I don’t wanna get off on a rant here … wait, wrong guy.
On a recent episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, contributor Lewis Black examined three different science stories on his recurring “Back in Black” segment. If you didn’t see the show, you’ve probably only heard about one, even though the other two are potentially much more groundbreaking.
I Want to Symbiotically Circulate Your Blood
Not that there isn’t a lot to learn from the “vampire therapy” study that showed older mice can become stronger and improve their memories when treated with the blood of younger mice. The unfortunately nicknamed work – “I like my science trendy,” Black quipped – gruesomely involved the sewing of two mice together so that they shared a common blood stream. More politely called “heterochronic parabiosis,” the technique, which Jocelyn Kaiser of “Science” notes was first attempted 150 years ago, seems to rejuvenate the older mouse’s muscle stem cells while also bolstering the spinal cord and brain.
Sometimes science resembles a Victorian horror novel.
“You can really taste the proteins!”
“Grandad, did you just nick my jugular?”
Adding to the Alphabet
Not satisfied to just stitch macroorganisms, scientists at the Scripps Research Institute, home to 3,000 biomedical researchers, have found a way to insert artificially made compounds into our very DNA.
You might remember from high school biology that our genetic material is made up of four different nitrogen-containing nucleobases; adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G). Black prefers to think the letters stand for “alcohol, tobacco, cigars and gravy.” Either way, those four little chains make up the basic building blocks of all life on Earth, from ants to trees to crabs and even Grandpa. Until now, that is.
Used to be all there was to you. We may be on the verge of changing that.
Clogs up your pool filter, helps facilitate scientific breakthroughs.
Heal Thyself
Rather than synthesizing something new, two different research groups have been able to spur growth from something old. The separate groups were each independently able to clone adult human skin cells, one from a 35-year-old and one from a 75-year-old, to make pluripotent, embryonic stem cells matching the donor’s genome. This somatic-cell nuclear transfer could eventually produce disease treatments tailor-made to an individual, or even personalized organ replacements.
The procedure is ethically problematic, though, as it involves stripping a human ovum of its nuclear material and using it to create an embryo (with the donor material) for the sole purpose of harvesting its stem cells. And it doesn’t even work all that well, anyway, as it took one team 39 tries to make it happen. It might not be necessary for each individual to have his own stem cell line, though, as one of the researchers, Robert Lanza, says that since many people have genetically similar immune systems, as few as 100 lines could be applied to over half the U.S. population.
“Open wide, here comes the airplane.”
Sorry Miles, not happening anytime soon.
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