Conference back40::soapbox

	Why yours raq............Total perfection. %^)

    
    
    i would love to have:
    
    	my eyes and hair (well, i have these already...so my peepers are
   	 keepers...)
     	crystal bernard's body (plus about 5 inches of height, all
         proportionate, of course...)
    
    then, i'd be a happy woman...

    
    
    teekma...i think you'd look pretty silly with a set of 40Ds...
    
    
    

    I'd be happy to have just a little less body, tyvm... otherwise, even
    though I _hardly_ hit the cosmic lottery, I'll just work with what
    I got and see how far it takes me...
    
    -b

	RE .3

	Maybe I'd look silly, but I'd be happy......%^)

Yep.  Mine minus 30-40 pounds.

    Reminds me of a Butthead and Beavis from a couple of nights ago
    
    "woooah! Look at those boobs".
    
    "Yeah! If I had boobs like that,i`d never leave the house"
    
    "yeah!yeah! Me too. Well,i`d leave the house to buy a mirror. Then
    I could look at my boobs all day".
    
    Er,anyway. Body wise,Bruce Lee would go down a treat. Plenty of
    perfectly contoured muscle. 
    

      I'm not into the musclebound look, but I like good muscle
      tone.  I remember a lot of years ago, I friend of mine had
      a full size poster of Mark Spitz with something like 6 or 7
      Olympic gold medals on.  He was definitely in good shape.
      I'd give mine for that one!!!
    
                                               Tony

	Well, if I had to trade my already perfectly toned body,

	Arnold Schwarzenager might be a small step up for me....%^)

    >Arnold Schwarzenager might be a small step up for me....%^)
    
    Hah! One _small step_ for man, one _giant leap_ for mankind...

>> Hah! One _small step_ for man, one _giant leap_ for mankind...

More like,  One _small step_ for man, one _giant leap_ for womankind...


	%^) %^)		<<----notice the smiles....

    If I could have anyone's body parts...  Off the wall, but it is Friday 
    and it *is* Raq...  Hmmm...  I would want
    Arnold's shoulders...
    Michael Bolton's hair...
    Mel Gibson's butt...
    Warren Beatty's fingertips...
    Michael Jordan's tongue...
    Randy Spears's... er... spear...
    Ross Perot's ears...
    And with the ransom I'd retire a happy man 8^)

    Seriously, I'd take Michael Jordan's legs, which would add a couple of
    inches and let me dominate the volleyball courts.  I'd wear long pants
    and no one would be the wiser.  That's all I want.

    GRAB MY HAND!

    HOLD ONTO IT!

    
    This isn't a variant of 'pull my finger...', is it?
    
    

    
    
    steve...you'd look pretty silly with michael bolton's hair... :> ;> :>
    
    

    
    WHAT hair?  The man's half bald.

    The other half, I would guess... :-)

    
    And the other half is thin and frizzy.

    
    Oh dear, that's not very valdiff of me, is it?

    GRAB MY HAND!

    
    Ooh, I'm holding hands with Glenn 8^).
    

    HOLD ONTO IT!

    
    
    deb, i told you....that's NOT his hand!!!
    
    

Michael Bolton looks pretty silly with Michael Bolton's hair

    i'm pretty ok with mine
    
    except i'd like a new right knee, right shoulder and right tricep all
    showing signs of wear and tear and not likely to get better
    
    sigh
    
    isn't aging a vicious thing

All these people wanting body parts from someone else. . . .

Dahmer's spirit lives on . . . 

    Was he trying to be a cut above the rest, or was he just looking for
    severance pay?

    
    I don't want any specific body; I'd just like one that looks better
    with clothes on.  I mean, you spend most of your life clothed; it's
    pretty useless to look better nekkid than clad unless you're a stripper
    or something.

    <- Ohhh, I dunno 'bout that... :-)

    re .31
    
    Don't stop now that was just getting interesting.

    
    Shut yer noise, you 8^).

    ok - tee hee

    I think it would just be easier if I could send my body out to
    One Hour Martinizing :-)
    
    

    I think it would take me at least three Martinis...
    
    -b

    re .36
    
    exsqueeze me !!!!!

Of mice and men: Researchers grow human ear on mouse


(c) 1995 Copyright The News and Observer Publishing Co.
(c) 1995 Associated Press

BOSTON (Oct 25, 1995 - 02:36 EDT) -- It sounds like
something from a carnival side show: "The Mouse With A
Human Ear On Its Back." But it's real. It's alive.

That mouse, and others of its kind, are at the leading edge of a
science known as tissue engineering, which allows laboratories
to grow skin and cartilage for transplant in humans.

The mouse in question, in the laboratory of University of
Massachusetts anesthesiologist Dr. Charles Vacanti, is
helping researchers refine the technology that someday will
allow them to regrow ears and noses for people.

Linda Griffith-Cima, an assistant professor of chemical
engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who
helped Vacanti grow the first ears on mice, said she did it at
the request of a plastic surgeon from Children's Hospital, Dr.
Joe Upton.

"He said, 'I see these kids who are born without ears. And I
have boys who come in whose ears have been chewed off in
playground fights, and I can't sew them back on because
they're so chewed up,"' Griffith-Cima said.

