Organs can now be grown!

[Rinnhart]

Heard about this on the radio the other day.  What are the long term ramifications, if any? 

Skin is an organ.  Does this mean skin can be regrown and transplanted, to undo the massive damage done in severe burn cases?  What impact would this have on skin cancer?  Can we stop using sun screen?  ;)  Will Hollywood beauties replace their skins rather than get yet another face lift?  Interesting points to ponder. 

Very Gibsonesque, Occhi.

I  note that people die of considerably more mundane ailments all the time in the "non Western world."

While this is a brilliant breakthrough for medicine and health science, not to mention biology, consider the following:

The world's population is in no danger of heading into negative growth.  Is this a necessity or a luxury?  From an evolutionary perspective, does this not aid and abet watering down the special gene pool?  If dealing with a congenital ailment, what is the good of cloning bad tissue?  Of course, it can't  hurt to try and reboot the bladder, as it were.  :D 

I imagine if it is someone in one's family, it would be seen as a necessity -- if one  can afford to do this.  This takes us back to the non Western World problem of not being able to afford a medical procedure, for most people.  Of course, having the option beats having your kids die in front of you from a failed organ.

Save a few thousand out of a few billion: not statistically meaningful, but powerful stuff in each individual case, among the wealthy. 

I note that on the front page of the link, it is suggested that some people think donkeys make better companions than wives.  What organs would one clone to save one's a_s_s?  :lol: 

Occhi
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Well, humanity's an evolutionary dead end so long as we keep the "flaws" around (and are bound to planetary life on earth)- but do we need to evolve? What do we gain by cutting and pasting what we think is desirable? What do we risk losing?

Genius is as much a fluke of genetics as schizophrenia. Do we quell one and encourage the other without understanding either? Do we really want to hand Permanent Solutions to a medical establishment that already has half the country popping pills for disorders they don't understand?