Combinations of human flesh and robots are more in the news lately. Sometimes the fleshy parts are grown from stem cells in a lab.
Robots with fleshy faces
Scientists in Japan Give Robots a Fleshy Face and a Smile, NYT. I’m working on a piece about robots in China with small, human brain-like structures. Stay tuned for that. Now we have another kind of robot with a fleshy, creepy kind of “smile.” What’s next?
More recommended reads
- I’ve written before about the innovative spina bifida stem cell research going on here at UC Davis. The work has included a phase of treating bulldogs with the investigational approach, which produced very encouraging data. The work in humans is now ongoing and also looks exciting. I’ve shared a video above about this line of research. This could be one of the first-of-its-kind stem cell treatments approved in the US someday.
- Congress called for an ALS moonshot. The plan for it doesn’t leave Earth, STAT News.
- A Retracted Stem Cell Study Reveals Science’s Shortcomings, Scientific American. This is a first-person piece from Peter Aldhous who noted problems with papers from Catherine Verfaillie many years earlier.
- Can Oligonucleotide Infusions Really Fix Lyme, Cancer, and Other Diseases? MedPage Today. Here’s more on my views on SOT therapy.
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Neuronal DNA repair reveals strategies to influence CRISPR editing outcomes, bioRxiv. This is great stuff from a team led by Bruce Conklin.
And now for something completely different but cool
The forgotten priest who predicted black holes – in 1783, BBC. This is an intriguing piece. The understanding of the universe centuries ago was surprisingly precise and creative.