Marshall Brain's Blog

The news today is that a team of doctors has grown an entire organ -- in this case, a human bladder -- using a patient's own cells implanted and cultured on a scaffold. Amazing stuff - here is one description of the breakthrough:

Children receive lab-grown bladders

My question is, can they now grow specialty bladders for the rest of us and solve a major problem for much of humanity?

This is not a delicate topic, but let me be as delicate as possible. Most of us need to empty our bladders at least two or three times a day. Many of us need to use the restroom far more often than that. So the question is: with this new breakthrough, can we all have two bladders? What about four? Or could we have supersized bladders installed that let us go for several days?

And if you can grow a bladder, can you not also grow a new large intestine as well? It is only a matter of time.

Think of the benefits. Instead of using the restroom two or three (or more) times a day, you could simply schedule a weekly bathroom break. Would we even need public restrooms anymore? How much money would that save? And on airplanes they could take out the restrooms and add two more rows of seats, reducing the cost of airline travel even further. This breakthrough really opens up a lot of possibilities.

Of course, it will be much easier to Discard our bodies...