The Artificial Womb Is Born (1996) | Hacker News Reader

The Artificial Womb Is Born (1996)

nytimes.com

This article is a flat out copy paste of the original New York Times article.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/29/magazine/the-artificial-wo...

edit: An article from 1996, I might add.

Updated the submission with year. Can't change url!

The entire post seems to be a copy of the source from NYT in 1996. I wonder what advances have been done in this field from that date to now? Not much on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_uterus)

Entirely different - but the first successful uterus transplant recently occurred. Unfortunately, she lost the baby at 8 weeks.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/12/worlds-first-successfu...

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/womb-transplant-patien...

'The World of the Matrix' involves a lot more than artificial wombs.

Regardless, it is nice that one day, hopefully soon, men will be able to start their own (biological) families - just as women are able today.

Huh? How do women start their own "biological" families today? I guess you mean genetic?

If so, no women can't do that today, and artificial gestation alone won't allow men to do it . Women still require a sperm donor, and (with artificial gestation) men would need an egg donor.

Regardless, I agree that within our lives people will be able to start their own "biological" families as most of the barriers are just engineering barriers.

Yes I mean with donor sperm.

But then men can do the same thing today .. with a donor placenta (surrogate mother) & a donor egg.

Artificial placentas alone change nothing for men who want their own children, other than potential cost savings.

Using a surrogate mother puts you at the mercy of her whim. She may decide to keep the baby, thus forcing you to pay massive child support. For wealthy men this is extraordinarily risky.

I'm not sure why this article has been published in 2013; it seems to stem from the late 1990s, with it's speculation on the widespread use of technology 'by 2000':

"I wouldn’t want to push back the gestational age limit,” Shaffer says. ”I want to eliminate the damage.” He says he believes that this technology may become the standard. By the year 2000, these techniques may be available in large centers"

Picking one of the researchers named in the project (Yoshinori Kuwabara) suggests that the article originates somewhere between 1997 and 2000.

http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/olc_linkedcontent/bioethic...

- describes his artificial womb technology from 1997 - published in 2000 but indicates that the researcher has died

This is also from Kuwabara (1987): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3619696

And some follow up research I think:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3054922/

It's a copy paste from the New York Times website.

Not sure what's going on with the title, but the matrix was released in 1999

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/

so I'm not sure just how an article from 1996 could reference the movie.

I guess I'm being too pedantic here:)

The linked article was published last year, although the entire article body is copied from a 1996 NYT article titled "The Artificial Womb Is Born". Case closed...

This appears to be an example of the magic of plagiarism.

Anyone has any idea about how far this research is nowadays?

The applications could be life saving beyond neonatology:

- Pregnant women being diagnosed with illness that would threaten the baby.

- Pregnant women being diagnosed with illness for which the cure would threaten the baby.

- Pregnant women in very serious accidents (mother dying, such a device could save the baby).

- Infertile couples not wanting to use a surrogate mother.

- Like "alexeisadeski3" said, gay couples wanting to have a baby (but then, which one gets to be the biological father?).

In the crazy science department, this would render the cloning of extinct species more viable. Unfortunately, it could also reduce the hurdles to create genetically modified beings.

What's wrong with creating genetically modified beings? Some of my genes blow and I don't want to pass those on children.

I can see this happening one day. Hopefully it will be a way for otherwise-aborted foetuses to be routed to appreciative infertile couples.

More like the last episode of the 1988 TV show Max Headroom, “Baby Grobags”.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com