsed a proposal to create mice with brains nearly completely made of human brain cells. Stem cell scientist Irving Weissman said his experiment could provide unparalleled insight into how the human brain develops and how degenerative brain diseases like Parkinson’s progress.
Stanford law professor Hank Greely, who chaired the ethics committee, said the board was satisfied that the size and shape of the mouse brain would prevent the human cells from creating any traits of humanity. Just in case, Greely said, the committee recommended closely monitoring the mice’s behavior and immediately killing any that display human-like behavior.
Wow. Does anyone else have a hard time figuring out whether we're headed into what used to be sci-fi, or going back into the swirling mists of magical possibilities?
And now, on a somewhat more lighthearted note,
20. mai 2005
Regenerative
Who is this?
It's a photograph of a three-day old cloned human embryo. You know, it's one thing to say glibly that you believe life begins at conception - it's another to look at a clump of a dozen cells and think that it's already inextricably tangled with its soul. How different we look from how we start! What will we look like when our bodies are resurrected???
I found the photo here -
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7921548/
And I quote, "The researchers are not using cloning to make babies. Instead, scientists create test-tube embryos to supply stem cells, the building blocks which give rise to every tissue in the body and which are a genetic match for a particular patient, preventing rejection by the immune system."
What do you think?