“Why can’t we grow new body parts?” by Alan Russell at TED

ByJohn Brown

Don’t go to TED. You’ll never get out.

Share

Similar Posts

  • Growing Your Own Replacement Parts

    ByJohn Brown

     

    This is simply incredible. Watch the video about Claudia Castillo growing a replacement to part of her windpipe with her own stem cells. She didn’t grow the complete tube, but nevertheless…

    Ms Castillo, who was born in Colombia, had suffered a tuberculosis infection that ravaged her airways, leaving her unable to do simple domestic tasks. Disease had caused her windpipe, or trachea, to collapse just at the point where it entered her lung. Without the pioneering operation in June, the lung would have been removed. Today she again has a normal life and is able to look after her two children. She can walk up stairs without getting breathless and has even been dancing.

    Oh, my. Can you believe this? What the future holds for all the folks with damaged parts…

    And does this mean as we age, we’ll be able to swap out the old for new? How will that affect aging? This is simply incredible.

    Share
  • |

    “How It All Came Crashing Down” by Peter B. Gardner

    ByJohn Brown

    Everybody knows that we got into this recession because banks began lending money to people who had terrible credit ratings, right? People who didn’t have to prove they even had a job. I mean, how long are you going to stay in business when you keep handing out dough to people you never hear from again?

    But is that all there is to it? And was it really just the fault of congress because they told Freddie Mac and Fannie May (the organizations that purchased loans) that they had to start purchasing these highly risky things? Or was it all those greedy Wall Streeters?

    In this must-read article, “How it All Came Crashing Down,” BYU econ professors explain how we got into this mess—and what we can learn from it.

    But that’s not the end of the story. Ira Glass and the folks at This American Life uncover deeper causes of the problem in their must-listen show “The Watchmen” (no, not the movie). I mean, come on, we were told these high-risk loans were as dangerous as milkshakes. Shouldn’t SOMEBODY have seen it?

    President Obama keeps saying that the root of the problem was that there wasn’t enough government oversight. Sounds good, doesn’t it?  We’ll get disinterested Uncle Sam to protect us from all these investment bullies. But if we dig a bit deeper, it appears that Uncle Sam was one of the major players at the root of the mess.

    Ouch.

    Read. Listen. They are two fabulous pieces.

    Share

  • Epigenetics

    ByJohn Brown

    Our genes aren’t in charge.

    Yes, you say, of course. There’s environment and choice; both of these affect what we become. 

    But I’m not talking about being in charge at that level. I’m saying that our genes aren’t even in charge of themselves.

    What?

    We all know that computer hardware (processor, RAM, motherboard, etc.) is important, but that the software that runs the show. Well it appears that our genes are like the hardware. Something else runs the show.

    That something else is our epigenome, our epigentic tags (“epi” meaning just above as in “epidermis” or “epicenter”). The tags are chemicals that turn particular genes on and off, telling cells what they’re supposed to be–liver, skin, brain.

    Furthermore, researchers think they the tags can change through a number of means, including what we eat. For example, you can take two identical set of genes for hair and, with tags, change hair color.

    Research has also shown the epigenome can be passed down to posterity. So what you eat and its effect on you can be passed down to your posterity. Likewise, what you are is what your parents and maybe grandparents ate.

    Genes are only a part of the story.

    Holy heck, this is so cool. Watch the 12 minute video now.

    Share

  • War Predictors

    ByJohn Brown

    What’s the best predictors of which nations are most likely to go to war or exhibit instability?

    Up until now these three factors were assumed to be the most predictive: poverty levels, lack of democracy, and the nation’s adherence to Islamic values. However, Valerie Hudson and the folks of WomanStats have found a fourth factor that is a better predictor:

    These results indicate that if a scholar or policymaker had to select one variable—level of democracy, level of wealth, prevalence of Islamic culture, or the physical security of women—to assist them in predicting which states would be the least peaceful or of the most concern to the international community or have the worst relations with their neighbors, they would do best by choosing the measure of the physical security of women.

    I found it interesting that their research indicates of all the predictors prevalance of Islamic culture is the weakest. So much for the idea that Islam is the bogey man.

    Before presenting their findings, they make a theoretical case by synthesizing insights from evolutionary biology and psychology, political sociology, and psychology. When summarizing the ideas from evolution, they state:

    Evolutionary theory suffers from two common misconceptions. The first is that evolutionary predispositions are intractable. No evolutionary theorist believes this. Richard Dawkins explains, “It is perfectly possible to hold that genes exert a statistical influence on human behavior while at the same time believing that this influence can be modified, overridden, or reversed by other influences.” The second misconception is that evolutionary theory posits static and essential characteristics for males and females. This has been debunked as well. In debunking this myth, Theodore Kemper notes, “Across the spectrum of the social sciences, the results show that females are not essentially pacific, retiring, unaggressive, lacking in motives and psychological need for power and dominance. While successful ideological socialization may persuade many women that this is true of themselves, it is not biologically true.”

    These misconceptions are very interesting indeed and should be remembered when examining genetic based arguments for all sorts of behavior. When they discuss social learning theory from psychology, they reiterate this point:

    First, social learning psychologists argue that biology does increase the likelihood that a child will engage in aggressive or violent behavior, but does not guarantee it. For example, twin and adoption studies find that genes make a small contribution to various forms of antisocial behavior compared to environmental factors. For example, while finding that having a biological parent who was antisocial increased the risk for antisocial behavior to be seen in an adopted child, these same studies also demonstrated that having a disrupted home environment contributed more significantly to the risk for a child to engage in antisocial behavior.

    They then discuss specific environmental factors that lead to violent behavior against women. It’s a fascinating article. I highly recommend it. You can find the original, “The Heart of the Matter: The Security of Women and the Security of States,” in Harvard university’s International Security, volume 33, issue 3.

    Okay, okay, so how do the countries rank? Here’s a summary from the Deseret News:

    A WomanStats map reveals highest levels of women’s physical insecurity in the Middle East, India, much of Africa, Brazil and Mexico. On a Violence Against Women scale, the United States sits smack dab in the middle, at a level 3 on a 5-point scale, with moderate levels of domestic violence and rape.

    Share