O_o
Well Lewis, that was a deeply disturbin spin on what I think is probably a potentially very cool (and useful) technology.
I may not sleep well tonight. Carry on then...
Once again disregarding the warnings of science fiction, boffins in America are seeking to develop technology which will allow human parts to be frozen indefinitely in organ banks for use in on-demand transplants. “The goal is to make human cells survive on ice. Twenty-four hours on ice is pushing it and many people die …
"society's hunger for fresh organs becomes sufficiently powerful that black-market "organlegger" gangsters seize people off the street and break them up for parts"
We already have that. Kidnapping of people to be broken up for their organs has been going on for the last 30 years or so, with organs mostly going to the US due to many more people in need of an organ than those willing to donate, coupled with a lot of money to be made.
In fact I think this development will reduce the demand for black market organs. Currently if an organ doner dies they have about 2 days to find matches for all the organs or they go to waste. With this system we can store those organs for extended periods of time, thereby increasing the pool of available doner organs for everyone.
It would also allow for larger searches. No longer do you have to search only the local area/district/country but you can take your time and search worldwide, then organise shipping etc... without worrying whether the organ will still be usable by the time it arrives.
Both of these technologies have taken ridiculous amounts of time for people to start seriously investigating how to make them work for real
Some sort of viable whole body freezing and revival scheme would be an excellent way to cut the size of ships to Mars as well as reducing the number of transplant candidates who died because they literally ran out of time.
However stem cells should eliminate all rejection issues (and the lifetime supply of immunosuppressant drugs needed to support them).
'It would seem that the dark future postulated by Larry Niven among others, in which voters desperate to increase the organ supply (and thus their own longevity) begin to insist on the death penalty for even minor crimes, may be upon us.'
This could be a major benefit, there are certainly people who's best service to humanity would be to become organ doners, but my only worry is that I may accidently take a photo of a policeman.
But on a serious note, if this works, it is a major step forward for people needing transplants.
It would depend on how much genetic testing has been done on the Weta in the past, If the mapping and research is far enough behind they could spend 10 years just getting the basics down.. Fly's and Worms have been science fodder for years and it's probably much easier for them to "tinker" with the genetic sequences.
Anybody else here remember a piece posted on the Web about ten, fifteen years ago by a guy who used flies to power a small model airplane by first freezing the flies, gluing them to the wings of the model airplane and then, when the flies revived, presto! Instant model airplane engines!