X-Message-Number: 10693
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 07:06:16 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #10688 - #10692

To Jan Coetzee: I'm glad that you are quoting sources now, because the
sources matter. For brain cells, these two scientists are only 2 among
those who have been working for some time in this area; nor did their
work require the discovery that brain cells can form in living human
brains. It's been known for some time that stem cells (from the 
lining of the ventricles of human and other mammalian brains) can be
induced to turn into neurons. Until the recent discovery, a substantial
number of neuroscientists believed that in a living adult human brain, these
cells only turned into glial cells.

Naturally I'm glad they're doing this work, and glad that it is
moving into clinical use, if only in Parkinsonism. Replacing those 
neurons involved in storage of our memories, however, will be a harder
task. Perhaps these methods can be suitably modified with a bit more
technology to do that, too. (I have a speculative article in PERIASTRON
on just this topic, but it only provides a sketch of a method and does
not claim to provide more).

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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