Creepy Science: Wedding Rings Made From Your Own Bone (with some musings about corpses)

Scientists can now take bone cells from an extracted wisdom tooth, grow them on a scaffold in a lab and form new bone. Great breakthrough for medicine, right?

But...they are quick to use the idea in a rather odd way. Some couples are having their own bone cells grown in the shape of a wedding ring so they can exchange rings made of their own bone at their weddings. From BBC News:

Scientists obtain bone cells from wisdom teeth and then grow them on a "scaffold" material in the lab.

The efforts are part of a collaboration between scientists and artists aiming to learn how to craft complex shapes from bone tissue.

Examples are to go on display at an exhibition at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London.

Harriet Harriss and Matt Harrison, one of five couples involved in the project, have just been presented with their rings made from their bone cells.

Not sure what I think of that. Maybe I am just a traditionalist, but gold seems fine to me. (Mine happens to be three kinds of gold layered using a similar technique that samurai sword makers use to make swords, made by a Greek artisan).

Later in the article they actually get to some real science:

Eventually, the technique could be used to grow large bits of bone for people with cancer or who need bone replacements.

"This will improve the welfare of the patient as you won't need to harvest bone from elsewhere in the body," explained Dr Ian Thompson, a research fellow in oral and maxillofacial surgery at King's College who is the scientist on the project.

"So if you have damaged a part of your jaw, you won't need to take a piece of the rib or somewhere else in the body to replace that bit of damaged bone we would simply grow that new piece in the laboratory and then implant it."

Dr Thompson says he thinks it will be used in clinical practice, but not in his lifetime.

My wife points out that there is now a technique to use high pressure to actually turn a corpse (presumably after creamation to ash) into diamond. So, you could have yourself as a diamond set into a ring made of your own bone...very strange!

As an aside, there are two other new ways you can have your corpse disposed of: you can have your DNA incoporated into the genome of a tree which can then be grown, perpetuating your genes. You can also have your corpse composted. So, if you have your DNA incorporated into a tree, your composted body can be used to nourish it.

Ah, the modern world.

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