Re: [HOE] device problems- cloning organic matter

["earthbinder" <earthbinder@ntlworld.com>]

> O.K., I was talking with the player today and he clarified that he wants
to
> clone organic matter, but he doesn't want to try to create LIVING organic
> matter.  I'd imagine the simplifies things a BIT, but probably not much.
Of
> course, he does want to be able to do things like clone missing body
parts,
> so I'd imagine he'd have to have Healing in twice- once to construct the
> cells and another to undo tissue necrosis to prepare for the grafting.

if he want to clone organic matter that's one thing
if he wants to clone living tissue that's another, tissue necrosis isn't the
problem beating the cell cycle/differentiation is. then grafting tissue onto
a patient would require at least five hours of surgery with someone at least
skill 6-8. then you get rejection problems. its not just a matter of finding
the same tissue but exposing it to the same antigen that the patient has.
yes you can clone the DNA but you cannot clone the "experience" that the
tissue has gone through. amputations that have been "lost" for more than
about a year undergo a closure/shutdown of arteries and nerves at the stump
this would make the reattachment of a cloned part even harder.

now even a machine capable of resurrection couldn't grant life to DEAD
organic tissue, I'm assuming that the golden hour is the deadlands limit for
unrecoverable cell death. you've got to understand how cells die, the tissue
can "die" but all the cells within may still function e.g. cancer, the
tissue can die from massive damage e.g. a stab wound to the heart, Toxic
effects e.g.cyanide interferes with energy production in the mitochondria,
or the cell can be infected from an outside source e.g. viral attack ->
lysis, with resurrection im assuming that the body is in good shape apart
from one or two organs that have taken massive damage and the body is
suffering from volemic shock (blood/fluid loss). all the machine does is
repair the damage whilst keeping oxygen to the brain and nervous organs
(spinal cord), then restarts the breathing and cardiovascular systems. hence
resurrection.

organic matter is easy to produce you just build a fermenter and start
growing bacteria,. they'll survive on almost anything with an energy
(carbon) source, heat light and water. im surprised that microbiologists
aren't more respected in the wasted west cos they are the people most likely
to make food from waste products. it might not be tasty but it the best
source of high quality protein and sugars. you can also produce drugs and
hormones by modifying the DNA of the bacteria (insertion of a gene to
produce the required compound, selective breeding of the organism to produce
higher quantities)

>If we borrow from The 6th Day, if your Junker could find a way to make
>"blanks" then he could separate the matter creation problem from the
genetic
>transfer problem.  "Blanks" being non-genetically-specific organic starting
>points -- the movie dealt with human cloning, so the blanks were humanoid,
>full grown
--start rant--
this part of the film really irritated me, you cant grow a "blank human" and
just add your DNA to it the only way to get a humanoid "blank" would be to
grow a 70kg mass of stem cells and then place organ specific and limb
specific dna into the requisite parts then expose it to the same
differentiation chemicals produced by the womb to organise locations (it
takes about 71/2 months for a growing ball of 30-100 cells the process would
take years for a 70kg mass), a much quicker method would be to take the DNA
at conception store it and then rapidly grow a new clone from Cleared (DNA
remove) foetal stem cells.
--End rant--

>Or for your player, a blank could be a large mass of stem cells.  But where
do you
>get those?  I have no idea
Getting hold of stem cells is easy, keeping them as stem cells or producing
them in the quantaties needed
isnt. the human foetus before the cells diferentiate (become specific for
organd etc) is just a mass of stem cells, at this point your probably
thinking back to biology and saying hang on dont we have stem cells in our
bone marrow and skin. the answer is Yes but they are specific for Blood cell
production and Keratinocyte (skin cell ) production respectivly.
i can just see the player wandering the west, approaching hospitals and
women asking for aborted foetuses so he can mass produce unmutated beef .

good lord another huge response must lie down (thats two in one week)
dom
Journeyman Librarian and Defender of Knowledge