Posts by dgp

7

First transfusion of lab-grown human blood succeeds

by dgp in

first transfusion of lab-grown human blood succeeds.

source:.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/science-scope/first-transfusion-of-lab-grown-human-blood-succeeds/11374?tag=nl.e660.

dgp

My take: I have the hope that soon the prohibition to "abstain from blood" becomes irrelevant to save lives.

I also have the hope that those responsible for the loss of so many lives are not allowed to get away with murder.

7

First transfusion of lab-grown human blood succeeds

by dgp in

first transfusion of lab-grown human blood succeeds.

source:.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/science-scope/first-transfusion-of-lab-grown-human-blood-succeeds/11374?tag=nl.e660.

dgp

First transfusion of lab-grown human blood succeeds

Source:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/science-scope/first-transfusion-of-lab-grown-human-blood-succeeds/11374?tag=nl.e660

By Laura Shin | November 13, 2011, 11:48 AM PST

Healthcare advances mean that people are living longer lives than ever.

But with this progress comes a need that is often hard to fill: enough blood donations, or, in the case of countries suffering from the AIDS epidemic, enough donations of HIV-free blood.

That’s why some news from a lab in France is particularly exciting: Scientists have grown human blood in the lab and then successfully transfused it into a volunteer.

This step could obviate the need for blood donors and lead to a day when humans can create as much blood as is needed.

The experiment

Luc Douay, of Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris, created the artificial blood using a type of stem cell that gives rise to different kinds of mature blood cells.

They extracted these cells, called hematopoetic cells, from a volunteer’s bone marrow and then put them in a growth-inducing environment until they formed cultured red blood cells.

They then marked the cells so they would be easy to trace and injected ten billion of them, equivalent to two milliliters of blood, back into the volunteer’s body.

The cells carried oxygen around the body as normal cells do, and survived at the same rate as well.

As New Scientist reports,

The cultured blood cells also gave every indication of being safe to use: they didn’t transform into a malignant cell type, for example. Instead, they behaved like normal red blood cells, binding to oxygen and releasing it.
Douay published his results in the November 10 issue of the journal Blood.

The future of artificial blood

“This is a huge step forward,” Robert Lanza, the chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology who was a part of the first team to red blood cells on a large scale in the lab, told the magazine.

The breakthrough comes after several unsuccessful attempts to create blood substitutes, that did not work well or were deemed unsafe.

“The results show promise that an unlimited blood reserve is within reach,” says Douay, referring to the increasing need for blood for transfusions.

However, we are still far off from a day when we can make as much blood as we like for all the transfusions needed. A normal transfusion requires 200 times the amount created in this experiment. And with the technology Douay used in this trial, he would need 400 liters of the fluid he used to culture those cells — a wildly impractical amount.

Douay projects that he will be able to improve the technology and bring it to scale within several years.

Lanza also told New Scientist that other types of cells also hold promise for generating large quantities of artificial blood: embryonic stem cells and stem cells from skin samples that are coaxed into becoming blood cells.

1

The Society announces the impending coming of Armageddon

by dgp in

version number one:.

.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aned0_rm6ku&feature=related.

dgp

New Light:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hZrXdJ-ibo>/a>

1

The Society announces the impending coming of Armageddon

by dgp in

version number one:.

.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aned0_rm6ku&feature=related.

dgp

Version number one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNEd0_rm6kU&feature=related

9

Faithful and discreet, maybe, but never humble

by dgp in

i was re-reading another thread (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/experiences/218101/2/governing-body-pics) and i just couldn't help thinking that the faithful and discreet slaves may perhaps be faithful and discreet, but they are certainly not humble.

they let other witnesses treat them like special holy men.

not that i would have expected anything different from them, but i feel they should at least act otherwise for appearances' sake.. would it be fit for the members of the board of directors of any big company (enron, say) feel they have a special quality to them, one that puts them above all other humans, just because they approve things with two thirds of the vote?.

dgp

I was re-reading another thread (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/experiences/218101/2/GOVERNING-BODY-PICS) and I just couldn't help thinking that the Faithful and Discreet Slaves may perhaps be Faithful and Discreet, but they are certainly not humble. They let other witnesses treat them like special holy men. Not that I would have expected anything different from them, but I feel they should at least act otherwise for appearances' sake.

