Author Archives: Senior Researcher

EpiBone Company To Engineer Osteochondral Grafts – Research Breakthrough!

One of the readers of this website informed me about the progress of another company called EpiBone which has been involved in growing bones that can be implanted back into the body with a high chance of complete functionality.

At first when I looked over the website and what the company was claiming, it looked almost exactly like the Israeli Biomedical Company Bonus Biogroup which I had written a post about before (Here).

Again, the problem is not that bone grafts can’t be built from scratch. They can, and it is very easy. The problem is when you try to build a bone-cartilage structure which functions. Building a functional cartilage structure has always been the difficult part. Even harder is to grow or build a bone-to-cartilage structure which operate together as one.

I was just about to write off this company as another company which will not push further until I looked at the list of authors who wrote the original scientific paper “Engineering custom-designed osteochondral tissue grafts”

The first name that is associated with the paper is what got me excited. It is Warren Grayson!!

I had said before from many posts written back in 2013 and 2014 that Dr. Grayson’s research is one of the few that is really going to get us to a Limb Lengthening Alternative. If Dr. Grayson is associated with EpiBone, as say the lead Research Scientist, then I would suspect that we maybe 5 years ahead of schedule in getting the Tissue Engineering approach to be successful. Where as I had predicted as long as 20-30 years before, I have to reassess that time line down to even 15 years.

However, when you look at the team that is actually listed on the website only one name is also found associated with the paper, a Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic. A Sarindr Bhumiratana is the other name that is worth looking at since he seems to be an expert on tissue engineering. There was a similar paper written to a 2nd source “Engineering anatomically shaped human bone grafts”

This looks like the real deal guys. They know that growing bones to be implanted back into the body is easy, and already done by other research teams and companies around the world.

It comes down to whether they can put enough research, energy, and funding to get the Bone-Cartilage type of tissue graft to work out which is what is going to determine whether we will see something that is available for the regular patient/customer within the next 10-15 years.

Apparently there has been a lot of media and press surrounding this company with some big name newspapers and online content aggregators talking about this company up. Bloomberg, CNN, Forbes, The Guardian, etc. are all getting some information on this company.

Cross your fingers guys. I will be going to the Organ-On-A-Chip BioMedical Conference/ 3D Bioprinting Conference in Boston (on Beacon Hill) from July 7-9, and then write a long post to report back to you guys telling everything that I have gathered about the most cutting edge research that is coming out today from the labs of Universities. I will mention this company EpiBone to the professors there and see if they are also working on the same thing or have maybe even surpassed what we are seeing with this company. I need to remind the readers that I paid $1,700 of my own money to get into this conference, since I am this dedicated to the cause. When I say I am going to put my money in on this endeavor, I have.

Mesenchymal Stem CellsIn addition, I recently also purchased the book “Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Skeletal Regeneration” off of Amazon and plan to read up on it on the plane to make sure that my level of understanding of the tissue engineering techniques are at the level of the presenters and exhibitors at the Conference. I might even record the conversations I have to upload it to the website for all of you to hear.

PS: I will be posting up quite a few videos to the Natural Height Growth Youtube Channel over the next few months of videos mostly in Russian of height increasing programs. Some of them show Alexander Teyplyashin’s research, and even AS Palko’s School of Height program in action, as well as old interviews done in russian of people who went through with LLS.

Click Here to Subscribe to the Channel to see the recent uploads!

Why Short Men Complaining About Their Dating Life and Romantic Options Should Stop

I personally have not owned a working TV since I left for college many years ago so many of the cultural trends that has been happening in American society that is derived from TV is not well known to me. Some cultural fads like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones have become so big that it seems like everyone is talking about them and that is how I would ever get any type of incentive to want to learn more about the fads going on. (Side Note: It is interesting that GoT has made many people start to view little people in a much more positive, enpowering light from the brilliant performance by Peter Dinklage in the series. Since the sudden death of Jon Snow, it might be that Tyrion Lannister might be the protagonist of the series to root for to survive the longest)

Something that I only found out just a few days ago was this hit television show called Small People, Big World which has been airing for years on one of the major television networks. Originally, it was a show that showed the life, struggles, and challenges of this couple living in a farm in Oregon and raising their 4 kids.

