it's all linked

this morning, reading the news online, i was paying special attention to any stories regarding these conjoined twins. it's an amazing story- what's also incredible is that the hospital and the doctors have all waived the costs. the cost of this surgery is huge, but it's as though the hospital and the doctors are doing it in the name of science and not for profit. looking at it like that, i began to notice that there are a lot of completely amazing things going on right now- i usually read the news and feel a bit anxious at the downhill trend- reading the news doesn't usually amaze me.

anyway there is so much in the paper today regarding the field of medicine; they have a new gene therapy for muscular dystrophy which can actually prevent muscle degeneration:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=422342

they hope to use stem cells to give paralyzed people a chance to walk again:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=421168

they hope to grow human eggs from skin cells. they are researching womb transplants that can make it possible for a woman to have transplanted within her body the very womb in which she herself developed:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=422088

i can't even imagine. who are these "they" who are doing these incredible things? like the doctors performing this separation surgery on the conjoined twins, they are crusaders, in a way. they are dreaming up seemingly impossible solutions to problems long-believed to be simple and unchanging facts of life. i feel like at some future point in the human story anything that goes wrong will be instantly fixed.

but while i understand that were i to need a womb or stem cell transplant, i would become very interested in the current research, i can't help but feel that it's somewhat freaky, being able to do things like transplanting wombs and things- i know organ transplantation is completely accepted by society today and that at this rate, it will be perfectly ordinary in the near-future to design your children and give your uterus to your infertile granddaughter. but i am still shocked.

human beings are more than just the sum of their parts, and being able to do these kinds of things seems irreverant to me. would i sing a different tune if i needed something like this? yeah, probably. but then my opinion would be totally subjective and i would grab at anything that would solve my problem, like any other human being. but without any personal interest in the goings-on, my perspective is as objective as it is going to get. and i'm disturbed as much as i'm awed by how much power we humans seem to be gaining over nature/fate/life. i'm not taking an extreme position here- i'm not even sure i'm taking a position at all, but the way medicine is going, the mystery of life is all but solved.