As you can imagine, I don't like the idea of harvesting stem cells from fetal tissue. Fortunately, it looks like there may be another source of stem-cell-like cells: ordinary white blood cells.
A small company in London, UK, claims to have developed a technique that overturns scientific dogma and could revolutionise medicine. It says it can turn ordinary blood into cells capable of regenerating damaged or diseased tissues. This could transform the treatment of everything from heart disease to Parkinson's.Therapy based on stem cell regeneration will possibly be able to cure the effects of every disease currently known to man, including cancer and aging. Human trials are underway.If the company, TriStem, really can do what it says, there would be no need to bother with conventional stem cells, currently one of the hottest fields of research. But its astounding claims have been met with bemusement and disbelief by mainstream researchers.
TriStem has been claiming for years that it can take a half a litre of anyone's blood, extract the white blood cells and make them revert to a "stem-cell-like" state within hours. The cells can be turned into beating heart cells for mending hearts, nerve cells for restoring brains and so on.
The company has now finally provided proof that at least some of its claims might be true. In collaboration with independent researchers in the US, the company has used its technique to turn white blood cells into the blood-generating stem cells found in bone marrow.
So lets say we're all eventually given the option of living forever in perfect health, barring death by unnatural causes. Would you take the pill?
As long as it were shown to be reasonably safe I'd probably jump on the opportunity. Mankind is at the age where we're going to continue to see incredible breakthroughs in science and countless other fields in the coming years. Imagine being able to see our space program grow from the infant that it is today into a full fledged extra-galaxy colonization and exploration program.
I've often imagined being able to look into future centuries, and given the chance to actually do so, I don't think I could pass it up.
"So lets say we're all eventually given the option of living forever in perfect health, barring death by unnatural causes. Would you take the pill?"
Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear do his business in the woods?
I'm amazed that anyone would even ask that question, since the answer seems to me to be the very definition of "self-evident".
What amazes me even more is that there are people publicly proclaiming not only that there is a detectable downside (which I'm not seeing here), but that the ability to stop aging is actually a bad thing that should be prevented. But then again, I shouldn't be too surprised, since people have been known to publicly proclaim that slavery, Naziism and Communism were good ideas. Still, the idea that being doomed to a slow, lingering, horrible death in less than a century is actually a good thing is even harder to swallow.
The question to me isn't "is this a good idea?", but "how do we get our hands on it as quickly as possible?".
Hmmm, I'm not so sure I'd want to live forever here. If you assume there's no afterlife, though, I can see why it would be appealing.
If people could live forever, faith would decline as a significant portion of many people's lives.
Abortion would become even more acceptable; the young of society would have a low priority.
No, I wouldn't choose to live forever.
I would choose to extend and care for my body as long as I had work left to do. When I was satisfied, I'd stop.
I don't think that longevity necessarily equals an attenuation of faith. I think that modern problems with faith stem more from culture and a failure of our teachers.
Live forever in a world dominated by sin? How close to hell can we get? I'm in no rush to leave this world behind, but I know that my time here is preparatory to the one to come.
BTW, it's arrogance against God to suggest that we can reverse the curse of sin by our own wisdom and efforts. God gave us dominion over this world, but he did not grant us the ability to conquer death.
Actually, Mike, this discussion brings up an internal thought I have been struggling with lately: If the majoriy of our existance is NOT on this earth (i.e. living eternity with God), then isn't our existance during our time here really insignificant?
Ken's comments about there being "no downside", really takes a narrow view of things: Ken's life. Anything that prolongs Ken's life is "good" and anyone who would even consider an alternative is as a pro-Nazi, slave-owning, communist.
While everyone agrees their life should be extended (even me), there would be vast social consequences of a mass "non-aging" breakthrough, the chief amoung them would be the reduction of the importance of children - or even their elimination. There have been dozens of authors who have taken a fictional view of the various consequences - some good, but mostly bad.