Memories of the 28th Century

It isn’t as much of an issue now as it was at some other times, but there are still people who are concerned about stem cell research. I can understand people disapproving of the use of cells of living people in the research, but after the death of a person it should be a non-issue. I suppose that using cells from aborted fetuses would bother people who oppose abortion, but the good that may come from the research should come close to outweighing the origin, but fetal stem cells are no longer required because of advances in converting cells to stem cells. The objective of the research is not to clone humans as a regular matter; it is to make spare parts for individuals.

Transplants are now done with tissue from donors, but the human body rejects all foreign material that is put into it, unless there is a perfect match. Perfect matches only come from identical twins; although “close enough” matches can be provided by others. If a replacement organ could be produced from the recipient’s own cells, then there would be no chance of rejection, and that is what stem cells research should lead to.

Or stem cells could be used to build a replacement organ in place, see linked article. The problem now is to initiate regeneration from the stem cells in the location. I can imagine problems, but the advantages should greatly outweigh the problems. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...s-8809955.html. Eliminating any chance of rejection would be enough of an advance to justify the research, but replacing a brain that was damaged in some accident would create other problems, so I wonder if adding some stem cells in damaged areas would replace the damaged or lost cells and eventually lead to restored functions. That would be especially important in future centuries, when the normal lifespan will be some hundreds of years.

It has been found that brain cells do reproduce, and lost brain functions sometimes are recovered after, so adding stem cells may be enough. The other alternative is to use the science fiction concept of transferring memories. People have already used electrical impulses in the brain to move limbs, but it’s a long way from there to scanning out memories and either recording or directly transferring them. While those ideas are comprehensible, doing either would require understanding and using whatever coding system the brain uses recording memories, and I don’t think that has been found, yet, and much less reproduced.

Several different organs can already be grown outside the body, and work is going on for more. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...aboratory.html. The one in this article that surprised me were eyes; then I read that section. They can’t regrow eyes, but retinas can be grown, so there is hope. I am still expecting that replacement eyes will be available within twenty years. Other parts of the article gave me the impression that more parts could be grown, but it was easier to restore them in other ways. Read the article.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...77H0ZM20110818
I remember hearing a researching call to a program on NPR a few years ago, and she was busy growing heart cells on a collagen framework. That sounded more advanced than what I am reading in articles today, so I wonder if more hasn’t been done that hasn’t been reported. As long as they will have spare parts made from my stem cells when I need them, I don’t care how secretive they are.

There are a few other possibilities in this. Rather than making “designer babies”, physicians might be able to add "designer features” to older people. Are you interested in wings? Or maybe you would prefer gills along with your lungs or instead of.