Would it be fit for the members of the board of directors of any big company (Enron, say) feel they have a special quality to them, one that puts them above all other humans, just because they approve things with two thirds of the vote?

47

Victoria, Australia: Results of November 8th Steven Unthank's Court Hearing

by AndersonsInfo in

re: results of november 8 court hearing.

yet again, all five cases remain intact and are still in the criminal justice system.

oh, how the wheels of justice turn ever so slowly.. .

dgp

Thanks for the information.

4

Blood, Medicine, and the Law of God PDF

by allyouneedislove in

i wanted to post this question so that everyone could see it.. .

does anyone have a scan or pdf of blood, medicine, and the law of god?

the text at http://www.strictlygenteel.co.uk/booklets/blood.html is not adequate for me, but i am thankful it is posted there.. i would greatly appreciate it.. thanks so much..

dgp

I didn't know this book even existed, but thanks, Atlantis.

36

Is there a Jehovah's Witness gestalt?

by Terry in

there is a german word: gestalt which means that.......... something is more than the sum of its parts.. .

a diamond seems to be an excellent example of this principle, doesn't it?.

carbon (as in: carbon dioxide) is everywhere and it is "cheap".. but, diamonds are prized as very valuable and expensive.. a diamond, however, consists of almost entirely of : carbon.. .

dgp

Bookmarked

81

How did plants survive the Flood?

by dgp in

noah is not said to have carried plants in his ark.

supposedly the flood was severe enough to cover "even the tallest mountains", which would mean that mount everest was covered.

and this for forty days.

dgp

The question is not a red herring, but I couldn't help a smile when I found "herrings" associated to this thread.

The Bible says that land animals survived a worldwide flood, one in which the entire Earth was covered with water. Personally I don't buy this story, but many people do. Only too often we find this account or that account of how predators could not have survived in the same restricted areas as their pray, and the like, so I won't deal with those. I did notice that no mention is made of Noah (or God) taking any precautions about plants or aquatic animals. So plants and aquatic animals need to have survived in another way.

The Flood is supposed to have covered the entire earth. That means an unbelievable (and I'm using this word with full intent) amount of water. The area of the Earth, times at least the height of Mount Everest. I won't bother with the calculation in the hope someone else does. But let us just say that Mount Everest is 29,029 feet high (Wikipedia) and the surface of the Earth -not LAND, mind you, but the Earth, land and oceans and poles- would need a very high number. So that would be a hell of a lot of water.

Presumably, trees were fixed in the ground. So were plants like lettuces or cacti. Did they survive under such a massive amount of water? Plants can survive under water if enough light penetrates. So, is there a beam of light that can penetrate 29,029 feet?

The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the Earth. It has a depth of 36,201 feet. Mount Everest would still be under water if we could take it and put it into the Trench. And, as far as we know, only a few microorganisms can thrive there. Certainly we don't find lettuces or cacti or roses. According to the Wikipedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Trench

Descents

The Swiss-designed, Italian-built, United States Navy bathyscaphe Trieste reached the bottom at 1:06 p.m. on January 23, 1960, with U.S. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard on board.[4] Iron shot was used for ballast, with gasoline for buoyancy.[4] The onboard systems indicated a depth of 11,521 m (37,799 ft), but this was later revised to 10,916 m (35,814 ft).[10] At the bottom, Walsh and Piccard were surprised to discover sole or flounder about 30 cm (1 ft) long,[10] as well as a shrimp.[1] According to Piccard, "The bottom appeared light and clear, a waste of firm diatomaceous ooze".[10]

Only three descents have ever been achieved. The first was the manned descent by Trieste in 1960. This was followed by the unmanned ROVs Kaiko in 1996 and Nereus in 2009. These three expeditions directly measured very similar depths of 10,902 to 10,916 m.

So, no trees there. But, my argument does not need such depths to make sense. Just how deep does light penetrate into water?