The father suffered from disatrophic dysplasia while the mothered suffered from normal Achondroplasia. They were both a little over 4 feet tall. Out of their 4 children, only 1 of their children, their son Zach exhibited short stature. He has a brother who is also his twin, Jeremy.

While Jeremy grew normally to be around 6 feet in height, Zach was reported to have grown to a full height of 4′ 4″. So that is a very large difference in height.

I personally am not that big into drama, so here is what I can tell the reader. I watched the following episodes, Season 1 Episode 1, Season 1 Episode 2, and finally Season 9 Episode 1.

When you watch this show, you realize that at least in the very early in the series, Zach was very shy and reserved while Jeremy was more outgoing and assertive.

So I skipped maybe 100 episodes or more and did not watch along with the family’s development over the last 9 years. From watching the way the mother and the father talked and operated on a day to day level, you realize that they are a very average, well functioning family. The main difference between this rural family from most other “American” families is that the parents are much shorter than average. They have difficulty in doing many things we normal people take advantage of but that is about it

If anything, when you watch the way the children have developed through the years, which I did not since I skipped directly to Season 9, you realize that everyone is extremely well behaved and have a very functional family. There doesn’t seem to be any level of dysfunctional, at least in the few episodes I observed.

Like everyone, I googled more about what happened to the kids as they grew up, finished school, went to college, and then maybe found their spouses.

For Jeremy, a recent clip of him from Youtube (Available Here) reveals that he got married recently to his college girlfriend from Oregon State University. He turned into a very handsome, articulate, well adjusted man now who has a very high level of social intelligence and emotional intelligence. He apparently has his own pumpkin business. Being 6 feet tall (or almost 6 feet tall) probably did help in making sure that he did not develop any type of neurotic or psychological pathologies over his stature and height.  Of course, just from watching the 1st episode, I sort of guessed that he would turn out well and find a wonderful wife, which he did. She (Audrey Botti) turned out to be a OSU graduate who was captain of a sports team back in college and the way he talks about his new wife shows that she is a wonderful human being who has a level head who also has a high level of emotional intelligence.

For Zach, when I saw pictures of him which his fiance, I admit that I was a little taken aback. At some level I expected that maybe it would be harder for him to find a long term partner in life than his brother, or at least the time it would take to find someone would be a little longer. His engagement to a lovely girl named Torri Patton shows that his ability in finding a romantic partner does not seem to have been hindered by his short stature, at least for his individual case. Listening to him talk from just Season 9, after 8 years, you can see the changes and transformation in him. The way he conducts himself, the way he talks, the way he expresses his thoughts and opinions show that he has really come out of his shell, has become outgoing and clear, if not even charming in his own unique way. I can definitely see what his fiance sees in him. If I was a female around his age, I could see myself dating him, based on just the way he carries himself, and how emotional stable he is. For girls, maturity and emotional intelligence counts for a whole lot more than what men give credit for, since as men, we are extremely visual creatures so we put much more emphasize on the physical attributes than female. Just because we as men might have issue or problems with something, doesn’t men we should project our own fears and insecurities onto the females who we interact with. So far, I have not seen many negative comments against Zach for planning to marry his normal sized fiance.

Now, I didn’t look at Molly or the 4th child. I wanted to use Jeremy and Zach as the example, since twins are just almost the perfect type of subjects you want to use in a scientific study. 1 control and the variables that you change.

You see that in the end, both of these young men turned out well, finding a great girl to marry and hopefully spend the rest of their life with. Yes, Zach had to grow up with some big challenges being almost 2 feet shorter than his twin, but in the end both came out winners in my opinions. From my daily interactions with people, many of whom are 6 feet or taller, they were not so lucky in life. You see so many people who do not have the level of maturity or intelligence that these men have. That is what separates these young guys from the taller men you see in normal life who are not as successful. It has nothing to do with height.

I may be extrapolating this one example of twin height differences to generalize about all short men but at this point in my life, I think that I am mature enough to admit that being of short stature is not as big of a handicap as some men think it is, for dating or finding romantic partners. It really is not, unless you are severely short.

There are plenty of men who will complain again and again using references and instances that they remember from their life (or second hand accounts, and interactions) as validation to the idea that they have it harder in the world of dating and relationships.

However, at this point I believe that for 90% of the men who complain about their lack of dating success due mainly to their short stature, their situation (and dating success) can be changed based on a change of their level of emotional intelligence and their social intelligence.

