Success implanting lab-grown vaginal organs in women.

I wonder what this can mean for trans* bottom surgery. Amazing what it meant for those girls.

(My link, unlike tommy's, is safe for life)

Tech Time Warp of the Week: Watch Steve Ballmer’s Achingly Awkward Dr. Evil Parody

This is kinda' painful to watch. But at least it's short.

Steve Balmer as Dr. Evil and Bill Gates as Austin Powers. No, really. It was produced for an internal company meeting back in the late '90s or early 00's.

That's amazing, ita, about the lab-grown organs. I don't know how it would work for bottom surgery as for that it would necessarily be someone else's cells, and therefore prone to all the complications of transplant surgery. But amazing nonetheless.

I don't know how it would work for bottom surgery as for that it would necessarily be someone else's cells

If it requires differentiated cells, right? So the next step is to grow stem cells into vaginal cells.

But if you could get cootch cells from your mother or sister, that would be...well, weird, but still.

So the next step is to grow stem cells into vaginal cells.

That is not as implausible as it sounds at first, but I know so very little about the latest stem cell research. I do think the goal, not just in this case but for transplants generally, is finding ways to culture and grow needed organs from the patient's own cells.

I just got back from a haircut, where the stylist told me her sister just had a baby and wound up with a (white fonted for ick) hematoma of the labia. Apparently, it swelled up like a grapefruit .

I mean, since we're talking about vaginas.

Turner syndrome (X0) women have vaginas, so the information in a genetic male's cells should be sufficient without adding any new genes.

I don't know how it would work for bottom surgery as for that it would necessarily be someone else's cells, and therefore prone to all the complications of transplant surgery

Yeah, it was cellls grown on a scaffold--it wasn't specifically "vagina cells", so I don't see why it wouldn't work. Which would be pretty neat, though I don't know how well it would compare to what's already available. Or how much sensation is in those new parts (I mean, blood vessels go there but do nerves grow in? Seems like if they did it would take a long long while and maybe be uncomfortable)

Oh, for god's sake. I've just started my newest freelance gig (as in, started it today), and the managing editor sends me an email and says that he just saw the budget for their fiscal year that starts July 1, and they want to eliminate freelance positions and hire in-house people.

That blows. A lot. I mean, I appreciate him telling me about it (and he said that eliminating freelancers is something that was always suggested in the past, but never followed up on, so it's possible that they won't follow up on it again this year), but it still blows. Because I was counting on this as a regular gig. I realize jobs can end any time; I'm not stupid.

It's just very disheartening to find out the day I start this job that it's almost certainly ending in 3 months.

I am very discouraged right now.

Tep, is there any way for this to turn into good news (i.e. a full time job instead of freelancing)?

ION, Arthur C Clarke's 1964 vision of The Future.

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