According to this website,

http://www.fao.org/docrep/field/003/AC174E/AC174E04.htm

light penetration depends on several factors: the more vertical light is, the deeper it goes. The smoother the surface, the deeper light goes. In darker waters, light penetration is of course limited. But, just how deep would light penetrate into absolutely clear water?

I don't know. I do know that coral reefs need waters shallower than 490 feet, according to the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_reef). And let's not forget that coral reefs have a substrate; that is, something to grow on.

Just how deep would a tree need to be growing at the current sea level would have been during a flood? 29,000 feet. It doesn't seem to me like a depth at which a plant could actually receive a beam of light.

What about water pressure at that depth?

According to this website (http://www.onr.navy.mil/focus/ocean/water/pressure1.htm),

Even though we do not feel it, 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi), or 1kg per square cm, of pressure are pushing down on our bodies as we rest at sea level. Our body compensates for this weight by pushing out with the same force.

Since water is much heavier than air, this pressure increases as we venture into the water. For every 33 feet down we travel, one more atmosphere (14.7 psi) pushes down on us. For example, at 66 feet, the pressure equals 44.1 psi, and at 99 feet, the pressure equals 58.8 psi.

To travel into this high-pressure environment we have to make some adjustments. Humans can travel three or four atmospheres and be OK. To go farther, submarines are needed.

Animals that live in this watery environment undergo large pressure changes in short amounts of time. Sperm whales make hour-long dives 7,380 feet (2,250 meters) down. This is a pressure change of more than 223 atmospheres! By studying and understanding how these animals are able to withstand great pressure changes, scientists will be able to build better tools for humans to make such journeys.

I made the calculation, and, at a depth of 29,000 feet, water pressure would be 878 times normal pressure. I wonder if plants would survive that.

Some people have said that the plants survived as seeds. I will begin by saying that none of us was there to see it, so this is, at most, somebody's speculation. It should not be taken to be a fact. In my humble opinion, it is an attempt to say that, somehow, something happened so that the obvious wouldn't. The obvious, in my opinion, is that plants would die. Saying that they survived as seeds is an speculation to explain how it is that plants are still there IF we assume that there was a worldwide flood.

But not all plants propagate with seeds. We have strawberries and they propagate through runners. So, how were strawberries preserved? They were able to withstand such pressure, such absence of light, and this not for a while, but for one year. To say the least, that does not seem likely to me.

Some seeds are viable after very long periods. According to the Wikipedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_dormancy

Seed dormancy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seed dormancy is a condition of plant seeds that prevents germination until optimal environmental conditions exist. Living, non dormant seeds germinate when soil temperatures and moisture conditions are suited for cellular processes and division; dormant seeds do not.

One important function of most seeds is delayed germination, which allows time for dispersal and prevents germination of all the seeds at same time. The staggering of germination safeguards some seeds and seedlings from suffering damage or death from short periods of bad weather or from transient herbivores; it also allows some seeds to germinate when competition from other plants for light and water might be less intense. Another form of delayed seed germination is seed quiescence, which is different than true seed dormancy and occurs when a seed fails to germinate because the external environmental conditions are too dry or warm or cold for germination.[1] Many species of plants have seeds that delay germination for many months or years, and some seeds can remain in the soil seed bank for more than 50 years before germination. Some seeds have a very long viability period, and the oldest documented germinating seed was nearly 2000 years old based on radiocarbon dating.[2]

As a parenthethical remark, the Watchtower does not think radiocarbon dating is accurate. I know this for a fact. My grandpa, an agronomist and an atheist, also had a grocery store that was usually open, and as such was a frequent -and impervious- target of Jehovah's witnesses. It was there where, as a kid, I read many Watchtowers and Awakes. He invariably got rid of the magazines, except for the one that questioned radiocarbon dating.

(My lifelong Communist of a grandpa never prevented me from reading those. Good for him)

But I do believe in radiocarbon dating. So I will say that yes, seeds can survive for 2000 years. But not all. Those seeds that are not viable after a short period prove that this idea for plant survival just does not hold water (pun intended). Anyone ever ate a mango? For just how long do you think that mango seeds are viable? What about beans? Watermelon seeds?