If these men were truly socially intelligent, they would be able to recognize the types of people who are not good for them (ie who bring them down constantly) early on in their interaction and avoid them to not get trapped into negative thought patterns, (ie depression, self-doubt, spite). If these men were emotionally intelligent, they would have enough self-esteem and self-worth to realize that they are above all the drama that certain people get them into.

Then, we can look at the height issue from a society perspective. When you look at how many people have watched the show, and how much support the family gets from the viewers, you realize that most of the times, the viewers are actually rooting for the family to succeed and help out the family on the show because they have grown to love the family in their TV screen. For them, the factor of height has mostly disappears after maybe the first few seasons since the novelty runs out. Sometimes drama is created to highlight and focus on the uniquesness of the central characters on the TV show to keep the viewers hooked so they keep on watching.

We currently live in 2015, in the USA, which is probably the most culturally diverse and accepting of all the countries in the world. At an early age we ate taught by out Kindergarden teachers to be tolerant and accepting of people of all different types. Being prejudice against people because of their skin color and ethnic background is no longer accepted publically. As for the handicap, the old, the overweight, the ill, we are very aware that they are fellow humans just like us.

We as Americans realize at some level that we should treat each other with respect. For most of us, the younger generation today, we do judge each other on the strength of their character, and not on some physical trait which they were born with which they can’t change. I have seen a few times where a person of short stature was teased and someone did come quickly to their defense. The same can be true about other groups of people who have been made fun of. What kind of intelligent young person today would ever go up to a handicapped person and joke about their disability? If they did, it shows that they lack that social intelligence I am talking about. If fact, if we are to remember the recent movie that came out that detailed the struggles of the cosmologist Stephen Hawking (The Theory of Everything) who developed ALS beginning in his early 20s when he was at Cambridge, we can see that in today’s age, we actually put these people who go through suffering and challenges in high regards since it shows to use that they are of great courage and character, who has the will to overcome their obstables. How many people who walked out of the movie theater would be able to say that their perspective of the handicapped and disabled was as least just a little improved from watching the movie? I think a lot.

Here is the sword of discrimination which I will make very clear of the people who like to complain on those women who might still be prejudice and bias

  • The type of female who is willing or shows the tendency or susceptibility towards being bias and discriminating against and/or joke towards a male of short stature at some level does not have a high level of social intelligence and/or emotional intelligence.
  • The type of female who has the ability to look past physical attributes and make a judgement on a man based on his moral character has a higher level of social and emotional intelligence, on average. If you are looking for a long term, well adjusted, great quality girl for a long term relationship, these are the girls you want to be with since they have the correct mindset

It comes down to maturity level. Some girls are just more mature than others. Maturity is positively correlated to intelligence in general. The more intelligent a girl is, the more likely that she is mature as well.

If you looked through the profiles on Tinder today, if we could get the raw data of the females, and plotted their education level with their negative remarks of men of short stature, we would find some level of correlation showing that as the level of education obtained by a female increases, the less likely that she would make derogatory comments about a guy’s physical appearance.

When you see these reddit threads made by guys who keep on talking about The Red Pill philosophy, they often like to say that women finally give beta guys a chance in dating after they turn 30 and start to loose their looks and they are involuntarily no longer have the chance to be with the alpha male with the greatest of resources. Would I would rather propose as an alternative form of thinking is that maybe, just maybe, it took the females some extra number of years of life and experience for them to reach the level of intelligence their their fellow female peers reached years ago. The reason some women who in their 30s start to date the more stable, non-traditional men in their society may not be because they have lost their looks and can’t date the young reich guys anymore, but because they are finally have reached a mental and emotional state which they have matured to a certain level. Some women never leave that immaturity mindset because they were never pushed into a situation where they had to grow up fast, and still think when they are in their 40s that they deserve the 6′ 4″, fit, super millionaire who is Harvard educated and is a world class chef who can speak 3 languages. Become more mature also has a correlation to seeing the world for the way it really is, and acting accordingly to the way the world operates.

