Stem cells were grown and then connected to brass plates.
One day we will have the means to reverse every death
That’s a pretty misleading headline. The news article is about a cool art installation, in which an artist has used a deceased composer’s DNA to produce electrical signals that are interpreted as music. Still cool, but it’s not “composing music” in the same sense as the alive musician was composing music.
It’s about as close to composing as transcribing the twitches of someone with Parkinson’s.
About as respectful as well, if the researcher is the person characterising this process as composing.
It seems to be the journalist presenting it as such, but in any case, I don’t think the artists are suggesting it’s equivalent to what the guy made when he was alive. It’s an interesting artwork riffing off of the fact that the person whom the DNA belonged to was a musician. That also seems like a pretty disrespectful way to talk about people with Parkinson’s.
I’m referring to completely involuntary movements… Characterising any involuntary, debilitating phenomenon as intentional or artistic is gross.
Characterising involuntary but normal phenomenon as intentional or artistic is maybe a little less gross, but still asinine.
I understand why you think it’s offensive, that’s fine.
I hope to all holy fuck it’s not conscious.
“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”
according to the article it’s a tiny smattering of brain cells grown from stem cells derived from his blood, which he donated before he died specifically for this experiment. it is in no way conscious.
We’ll never know until it starts multiplying rapidly and breaks out of the lab.
Henrietta Lacks hasn’t managed it yet. Look her up. It’s at least as bad as this if not more so.
“Yet” being the operative word here. There’s a disease in dogs that started in some very similar circumstances (although happening in nature rather than from a science accident). One slip-up from an immunocompromised tech with just the right genetic make-up and it begins.
Why? Being dead is not cool.
How do you know?
Common sense: Only something can be cool. Nothing – can’t.
Everyone dies. It must be cool if everyone does it.
Ah there’s a word for it.
I’m trans and I get a lot of fuckers using the “You’re a man if you’re born that way!” Card on me
They act like it’s so obvious and that I’m big dumb for not “getting it”
So I am relieved to see this
You don’t have any moral right to write about “logical fallacies” if you’re unable to read the provided explanation.
Moral right to comment 😂
The hard truth is that there are a lot of completely un-empathetic scientists out there.
Some of the shit I saw them doing to animals when I worked for Baxter still makes me sick when I think about it. And I only had to go into that lab a couple times.
It’s just a few cells they created on a mesh, it’s not like they’re using a hunk of his brain.
Yeah and it was just a bunch of sedated live rats pinned to little trays with their brains exposed and a bunch of shit stuck everywhere into their bodies that I had to see while working on the lab computers.
I’m not going to get into an argument about whether there’s value in animal research (I think there is) but there’s some horrifying shit that comes with it, and I’m just pointing out that I’ve directly worked with plenty of scientists that are completely unfazed by that shit. So while it may be a few cells on a mesh now, they won’t stop at that.
it is important to note that the article says that Alvin eagrly agreed to this experiment, and donated the blood for it. If that is true, then I don’t see any ethical dillemma in here
That is an important point that I missed in what I read of the article before I got grossed out. Thanks. I’m still not sure about this line of research because if (when?) they do make something that achieves a level of sentience, consciousness, or even just the ability to feel, will it be able to signal to us that it is happy, content, in agony, mental anguish, etc? The thought of being trapped in that situation is terrifying.
no, for sure there are limits. if you cultivated a whole functional brain, for example, would be dystopic af
Storm of lying clickbait titles today.
This sounds like chatGPT with extra steps and body horror.
Shhhh! Don’t interrupt him, he’s decomposing.
I genuinely thought this was an Onion headline.
My Ashley O. doll is starting to glitch out a little. Should I be worried?
Has anyone seen the show “Pantheon“? This is getting close to it.
What could go wrong? /s * anguished screaming SFX *