So she set about creating an ear-like scaffolding of porous,
biodegradable polyester fabric. Then she and Vacanti
distributed human cartilage cells throughout the form, and
implanted the prototype ear on the back of a hairless mouse.

The mouse, specially bred to lack an immune system that might
reject the human tissue, nourished the ear as the cartilage cells
grew to replace the fiber. The mouse remains healthy and alive
after the ear is removed, the researchers said.

"You end up with a piece of cartilage in the shape of an ear,"
Griffith-Cima said.

Griffith-Cima's and Vacanti's research follows in the
footsteps of Vacanti's older brother, Dr. Joseph Vacanti, a
surgeon who does liver transplants at Children's Hospital, and
his close friend Dr. Robert Langer, professor of chemical
engineering at MIT.

Twelve years ago, when Joseph Vacanti became head of the
hospital's transplant program, he started searching for ways to
grow new liver tissue in sick children instead of waiting for
donor organs. Too many of his patients died before they could
get transplants.

Now Joseph Vacanti can implant a polymer scaffolding in a
diseased rat's liver and transplant new liver cells. The new
liver will grow and function for up to six weeks, he said.

Langer, the Vicantis and other scientists now have managed to
grow liver, skin, cartilage, bone, ureters, heart valves, tendons,
intestines, blood vessels, and breast tissue on such polymers,
Langer said.

Although no such tissue products have yet become available to
the public, skin products are in the advanced stages of clinical
testing on humans, and heart valves are in the early phase of
clinical trials.

Someday, ears and noses will be grown in a test tube using the
patient's own cells on a custom-designed scaffold. Other
tissues will be grown from donated cells on polymer devices
placed in the patient's body.

"Some tissues, like cartilage, we can grow all the way to
perfect tissue before putting it in," Joseph Vacanti said. "In
other tissues, we only grow it for a short time, then we implant
it and the body takes over."

Dr. Michael Miller, an associate professor of plastic surgery at
the University of Texas' Anderson Cancer Center, said the
technology is promising.

"In fact, I think the next major advances to come in the field of
reconstructive surgery are going to be due to tissue
engineering," said Miller, who is working with Rice University
scientists trying to grow bone tissues in shapes that are useful
for plastic surgery.

The chemical engineers say their job now is to create better
polymers. It's one thing to grow cartilage that holds a shape for
cosmetic surgery, another to grow cartilage that could mend a
shattered knee, Griffith-Cima said.

Dr. Peter Theran, director of laboratory animal welfare for the
Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals, said he had not reviewed the Vacantis' research, but
was not opposed to it.

"Generally speaking, we support the use of tissue culture work
because often it means using fewer live animals" than other
procedures, such as transplanting animal organs into humans.



can penis enlargements be far behind?

    Well, I wouldn't want one there myself. More towards the front would be
    preferable, but to each his own I guess.

    Gee Glenn, you could be something out of Doctor Doolittle.  Sort of the
    soapbox equivalent of the pushme/pullyou, sort of, but not exaclty.  

    
    Sounds eerie to me.......

    Well, I can see this type of thing replacing tatoos etc. Ears on your
    legs, several extra penises scatterred around the body, belly noses.
    You watch, they'll do it.

    But, but, I don't want to watch.
    

    And, tongue in cheek will have a completely new meaning.

>> The mouse remains healthy and alive
>> after the ear is removed, the researchers said.
    
    Yes, but the mouse is depressed for weeks because he misses
    the ear.
    
    And how'd you like to be the mouse that grows a human penis?
    Talk about bragging rights with your fellow mice?  "Hey, Mickey,
    look what I've got now... you won't have Minnie for much longer."
    
    Then imagine how the poor mouse will feel when his endowment is
    removed for transplant to the lucky recipient.  "Hey, HEY!"
    
    Chris

<---too funny, Chris!

    friends, rodents, countrymen, lend me your ear(s)...

    
    <--- It was a right ear.  The mouse with the left ear was busy filing
         for benefits because of the ear-removeable harm done to it.
    

    We keep four mice as pets.  We are expecting to begin the
    human tissue production line quite soon.  We'll be starting
    with easy items, such as the eyelid.  The ear is far too
    complicated for beginners.
    

    That is good advice for someone who doesn't want to be drummed out of
    business.

If'n anybody out there in BOXland needs a leech, there's a company that
will sell some to you. 

Biopharm (USA) Ltd., of Charleston, SC, raises 'em up and keeps 'em in 
stock so they can be delivered fresh to your door or place of attachment.

Biopharm claims tht their saliva contains a range of pharmaceutical 
substances a veritable "reservoir of potential drugs".

They sell a book, _Those Amazing Leeches_, and are building what they 
claim is the world's firsted leech museum with featuring bloodletting
artifact of yore and a gift shop.

TTom

    
    	We've already got 1, and 1 is plenty, believe me!!
    

    .53
    
    Leeches are currently used in many of the most modern hospitals for the
    removal of blood from subcutaneous hematomas and other places where
    surgical techniques aren't appropriate or don't work very well.

    
    .54
    
    The difference is, these leeches can be good for your constitution.

    Oh, well struck!

monsewer walters.....very fuuny! :-)