When you are raised in a good, well functioning, well adjusted family, on average you turn out well (from a society point of view) and have the socially accepted level of maturity. and social intelligence

The fact is, if a 4′ 4″ young man like Zach Roloff (who suffers from achondroplasia causing him to have a disproportionately large head and short limbs) can find a girl to be with, we as men who might be 5′ 6 or even 5′ 2″ should not be complaining. One of the very first posts I ever wrote for this website was for Sean Stephenson, who is a 3 feet tall guy in a wheelchair suffering from Osteogenesis Imperfecta. He was married to his long time girlfriend Mindie, who is also a lovely lady. Of course, they are indeed outliers and the exception not the rule for guys who are that short. However, they understood that they were severely handicapped but worked harder than other people.

If you really want to have an awesome life filled with real joy, you need to surround yourself with great people. When we get on these internet discussion board to complain and complain some more about how our life sucks because we were not so genetically lucky, our overall life does not get any better. Complaining does nothing except give a momentarily short bit of pleasure in being able to release all the negative energy that has build for a long time inside of us, that has been accumulating from years of anger, resentment, and spite that we did against ourselves. Of course, the moment we rant and write long posts, other people read it, and they also get angry from our release of negative energy. So it just makes things worst. Places like reddit/r/short are places people should avoid to not catch the negative energy or they just might find themselves sucked into this vortex of self-fulfilling, self-induced anger which they never learn how to let go. There are places, dark places on the internet where people go to talk, troll, and make negative comments to satisfy their dark indulgences. Unless these people are true sociopaths, they should never get sucked into that environment. If you keep on complaining, and going back to those websites, you will find that you are wasting precious moments of your life. When you complain, nothing gets accomplished, nobody does anything, and no one is proactive enough to take action to push forward. Complaining is easier.

I would assume that for the guy who is single and writes on internet boards, he would rather be outside and enjoying a nice day with his significant other instead of writing long pieces

Some people think that the correct way to change one’s life and get over the height issue is to lift weights to feel better and gain confidence in one’s body. I disagree on this advice since it doesn’t change the old patterns of brain activity. The brain like all systems will in a situation where stress is induced fall back to which brain circuitry or pattern which takes the least amount of energy, aka which is most familiar aka what is most comfortable. Exercise does not work the brain hard enough to change the old behavior.

It’s not even about lifting weight or dressing better, although exercising would cause the right chain of events which is also a positive feedback loop leading to a better life conditions. Exercising and/or lifting weights will not solve the issue for short men, although the initial rapid changes will give a tremendous boost of confidence that was probably never there before. Of course, eventually the exercising will plateau off, and the old mentality and mental patterns comes back, and the changes in the body from the exercise is no longer enough to push past the plateaus which inevitably arise since the body and brain will always adapt.

What the complainers really need to do is develop their social intelligence and emotional intelligence.

  • The most obvious way to develop emotional intelligence is to 1) practice gratitude and 2) give to others (ie help the homeless and the less fortunate) and 3) learn to detach one’s ego from the outcome of a process.
  • The most obvious way to develop social intelligence is to 1) join social events with groups which you normally would never go to and 2) find new friends who only give off positive energy and 3) just talk more.

When something stressful happens, the person will call upon the their new set of friends and the friends will make sure the person does not spiral back to old patterns of thinking.

Over time, the intelligence of the person increases until their maturity level increases. The fact is that once a person has reached a certain level of maturity, they will complain less since they understand that complaining is unproductive and does not improve their overall life quality in anyway, except to hold they in a limbo-state of perpetual circle of negative emotions.

Is The Real Height Requirement Of Men For Dutch Women In The Netherlands Now 6′ 3″ or 1.90 Meters Tall?

New evidence has come out suggesting that the real average height of ethnically pure Dutch men in the Netherlands may be as high as 1.92 Meters tall or 6′ 3.3″. This claim was something that I read from the book “The Tall Book” by Arriane Cohen. A claim like this is something that most people would write off as too incredible to believe, but I wanted to not just write off this claim completely. Anyone who has ever done a quick stroll through the streets of Holland or Friesland would reveal that the claim that 6′ 4″ is the average is not that farfetched.

First, we know that the Netherlands has a population of around 17 Million people, and the Ethnic makeup of the country shows that it is now a little less than 80% ethnically Dutch. In the Netherlands, there are large populations of Turkish, Albania, Arab, and North African communities. These immigrants usually come from poorer countries so the influx of immigrants has probably reduced the average height of the country to some level. How much? We take an educated guess

The last we checked, the average height of the Dutch, including the immigrant population was at 1.84 meters tall. So what would happen if the immigrant height factor was removed? We could make the arguement that the average height would get increased by 2-3 cms. A 1 cm increase would be too little since the non-dutch community makes up a very large part of the country, pushing the average height down. Anything over 4 cm would seem a little too large. It would be anything from 2-3 cms.

