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Comment by surgeryres | Hacker News Reader

To clear some confusion - they did not grow this lamb in the bag starting from conception.

The major limiting factor as to when it can be transferred to the bag is when the umbilical vessels are large enough to safely and efficiently cannulate. Oxygenation, nutrient delivery and waste removal are all done via the umbilical vessels through external devices.

The biggest road block in growing a baby in a bag fully ex utero would be the period before when the umbilical vessels are accessible. Before this time in utero, local mommy angiogenesis in the wall of the placenta serves the role of the umbilical vessels. Replicating this ex utero is a completely different problem.

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The placenta, however, would be a sweet target for 3D tissue scaffolding: grow the embyro on one plate and maternal on the other.

Yes, a different problem. But at the other end, it is already possible and even routine to raise fertilized ova into implantable embryos in vitro.

This new method however does fill a medical need, or at least shows the road to filling that need, meaning the problems of raising prematurely born infants.

Yes, but that does not require complicated structures like blood vessels. Embryos and ova are small enough to grow on cell culture in which diffusion is enough to provide oxygen and nutrients, with only the need to replace culture fluid every few days.

I imagine they will figure out ex-utero in a couple of decades. Our understanding of genetics will improve too.

I imagine an underground bunker somewhere growing babies in tiny pods in 1000's. Those babies are in pods until full adult hood and an artificial process is injecting memories and skills into the brains of this pod babies.

Bonus brownie points if there is a pod cluster on an alien space. A billion super humans that land on earth who were all manufactured in transport.

Do they treat humans like we treat cows pigs and chicken?

> A billion super humans that land on earth who were all manufactured in transport.

This is a common concept in space-faring science fiction. It's one of the few 'practical' methods of sending a species with a human life span far out into the universe; with an ark filled with genetic material.

Although most stories have the humans being manufactured in the good ole' fashioned way during transport, a few franchises (warhammer 40k, mobile suit gundam, certain entities in mass effect I think, halo to a certain extent, etc) speak of body-assembly-lines.

(and in the case of Halo or Warhammer40k, yes -- the clones are quite often treated as expendable cattle.)

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