Re: Medtch 2180

G'day guys,

You've probably put this one to bed already too, but here's my razoo's
worth anyway.

Cloned replacement parts I can believe, cloned bodies with memory
implants
nope. The following points have a fair bit to do with this opinion, yeah
I
know we can't imagine the leaps we'll make (I'm a strong advocate of
that
claim), but somethings just don't gel.

They have already mapped an entire chromosome (complete DNA strand) mind
you that's the shortest of the 25 or whatever it is humans have. They
have
bio-frames upon which to grow organs that work and we'll have clone
organs
within the next couple of decades probably, so organ even limb
transplants
by 2180 I can believe. However, ethcal issues aside, it would take 6+
years
to grow a human clone to adulthood safely - faster than that and there's
mammoth tissue problems. But that clone won't have the skills to survive
in
society that's why evolution has broken our growth at 4 and given us an
extra 10+ years of slow physical growth so our brains can take
everything
in we need to be adults before kicking back in onto normal mammalian
growth
curve to finish us off to adult size. There's also the issue of
experience
making the man (so to speak), identical twins are clones, how many of
them
think exactly alike...none! Clones also recieve the cellular age of the
individual their cloned from... Dolly is suffering hyper aging - she was
cloned from a middle aged sheep and her cells are aging as if they
started
from middle-age not from birth, accelerated aging on that scale isn't
something I'd look forward too! Add to that a lot of the things you'd
guess
are purely gene related aren't, handedness is actually related to the
amount of testosterone you recieve in uterine (in mum), for instance. As
for imprinting brains with captured memories, that's going to be VERY
difficult given we think they use quantum properties and no two brains
are
exactly the same shape - you go trying to put my memories into Los and
they're not going to fit - you'd run out of room in the math area and
have
extra in the motor skills area = square peg, round hole!
Brain-trasplants
are being discussed even now, but the patient ends up as a quadriplegic
as
you simply can't realign all those neuronal connections, though I guess
we
may get around that eventually.

Tom has a point, medicine will be streets ahead by then - nanites in the
blood stream, cloned parts (if/when you get to a medi-point) will see
our
prospects increase (even with better weaponary I think the soldires
would
still end a little better off), but I doubt it'll get to the point this
discussion did ;)

Anyways just a few things to keep in mind.

Cheers

Beth

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Elizabeth Fulton
c/o CSIRO Division of Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
HOBART 
TASMANIA 7001
AUSTRALIA
Phone (03) 6232 5018 International +61 3 6232 5018
Fax 03 6232 5053 International +61 3 6232 5053

email: beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au