That means that if we were only looking at the pure ethnically Dutch males in the country, the real average height of the 18-30 year old group is more likely 1.87 meters tall.

Now, we have to remember that the Netherlands, like most other countries in the world is based on the Metric System. They use meters and centimeters, while the old British System which is used still be the UK, USA, and Australia uses feet and inches.

This means that sociologically speaking, if a native Dutch girl was to want a “tall” (relatively speaking) guy she would not say that the cut-off point is 1.80 meters tall, which is what the cutoff point is for most countries of the world, but say that the cutoff point is 1.90 meters tall.

In comparison, we can look at a country like South Korea, which a population of around 50 Million people. While the Wikipedia article says that the average height of men in South Korea is 1.74 m, a new study I found shows that the real average height is actually 1.75 meters tall (or 5′ 9″). Within this culture, the majority of girls prefer to date taller men, and since they are based on the metric system, there is a social rule that a man needs to be 1.80 meters tall (or 5′ 10.5″) to be considered dateable in certain girls’ eyes. And that is just the socially accepted cut-off point for the more superficial girls. To be considered “tall” in the Korean society, you are supposed to be at least 1.82 meters (5′ 11.60″). (Similarly, in the USA where the average height is believed to be 5′ 9.5″, the social rule of what is considered a “good” height for guys is 6′ 0″. The difference is 6. 35 cms.)

Notice that the difference in average height of men and what is considered tall is around 6-7 cms.

If we use this 7 cm rule and translate it to the dutch population, to be considered “tall” in this culture you would need to be 1.87 + 7 = 1.94 meters tall or 6′ 4.4″. Of course, there is no set requirement that a male needs to hit that “tall” category to be considered socially acceptable in height to be dateable for the majority of women in his group.

If South Korea could be used as an example, a 5 cm difference is what is required from average height. So for the Netherlands, 187+5 = 1.92 meters tall is the real cutoff point for young men these days.

Of course then you have to take consideration the non-ethnic dutch people/immigrants, so factoring that in, the height requirement gets reduced by 2 cm to just 1.90 meters tall. They would round down and say that they want a boyfriend to be at least 1.90 meters. To actually hit the right mark within only the dutch ethnic community, it would be probably closer to 1.93 meters or 6’4″.

To validate this idea even more, it was discovered recently that the real height of ethnically Dutch females is around 5′ 8.5″. On average we have found that the difference in height of men and women in a society is actually 5.5 Inches. This would suggest that the real average height of Dutch men is around 6′ 2″ or 1.88 meters tall.

So it would not seem that big of a stretch to ask that one’s boyfriend be just 2-3 cm taller than the average, at 1.90 meters.

For any people from the Netherlands, is this claim I made validate? Do your own life experiences, and casual observations agree with my claim?

What trait in women would be considered as universally unattractive as short stature in men?

For the longest time, men have tried to use the analog “Short is to Men” as “Overweight is to Women”. So Short:Men::Overweight:Women.

The usual rebuttal that men like to use when they meet a women who judges them based on height is to try to flip the situation back at the women and use the weight of the women as the response. However, I have found that the response is inaccurate, if not downright wrong. It is not weight for women. It is something else.

The real factor that men should be using as a response has been a factor of the human experience which is no longer allowed in American society (or most other developed Western nations today). If you use the real, most accurate response back at a women, people would be calling the guy a bigot.

When it comes to the issue of dating and relationship, men can complain that being short is bad towards their romantic life but what these men have been using as the female analog is incorrect. We’ve got it wrong. The analog for women is not weight (ala overweight means unattractive), but skin color. For most of the cultures and societies throughout history, the men have traditionally favored the lighter skin girls over the darker skin ones. Read Peter Frost’s book “Fair Women, Dark Men” and you would see that anthropologists have shown that nearly all (or maybe most) cultures prized light skin color, at least for the women (Refer to the claim by University of Washington sociologist Pierre L. van den Berghe). Remember that even in our language for old stories that are imprinted onto our culture’s psyche from passed down from history, we use terms like “fair princess” and “tall, dark, handsome”. These terms are used over and over again. But why?

