Category Archives: Web Article Review

2022 – a “breakthrough year” for transplanting genetically modified pig organs into people

Yes, the headline pretty much describes what this Wired article is about. The following things have happened:

  • Pig hearts were genetically modified to reduce their odds of being rejected by human recipients.
  • A genetically engineered pig heart was transplanted into a human being, who lived for 60 days. This was considered a success.
  • Genetically modified pig kidneys were transplanted into a brain-dead person and the body was kept alive(?)/functioning for 77 hours.
  • Genetically engineered pig hearts were transplanted into two “recently deceased” human bodies and kept beating for three days.
  • It’s not clear from the article exactly when this happened, but a genetically modified pig heart was transplanted into a baboon and the baboon lived for over two years.

There are some obvious ethical questions here. The living human beings who took part in these studies were close to death and had no other viable options that would extend their lives, and I would assume that both they and the “recently deceased” individuals consented to the tests. And there are people dying every day because their organs fail before they get to the top of the transplant lists. I suppose I would let them use my recently deceased body in this way if it would help someone else. It seems a bit creepy, but to surgeons a human body is just a machine and they are mechanics. And after they shut down my pig heart or whatever, they could still use my body as a crash dummy. Or could they use dead bodies with functioning organs as crash dummies? There’s a disturbing thought, but if it would save the lives of people with actual brains and loved ones it would not be obviously unethical.

Now if we were writing a science fiction horror story, we could probably think of other places to go with this. Paul Macauley’s 1998 story collection The Invisible Country comes to mind. These are mind-blowing, disturbing stories about mistreatment of genetically engineered baboon-human hybrids who are kept as slaves, prostitutes, and worse. Using a deceased human body with no functioning brain for these purposes would be very creepy but less obviously unethical.

The Liver King

I’m not sure what to say about The Liver King except that this GQ profile of him is worth a read. It’s slightly mocking, but he may be of the “any attention is good attention” school of marketing, which appears to be serving him well. Along with subsisting mostly on raw liver and testicles, at least when reporters are around. Why? Because “Vegetables don’t have the raw material required to produce a healthy set of testicles,” he explained. His wife, who is a dentist, and their two apparently teenage boys (who sadly, are not named Walker and Texas Ranger) appear to be okay with all this. I will admit that if the photos in the story are not doctored, this family does in fact appear to have outstanding skin. You see a lot of their skin. Unfortunately, one thing that does not produce a healthy set of testicles is steroids, which the liver king himself did admit recently to be taking.

Trump withdrew U.S. troops from Somalia

One thing I am willing to give Donald Trump some credit for is trying to end U.S. involvement in foreign wars. He tried unsuccessfully to withdraw from Syria, and he set the Afghanistan withdrawal in motion although it later became a debacle. Add to that an actual successful withdrawal from Somalia. This is from Middle East Eye, a publication I was previously unfamiliar with.

President Donald Trump’s administration moved to withdraw all 700 American troops from Somalia in 2020, after a three-decade presence in the country.

Middle East Eye

This does not mean drone strikes on targets in Somalia ended. They continued, and they are continuing now. And the Biden administration is sending a small number of troops back to Somalia. Apparently this is legal (ish?) – the U.S. is there at the invitation of the Somali government to please by all means attack its enemies. And the domestic justification supposedly goes all the way back to Congress’s approval of the global war on terror after 9/11.

bouncing between layers of limits

This Asia Times article is dramatically titled The Renewable Energy Transition is Failing. This seems overly dramatic to me, but the point to me is that if we overcome one limit, in this case the atmospheric sink for carbon dioxide, we will encounter other limits. In this article, the author focuses on availability of raw materials like metals. If we overcome that limit, we may have an issue of sinks for these metals and other waste products produced. So we bounce back and forth between sources and sinks being the limiting factor.

cigarettes with 95% less nicotine

According to this (paywalled) Philadelphia Inquirer article, commercially produced cigarettes sold in Pennsylvania may soon be modified to be very low in nicotine. Now, who at this point is going to inhale cancer-causing smoke for no reason? I imagine a lot of people will quit, which is the point, and others will turn to the black market or other substances. There will be some irony if former cannabis dealers turn to black market cigarettes as the more profitable option.

I think cigarettes are dumb and I am against the health impacts, annoyance they cause for everyone around, and especially the disgusting trash they produce. But are we sure it is a good idea to criminalize a drug that has been legal and popular for centuries? What’s the enforcement plan for this?

what epidemiologists, virologists, and immunologists are doing

This STAT article surveys not what they recommend to others, but what they are actually doing. The sample size is 34, so I am not sure this qualifies as a scientific survey. But to summarize, they are ALL getting the bivalent booster. Almost all are wearing masks when they go shopping. Most are eating indoors and attending family gatherings, but they are testing first. Most are letting their children and grandchildren engage in more or less normal activities, but requiring or encouraging them to wear masks.

So, it seems at least this group of people with scientific/medical knowledge about Covid-19 are being more conservative than the public at large.

ESA getting serious about space-based solar

The idea of space-based solar has been around for awhile, but the European Space Agency appears to be getting more serious about it.

The Sun’s energy can be collected much more efficiently in space because there is neither night nor clouds. The idea has been around for more than 50 years, but it has been too difficult and too expensive to implement, until maybe now.

The game-changer has been the plummeting cost of launches, thanks to reusable rockets and other innovations developed by the private sector. But there have also been advances in robotic construction in space and the development of technology to wirelessly beam electricity from space to Earth.

BBC

Different sources say this could be commercially valuable in around a decade to maybe 2040. Even sooner with massive public investment, say companies who are hoping for massive public investment in their companies. Obvious Bond villain Elon Musk could not be reached for comment.

solar sidewalks

At first I thought this article was called Tampa tries sidewalk solar panels as backup power for traffic, but then I noticed it is just for traffic lights. This seems a bit underwhelming, but it’s something. Here in Philadelphia, the instant response to any idea involving sidewalks will be “yeah, but they’re private”. It’s a convenient excuse, just put the legal/financial responsibility for half the transportation system on the backs of private property owners and pretend that’s working. People can’t actually afford to maintain the sidewalks, and the government mostly doesn’t enforce the ordinance because that would be very bad politics. So aside from the occasional successful lawsuit, we get unmaintained sidewalks. So maybe if the sidewalks could generate a bit of revenue to help pay for their own maintenance, this could be a step forward. Just a thought – let the chorus of “yeah but” begin.

U.S. life span inequality

We hear a lot about health and life expectancy differences between ethnic groups and income levels in the U.S. This article shows those same numbers by county. Not too surprisingly, Appalachia and the southeast have some of the lowest average life expectancies. Heart disease and drug overdoses are major reasons why. The most shocking numbers though are from heavily Native American areas.

The article prescribes more exercise, healthier food, blood pressure and cholesterol control, and lower health care costs. Sounds good. In my opinion, high cost is certainly an issue, but it is really a proxy for access. We need a health care system that provides access to everyone, at least starting with basic preventive care. This is not particularly high tech. Let’s do it.