Are we to say that "MANY" plants (as per the paragraphs above) did survive as dormant, but then the ones that don't have such long dormancy were able to survive in the same way? Being dormant beyond the period they can actually be dormant and viable?

Sorry, I'm not buying that.

And then, those plants that survived the Flood (supposedly) are also supposed to have bloomed after the Flood (with their differences in season; have you seen any avocados when they are not in season?), and sustained all other life, and "become fruitful and multiply". Yeah, right.

How did vines survive? They need trees to grow, you know?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaco

(By the way, I ALSO don't believe this:

It is stated that the Central American natives, after taking guaco, catch with impunity the most dangerous snakes, which writhe in their hands as though touched by a hot iron (B. Seemanii Hookers Journ. of Bet. v. 76, 1853). The odour alone of guaco, has been said to cause, in snakes, a state of stupor; and Humboldt, who observed that proximity of a rod steeped in guaco-juice was obnoxious to the venomous Coluber corallinus, was of opinion that inoculation with it gives perspiration an odour which makes reptiles unwilling to bite. The drug is not used in modern medicine.)

Beyond this, FISH (and mammals such as dolphins and whales) are supposed to have survived in such a massive amount of water. But, would that have happened?

Remember what I said about the Mariana Trench above? That mount Everest would be under water if we could take it into the Trench? So, an universal flood would have required MORE freshwater than SALTWATER. Approximately two eighths more freshwater than saltwater. How do I know that? Because as a kid I was taught that three fourths of the Earth's surface are oceans. If we double the amount of water in the Earth (water having covered EVERYTHING), then those three fourths of saltwater would become three eighths of water. Freshwater would represent five eights. Would fish survive?

According to the Wikipedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity. To survive fresh water, the fish need a range of physiological adaptations in order to keep the ion concentration of their bodies balanced.

41% of all known species of fish are found in freshwater. This is primarily due to the rapid speciation that the scattered habitats make possible. When dealing with ponds and lakes, one might use the same basic models of speciation as when studying island biogeography.

Physiology

Fresh water fish differ physiologically from salt water fish in several respects. Their gills must be able to diffuse dissolved gasses while keeping the salts in the body fluids inside. Their scales reduce water diffusion through the skin: freshwater fish that have lost too many scales will die. They also have well developed kidneys to reclaim salts from body fluids before excretion.
[edit] Migrating fish
Sturgeons are found both in anadromous and fresh water stationary forms

Many species of fish do reproduce in freshwater, but spend most of their adult lives in the sea. These are known as anadromous fish, and include, for instance, salmon, trout and three-spined stickleback. Some other kinds of fish are, on the contrary, born in salt water, but live most of or parts of their adult lives in fresh water; for instance the eels. These are known as catadromous fish.

Species migrating between marine and fresh waters need adaptations for both environments; when in salt water they need to keep the bodily salt concentration on a level lower than the surroundings, and vice versa. Many species solve this problem by associating different habitats with different stages of life. Both eels, anadromous salmoniform fish and the sea lamprey have different tolerances in salinity in different stages of their lives.

So, freshwater fish need a salinity of less than 0.05%. What is the salinity of sea water?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater

Although the vast majority of seawater has a salinity of between 3.1% and 3.8%, seawater is not uniformly saline throughout the world. Where mixing occurs with fresh water runoff from river mouths or near melting glaciers, seawater can be substantially less saline. The most saline open sea is the Red Sea, where high rates of evaporation, low precipitation and river inflow, and confined circulation result in unusually salty water. The salinity in isolated bodies of water (for example, the Dead Sea) can be considerably greater still.

If we assumed the mixing of waters -and why would we not?, salinity would have been cut in half. It would be 1.5%. Would freshwater fish survive in that salinity? I don't think so. Salinity would be 65 times higher than what they tolerate. Would saltwater fish survive? I don't have a lower threshold of salinity for saltwater fish, but I don't think they would survive, either. Let us read about osmoregulation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmoregulation

Osmoregulation is the active regulation of the osmotic pressure of an organism's fluids to maintain the homeostasis of the organism's water content; that is it keeps the organism's fluids from becoming too diluted or too concentrated. Osmotic pressure is a measure of the tendency of water to move into one solution from another by osmosis. The higher the osmotic pressure of a solution the more water wants to move into the solution. Pressure must be exerted on the hypertonic side of a selectively permeable membrane to prevent diffusion of water by osmosis from the side containing pure water.