Anthropologically speaking, the light skin color of men does not seem to have any positive correlation to how attractive they are. For men, our skin color does not determine how attractive we are, even though some men in some cultures (Indian for example) both the men and women want their skin to be lighter. Whereas Indian women use the cream Fair and Lovely, Indian men use the cream Fair and Handsome. The opposite is true too for men at least. In some cultures, it is more attractive if the men have darker skin (ie. Krishna from Indian mythology). Yes, the

For more examples, let’s go to South America and look at the natives before the Europeans ever set foot onto that continent. Look up the Chachapoyas people, who were overtaken by the Incans right before Pizzaro and the other Spaniards arrived. Before the Europeans ever came along, the native Incans still prized the women of Chachapoyas (cloud people) as being fair skinned and extraordinarily beautiful. Examples like these go against the old claim made by so many people in the modern era who think that European domination, imperialism and cultural influence for the last half 1000 years is why non-western/european nations and societies seem to want to have lighter skin, because they want to look more like their masters, the Europeans. This old theory has been disproved.

Before the Chinese ever met the Europeans who used force to destroy the old way of life, the Chinese culture prized light skin. The rulers of the land, like the Sultans and Shahs of Ancient Persia (Sassanid Empire) had harems, so they were able to choose the most beautiful young females in the land to have as concubines. These rulers would choose sisters who had slightly lighter skin than the dark skinned ones. These concubines would stay in the castles and never need to be in the fields growing and planting. They in turn became more and more white. The ones who did not get chosen to be in the castle had no choice but be a commoner, working the fields, and getting their skin turned darker from the sun over the years.

Side note: The old idea that East Asian societies (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese) developed this preference for lighter skin girls because in the old days, traditionally, the light skin was associated with upper class people not in the fields, and the darker skin was associated with lower class people who did work in the fields, is actually wrong. People have got it backwards. The society did not develop the preference for light skin as a result of the social association of light skin with high class. The truth is revealed to be the reverse. The social association of light skin with high class is from the result of the preference for light skin.

Just like the South Asians and East Asian cultures, The Arabs and Iranians are also not trying to emulate the physical features of the Europeans because of their influence. It seems that for the longest time, they have always prized women to have fair skin, blonde hair, and green/blue eyes. The area that the Arab empire tried to slaves from the most was always from the Northern lands. Look up the Arab slave trade which has been going on since the time before the beginning of Islam, and you would find examples of how female slaves from Europe who had fair skin, green eyes, and blonde hair would always fetch the highest price in the markets.

The Arab culture, the Indian culture, Iranian Culture, African America culture, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Mexican, Hispanic, Brazilian, Chilean – In every single one of these cultures, people of lighter skin are on average considered more attractive than people with darker skin. India has Fair and Lovely. Korea has BB Cream. It is a global phenomena. If anything, if the American/Western/Australian culture had any type of real influence in changing the way the local Indians/Chinese/Iranians/Mexican/Filipino culture really thought about what would be considered attractive, these non-western nations would have gone with the standard, which is that darker tan-colored skin would be more attractive. However, that hasn’t happened. The people in the USA thinks darker skin is more beautiful. The people in India think lighter skin is more beautiful.

It seems to be only the USA (and maybe the UK, Canada, and the Australia) who have gone against the grain on this cultural preference for lighter skin. The change in thinking started back in the 1920s when Coco Chanel got sun burned while being in the sun in the French Riviera. After she came back, her fans loved her new skin color and that was how the Tan Craze started. Before the 1920s, American and British women wanted to be paler and whiter, like all the other cultures in the world. If you have watched any movies or tv about the british (or american) aristocracy from the 18th century, you would remember that they would put white powder on their face to whiten their faces, men and women. This is exactly the same thing that women in every other major culture in the modern age does.

Scientifically It turns out that the females on average have less melanin on the surface of their skin so they are usually lighter than their male counterparts.

At this point, I think we need to just admit to ourselves that for most cultures, being fair skinned colored as a women and being tall for a guy are what is considered attractive. From this point on, it is probably better to use the skin color factor for women when we are going to use the height factor for men as a way of comparing.

