Pea-sized brains? Incapable of thought? I thought those existed already. Particularly among those promoting nuclear power energy.
More seriously, the implications on the ethical level are considerable. But not in our society where values, when they exist at all, are subject to relativistic and utilitarian interpretation.
Miniature "human brains" have been grown in a lab in a feat scientists hope will
transform the understanding of neurological disorders.
The pea-sized structures reached the same level of development as in a
nine-week-old foetus, but are incapable of thought.
Scientists at Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of
Sciences have now reproduced some of the earliest stages of the organ's
development in the laboratory.
They used either embryonic stem cells or adult skin cells to produce the part of
an embryo that develops into the brain and spinal cord - the neuroectoderm.
The "mini-brains" have survived for nearly a year, but did not grow any larger.
There is no blood supply, just brain tissue, so nutrients and oxygen cannot
penetrate into the middle of the brain-like structure.
Read more - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23863544
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