Heart valves grown with stem cells

AlterNet
and
 Lindsay Beyerstein
November 16, 2006
DarkSyde spots a fascinating article about heart valves grown from amniotic stem cells.

Swiss researchers have perfected a technique for growing heart valves in the laboratory from stem cells in amniotic fluid (the fluid that surrounds a fetus during gestation).

They hope that it will one day be possible to detect a heart defect in utero, harvest some amniotic stem cells, grow a new heart valve during the pregnancy, and have a perfect tissue-matched valve ready to implant as soon as the baby is born.

Isn't that neat?

[DailyKos]
ACLU By ACLUSponsored

Google This: Algorithmic Oppression

Imagine you've forgotten once again the difference between a gorilla and a chimpanzee, so you do a quick Google image search of “gorilla." But instead of finding images of adorable animals, photos of a Black couple pop up.

Is this just a glitch in the algorithm? Or, is Google an ad company, not an information company, that's replicating the discrimination of the world it operates in? How can this discrimination be addressed and who is accountable for it?

“These platforms are encoded with racism," says UCLA professor and best-selling author of Algorithms of Oppression, Dr. Safiya Noble. “The logic is racist and sexist because it would allow for these kinds of false, misleading, kinds of results to come to the fore…There are unfortunately thousands of examples now of harm that comes from algorithmic discrimination."

On At Liberty this week, Dr. Noble joined us to discuss what she calls “algorithmic oppression," and what needs to be done to end this kind of bias and dismantle systemic racism in software, predictive analytics, search platforms, surveillance systems, and other technologies.

What you can do:
Take the pledge: Systemic Equality Agenda
Sign up