Waste in defense spending? Yeah, but there are also things like this:

[OldManC]

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/03/darpa-muscle-re.html

I marvel at the ingenuity and imagination of men (and women) who dare to attempt things like this:

The first phase of the Pentagon's plan to regrow soldiers' limbs is complete; scientists managed to turn human skin into the equivalent of a blastema — a mass of undifferentiated cells that can develop into new body parts. Now, researchers are on to phase two: turning that cellular glop into a square inch of honest-to-goodness muscle tissue.

It's a ways off yet, but still, this is amazing to me.

[uwe]

uh-oh ... Dr Curt Connors has been working on that for a while, but results have been less than heartening ...




I have my doubts this will ever work with mammals like us. If there wasn't something fundamental standing in the way, I don't think nature would have lost us the ability to regenrate limbs as we moved on from being reptiles to birds to mammals. In my evolutionist mind, of course. I don't so much doubt that you could grow an arm and transplant that for cosmetic use, I doubt you could make it work as a limb (like typing something or playing bass for that matter).

[lowend1]

>>Now, researchers are on to phase two: turning that cellular glop into a square inch of honest-to-goodness muscle tissue.<<

Note that it's a square inch of muscle tissue.

[uwe]

Yes, and progress on it seems to be only inching forward too! I guess you need to once again capture and abduct a few of our - metrically schooled - scientists to really move things along! 

[Pilgrim]

This is the kind of basic research that is extremely hard to get funded today...it's very expensive, and requires a long-term chain of research to make progress.  I hope they can keep making progress.

[Highlander]

Link it to a weapons programme and you'll have agencies falling over themselves to fund it...

[Pilgrim]

Link it to a weapons programme and you'll have agencies falling over themselves to fund it...

True, but that's an example of the challenge. (University hat ON...)

It's easier to get research funded when it can be predicted to generate a product or result that is marketable in the near future.  OTOH, when you are involved in exploring the building blocks of life and possibly helping to build the base of knowledge that will result in breakthroughs 10 years later, it's hard to get funding.  But that base research is what eventually leads to the BIG breakthroughs.

[eb2]

I think this - along with the regrowing of new cells in the dead "husks" of a human heart cellular structure - are amazing.  That and Claritin.  But it really takes the fun out of the 6 Million Dollar man thing.