Scientists said Tuesday that they had devised a way to grow large quantities of blood in the lab using human embryonic stem cells, potentially making blood drives a thing of the past.

But experts cautioned that although it represented a significant technical advance, the new approach required several key improvements before it could be considered a realistic alternative to donor blood.

The research team outlined a four-step process for turning embryonic stem cells into red blood cells capable of carrying as much oxygen as normal blood. The procedure was published online by the journal Blood.

Researchers produce blood in lab from stem cells – Los Angeles Times.

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I love that the journal is just called Blood.

But yes, you read that right. We can now make blood. This is the amazing thing about embryonic stem cells, if you feed them right they can become an entire person. It happens everyday, quite naturally, now we are learning how to guide the process.

Oh, and for those of you that think these cells come from aborted abortions, they don’t. We fertilize more than 10x the number of eggs needed for all in utero attachment operations and freezing stuff and selling eggs on the market, etc. It doesn’t take much to get some stem cells together, curiously enough. Most women have millions of eggs and most men produce millions of sperm…per day. There’s a reason our species came to dominate this planet and our incredible reproductive adaptability is a big part of that.

There is not a shortage of humans or stem cells and creating a false one is killing fully formed people with families, experience and knowledge, the last two of which are unique. Think about that for a second. I keep hearing from these boomers opine that life begins at 50, which is to say nothing of conception.

Regardless of that debate, this is cool for two other reasone. One is a new HBO show about Vampires, based on this very technological development.

The other cool part is how it illustrates the kind of change in political environment we need to keep pace with the change in technological environment.

Think about it for a second…all our soldiers, all our gunshots victims (gooo 2nd!!), all our stabbing victims, all our emergency room patients, all our living, breathing, people, will have the blood they need. Good, clean, blood. No infections, no, “Umm, sorry we saved your life by gave you Hep C” conversations.

This is the future that is possible.

But not with McCain/Palin, as they and their Supreme Court choices, will outlaw any form of public or private research. It seems weird to look at it like that, and I may even be accused of politicizing science with pointing it out. But fuck that, making something legal isn’t involving politics, it’s involving freedom. Making some illegal takes politics. And government.

We are naturally free, it take government to kill that.

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(And sometimes it helps make our freedoms worthwhile in the form of hospitals and stuff like that…which having lots of clean blood available would make cheaper and more effective)