Organisms in both aquatic and terrestrial environments must maintain the right concentration of solutes and amount of water in their body fluids; this involves excretion (getting rid of metabolic wastes and other substances such as hormones that would be toxic if allowed to accumulate in the blood) via organs such as the skin and the kidneys; keeping the amount of water and dissolved solutes in balance is referred to as osmoregulation.

Two major types of osmoregulation are osmoconformers and osmoregulators. Osmoconformers match their body osmolarity to their environment. It can be either active or passive. Most marine invertebrates are osmoconformers, although their ionic composition may be different from that of seawater.

Osmoregulators tightly regulate their body osmolarity, which always stays constant, and are more common in the animal kingdom. Osmoregulators actively control salt concentrations despite the salt concentrations in the environment. An example is freshwater fish. The gills actively uptake salt from the environment by the use of mitochondria-rich cells. Water will diffuse into the fish, so it excretes a very hypotonic (dilute) urine to expel all the excess water. A marine fish has an internal osmotic concentration lower than that of the surrounding seawater, so it tends to lose water and gain salt. It actively excretes salt out from the gills. Most fish are stenohaline, which means they are restricted to either salt or fresh water and cannot survive in water with a different salt concentration than they are adapted to. However, some fish show a tremendous ability to effectively osmoregulate across a broad range of salinities; fish with this ability are known as euryhaline species, e.g. Salmon.

Some marine fish have adopted a different but efficient mechanism to conserve water, i.e. osmoregulation. They retain urea in their blood in relatively higher concentration; this helps them to retain a nearly hypertonic environment with higher solute but lower salt concentration. However, urea is damaging to living tissue, so, to cope with this problem some fish retain trimethylamine oxide, this provides a better solution to urea's toxicity.

Movement of water and ions in freshwater fish

Movement of ions and water in saltwater fish:

The paragraph I would like to highlight is this one:

Most fish are stenohaline, which means they are restricted to either salt or fresh water and cannot survive in water with a different salt concentration than they are adapted to.

So I don't think saltwater fish would have survived, either.

The gradual disappearance of all that water would have changed salinity again, in a matter of one year. Would fish survive that change in salinity? I don't think so, either. It would be interesting (but cruel to a fish) to organize an experiment and check if fish can survive with such changes in salinity.

And then, where did all that water go? I think that, at this age and time, everyone knows water moves in a cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cycle). Where in the cycle do we find ALL THAT WATER?

81

How did plants survive the Flood?

by dgp in

noah is not said to have carried plants in his ark.

supposedly the flood was severe enough to cover "even the tallest mountains", which would mean that mount everest was covered.

and this for forty days.

dgp

Would anyone know how saltwater fish survived? They are just *NOT* designed (by their intelligent designer, if there was one) to survive in freshwater. It's a matter of how their entire bodies function, specially their kidneys.

Seeds can survive in dormant state for long. I don't think they can survive soaked in water for a year. When I was a kid, we were taught about germination with a small glass jar, some cotton balls, water and beans. I don't remember how quick germination was, but beans were quick enough to germinate for little schoolchildren not to lose heart and wait. What substrate would these plants have in that case?

Even if seeds had survived that year, for how long would Noah have had to wait before those plants could germinate and grow to the point where they could sustain Noah and the animals, with a surplus for future growth? If we assumed that to actually happen, then pests need also be assumed to have been patient and NOT eat what they eat for a living. Everyone was on rationed food!

What about plants whose seeds need to pass through the digestive tract of animals before they can germinate? I'm not making this up (http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/files/weed_dispersion.htm)

What about watermelons? The seeds are inside of the fruit. The fruit will rot in a matter of weeks. The seeds cannot last one year after that. How did watermelons make it?

What about mangoes, dates, apples, grapes, plums, peaches, oranges, lemons, papayas, kiwifruits?

What about plants that reproduce through runners, such as strawberries?