We should really just grow clones in labs and harvest them for parts.
Remove the brains at week 16 through genetic and surgical means. Keep the rest of the body artificially alive. Expensive upfront, but massively scaleable.
MHC, ABO, etc. complexes engineered to be transplant compatible.
We could replace organs and blood as we age. In fifty years, full head transplants could tackle every disease except brain and blood cancers and neurodegeneration. Every other disease solved.
It's so simple and obvious, but nobody can get over the egocentric morality qualms and superstitious ick factor.
Our bodies are plants. It's our minds that are special. We should be able to transplant every other part.
Pluripotent cells work fine in many animals with no apparent problems and avoid all of the issues with the clone approach. If pluripotent cells turn out to cause problems, then we could always engineer a kill switch to make sure they die off after the limb is regrown.
The gut has the enteric nervous system with half a billion nerve cells and a hundred million neurons. Where's the clear divide between 'brain' and 'everything else'?
> "full head transplants could tackle every disease except"
except being quadraplegic and in an Iron Lung because reconnecting the spinal column is indistinguishable from magic at this point. What about the risks involved in major surgery and rehab? The hospital staffing and effort and costs involved in doing multiple organ transplant surgeries per lifetime for each of hundreds of millions of people? Saying "it's so simple" doesn't make it simple.
It seems more likely for there to be a single set of genes responsible for growing a limb than 2 sets in the Axolotl. Especially since the new limbs seem identical to the old ones, rather than following a distinct backup blueprint.
There’s actually a theory that hominid ancestors at some point split off from other great apes by also not going through the typical great ape sexual maturity. For examples humans look a lot more like juvenile chimps that we do sexually mature chimps.
Would it male you prone to get cancer, since all that replication "depleted" our stem cells and brown fat reserves? What about our telomeres?
Hoo boy, I am seeing some serious fuel for snake oil, here.
I wonder how long before I start getting spam selling retinoic acid as an aid in growing ... er, a ... limb ...
Also, I wonder if the article was edited by AI. That may not be a bad thing, but it would be interesting if The Smithsonian is using AI editors.
Just picking up old rags and bottles,
When onward on my way I plod,
I saw a host of axolotls;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
A sight to make a man’s blood freeze.
//
Some had handles, some were plain;
They came in blue, red pink, and green.
A few were orange in the main;
The damnedest sight I’ve ever seen.
The females gave a sprightly glance;
The male ones all wore knee-length pants.
//
Now oft, when on the couch I lie,
The doctor asks me what I see.
They flash upon my inward eye
And make me laugh in fiendish glee.
I find my solace then in bottles,
And I forget them axolotls.
//Mad Magazine, issue 43, 1958 //
neom•4h ago