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BioEdge: Dutch team creates 3D atlas of human embryo

BioEdge: Dutch team creates 3D atlas of human embryo
Bioedge

Dutch team creates 3D atlas of human embryo

by Michael Cook | 25 Nov 2016 |

Dutch anatomists have published an amazing 3D atlas of the human embryo. Their website offers 14 interactive three-dimensional models of human embryology and a database of 34 embryos spanning the first two months of human development. About 15,000 histological sections were analyzed by students under expert supervision, and about 150 organs and structures were identified and digitally labelled in each section. The labelled structures were then spatially reconstructed in such a way that the relation between the reconstruction and the original images was preserved.
The development of the human body is difficult to understand, they write in an article in Science about the project. “Textbooks on human development are often based on the works of early embryologists, some published more than 100 years ago. Because of the limited availability of human embryonic specimens, it is difficult or impossible to independently verify the information carried in these textbooks, or even to assess whether this information is derived from studies on human or animal models.”
You can download 3D images from the website of the atlas.

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/dutch-team-creates-3d-atlas-of-human-embryo/12101#sthash.FbVW6PKY.dpuf

There is quite a bit of literature in bioethics journals about the ethics of telling white lies to patients, especially with terminally ill patients. But a far more common ethical conundrum has been strangely neglected: whether children should be told the truth about Santa Claus. This, thankfully, has been remedied. Two psychologists have written an article in The Lancet Psychiatry arguing that children’s moral compass could be permanently deranged by the disappointment of learning that their parents have been telling them lies.

Kathy McKay, a clinical psychologist at the University of New England, Australia and a co-author, told The Guardian: “The Santa myth is such an involved lie, such a long-lasting one, between parents and children, that if a relationship is vulnerable, this may be the final straw. If parents can lie so convincingly and over such a long time, what else can they lie about?”

The psychologists follow in the footsteps of Richard Dawkins, who saw through the myth of Santa Claus at the tender age of 21 months. He told a conference in 2014: “Is it a good thing to go along with the fantasies of childhood, magical as they are? Or should we be fostering a spirit of scepticism? I think it's rather pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of the world which includes supernaturalism.”

We’d like to open up comments on BioEdge to a discussion of this issue.