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Important If True 39: Organoids and the Human Mini-Brains

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Important If True 39:

Important If True 39


Organoids and the Human Mini-Brains
Join us for a very special Important If True, as we celebrate the season by giving thanks. Thanks for treasured relics from childhoods long passed, for new creations from Boston Dynamics, and for the gift of humanity itself—at least for a little while longer. Along the way, we'll answer pressing questions, like: Is a clumsy and dubiously-sentient cube of metal your friend, your enemy, or a citizen of Saudi Arabia? Who will triumph in the inevitable conflict between backflipping robots and totally ripped biojackers? And if a podcaster falls in an empty forest, do their metrics reflect an uptick in engagement?

Discussed: Thanksgiving, how holidays are good but terrible, Jake's cursed Pizza Hut lamp, childhood arcade memories, trolling by eBay seller, Boston Dynamics robots SpotMini and Atlas, the slow-brewing robot revolution, Back at it Again at Krispy Kreme, Saudi Arabia granting citizenship to a robot, C-3PO's implied humanity relative to R2-D2, Rian Johnson (director of three upcoming Star Wars movies), Star Trek's Data being fitted with an emotion chip, Star Wars' R2-D2 being fitted with a speech chip, CRISPR-enabled genetic biohacking, totally ripped farm animals, injecting yourself to get totally ripped, the cyberpunkiest cyberpunk shit, Josiah Zayner, super-ripped biojacker CRISPR dudes, swiping CRISPR biojackers on Tinder, "Human Mini-Brains Growing Inside Rat Bodies Are Starting to Integrate," getting clever-girled by thirty ripped pigs, Warner Bros. Presents the Animal Farm Cinematic Universe, Planet of the Apes But Far Stupider Than Anything You Could Have Possibly Imagined, drugged out rat hippies with human brains, Organoids and the Human Mini-Brains (Executive Produced by Steven Spielberg), the ethics of growing mini-brains, an experience of self that only exists while podcasting, having no meaning except that which others see in you, Nick Breckon

Send us your questions at [email protected]. If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon.

Jake's Endorsement: The Good Place (Amazon, iTunes)

Nick's Endorsement: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (in theaters now)

Chris' Endorsement: Cheap reusable plastic food containers for leftovers, taking lunch to work, and so on

Additional music by: Ross Budgen

Sponsored by: Warby Parker prescription glasses home try-on, Grammarly grammar-advising browser extension

 

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Ripped cows, you say?

 

df6a88f706ce4ab8b9ae88aef2d85194--belgia

 

The Belgian Blue has a natural mutation in the myostatin gene which codes for the protein, myostatin ("myo" meaning muscle and "statin" meaning stop).[5] Myostatin is a protein that inhibits muscle development. This mutation also interferes with fat deposition, resulting in very lean meat.[5] The truncated myostatin gene is unable to function in its normal capacity, resulting in accelerated lean muscle growth. Muscle growth is due primarily to physiological changes in the animal's muscle cells (fibers) from hypertrophy to a hyperplasia mode of growth. This particular type of growth is seen early in the fetus of a pregnant dam, which results in a calf that is born with two times the number of muscle fibers at birth than a calf with no myostatin gene mutation.[5] In addition, a newborn double-muscled calf’s birth weight is significantly greater than that of a normal calf .[4]

 

Note: The guy that injected a CRISPR system into himself is likely trying to eliminate the myostatin gene in his cells. How effective it's going to be - unknown. Risk of increased chance for CRISPR hitting other genes and potentially causing cancer - unknown. Welcome to the new ripped brain organoid cyberage.

 

Here's a report of the myostatin gene mutation naturally arising in humans (jacked babies): http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa040933#iid=f01

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william_crispson.png.8a375ce27f2f79413d69db77c56c1d2e.png

 

I hope you will find a suitable telepresence robot for Nick, but remember that there are other options too, like growing a mini-Nick brain and integrating it into a rat body.

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Ah, from the comments it seems like they finally acknowledge the thing with Nick I've been asking about for weeks ever since Janel announced on Twitter that she was moving to Canada (I rightfully assumed Nick would be going with her)

 

I feel like ending the podcast because Nick is moving away would have been the old, boring, safe thing to do. Important If True is anything but old, boring, and safe! I say forge onwards! What's Sean Vanaman up to anyway? Maybe we're in a time loop and you have to bring Steve Gaynor in for a while, then Nick, then Sean, then Danielle, then Nick again, etc. Chris has to move back and forth across the country a few times.

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They're planning on trying remote setups for now. It sounds like Janel's gig is currently only expected to be six months, so hopefully it will just result in slightly off-rhythm casts for a while and then everything will be back to normal.

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I very much appreciate how Jake realised while talking about the Bee Movie that actually, Antz is the only bug movie that exists, but that he had the restraint to not say anything. 

 

E: oh, I’m an episode behind, this happened in 38. 

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The R2D2 thing makes me think of Blobermouth, the redubbed version of The Blob (1958), wherein the titular blob has an animated mouth and spouts Henny Youngman-style one-liners continuously. 

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I haven't finished listening to this podcast as I came to see the picture of the broken lamp.

 

Then I saw what was going on.

 

Goddamnit Nick.

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Ideally Nick is robot telepresence-d in for the video shoots. Or at least set up a tablet at Nick's head height for him to stream from. maybe attached to a mannequin (nice mask).

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if y'all don't end up feeling the telecom vibe, some guests might be nice. though i imagine it's probably hard to pitch someone to guest on a podcast about pulling in wandering thoughts about our slowly dying earth. (actually as i wrote this, Will Smith might be good at that.) anywho, i trust y'all to make something good.

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I was confused about the discussion of R2D2 not speaking English but then remembered that in America they bleeped out his hilariously over-the-top swearing to get a PG rating when they decided Star Wars should be a kids' movie. 

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I've been thinking about splicing together a Star Wars clip with the guys' impressions of R2D2 and C-3PO to actually swap their voices and finally actually did it.... Also uploaded to Google Drive here.

r2swap.mp4

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