A couple from the UK have a beloved son who has leukemia, and who may need a marrow transplant to save his life. They are using in-vitro fertilization to select a fertilized egg which will be genetically similar enough to their son so that the resulting baby could be a marrow donor. Is it ethical to design a baby as a transplant donor, even to save the life of another child?
posted by Steven Den Beste
on Oct 15, 2001 -
25 comments
Conjoined twins separated. But while that operation is always challenging, this one was particularly bad. The girls were
joined at the top of the head, and their brains were merged -- and shared common blood vessels. It took
eight-eight hours of surgery to separate them, most of which was spent rerouting blood vessels. Both girls survived the operation. This is only the sixth time this operation has been attempted and only the second time that it has succeeded. (Vertical craniopagus is, mercifully, exceedingly rare.)
The operation was only possible at all because the surgeons have spent the last four months practicing it with virtual-reality software on computers (presumably using models based on MRI). Anyone have any idea what software package they used?
posted by Steven Den Beste
on Apr 10, 2001 -
14 comments
This and
this aren't exactly what you'd call urgent breaking news. (Respectively they're about the Ring of Fire and historical earthquakes.) So why couldn't the BBC take enough time on them to get their facts right? [More inside]
posted by Steven Den Beste
on Jan 13, 2001 -
8 comments
If computer engineering defined the last half of the twentieth century, then
biotech will surely define the first half of the twenty-first century.
posted by Steven Den Beste
on Jan 5, 2001 -
5 comments