Of course, we know that in the modern american society, it is not politically correct to show discrimination towards people based on their skin color, even if it is a few shades too light or dark. Then again, we can look at the ethnic groups in our own society. Ask a good percentage of African American men and they would say that they prefer girls who have lighter skin than darker skin. Certain African American music performers have even gotten in trouble for stating their preference for women of lighter skin blatantly on radio, tv, or in interviews. (Neyo). The angry darker skinned african american girl might take extreme offense to this claim, and her self worth will come into question. How dare a fellow brother say that she is not beautiful, based on something that she can not control no less. Of course, we can show that this slip of the tongue by one young black guy is not a one time thing.

Doesn’t it seem interesting that the two “black” actresses that American pop culture consider to be “beautiful”, Halle Berry, and Beyonce Knowles, both have extremely light skin color{Tyler-Confounding variables: Both are bustier than normal and it’s very rare to find a completely black individual.  There’s a smaller pool to get attractive people from.  You’re more likely to find an attractive lighter black person than a pure dark black person due to numbers}? Ask most indian/chinese/russian immigrants who hasn’t adjusted to the racial sensitivity of America and don’t know how to be politically correct and they would claim that these “black” girls are mixed blood, explaining why they have such light skin color, and why they are more attractive than what they imagined in their own head of “american black girls” before they came to the US.

After centuries of battling the stigma associated with dark skin color, the American culture has managed to make progress on the issue of skin color. As for physical stature, there has not been as much. You are no longer allowed to make jokes of another person based on their race or skin color, but you can skin tease, harass, and joke another person based on their physical stature.

The question would be, can we change over time the cultural belief in a society’s belief system that tall men are more attractive then short men? I think we can implement rules to repress that subconscious biases from being so overt, but in the end, our real biases will come out.

To go against these biological ingrained biases is to fight against what is based on the rules of nature.

Israeli Biomedical Company Bonus Biogroup Develops Functional Bone Implants

One of the few regular readers of the website Mika recently sent a message to the website email (naturalheightgrowth@gmail.com) showing me something which did peak my interest. It seems this Israeli Biomedical Company Bonus Biogroup has gotten the bone implant part down using the 3D Bioprinting technology. Refer to the powerpoint pdf in the link http://mayafiles.tase.co.il/RPdf/854001-855000/P854997-00.pdf.

However,we have already seen maybe a dozen other companies who have been working on and gotten the functional bone tissue implantation to work out. Bone tissue implants using a stem cell into scaffold matrix model based on the standard tissue engineering process is very straight forward. I know at least 3 different university teams that have already gotten that to work.

What makes this group on Israel very interesting is that they are using 3D Printers to build the scaffold, but also plan to try to build cartilage-bone combination tissues in the future.

Mika tells me that the CEO, this Dr. Shai Meretzki, has proposed the idea of using these bone implants to help dwarves grow taller. I have not found that link or reference yet. However I did find this single passage from the following source (https://anneinpt.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/good-news-friday-90/)

Grows like any other part of the body

“This is a better solution for the body than plastic or metal pieces,” Meretzki claims. These bones are “active live bones that can grow; remodel and change as your body does.” Even with young children, when the bone graft is surgically inserted, the new addition adjusts and grows like any other part of the body.

This suggests that the bones when put into young children with functional growth plates, the bones can elongate or grow longitudinally (interstitially) along with the other part of the bone. Now, does this mean that this company already has got the Bone-Cartilage Combo working already?

No.

What the passage is really saying is that the person still needs to have the functional growth plate cartilage in their damaged bone. The tissue implant is still only a scaffold for bone tissue, not cartilage tissue.

He still has not gotten the bone-cartilage interface to be perfected yet. What he has perfected is the bone tissue growing part. For a better explanation of the process, refer to http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2014/02/20/dr-shai-meretzki-grows-new-bones-from-patients-fat/.

He still needs a functional epiphyseal cartilage tissue with the reserve zone area to get the bone to grow on. Bone is bone. He has only been able to get the bone implants to work.

This is the next step, to get the bone-cartilage combo to be functional, which is really tricky. refer to the passage below….

“Currently,” Meretzki tells NoCamels, “we are growing bone and cartilage but we’re working on a system that combines the property of both bone and cartilage.” Hoping to break into the field of healing joints, which is more complex has it includes cartilage. “It’s an extremely desperate and vast market with a limited solution,” says Meretzki.”

The CEO of this company would like to get the tissue combination to be functional though. If he does manage to accomplish that, he will have touched closer to the holy grail of what I have been proposing for the last 2 years. Even then, he would still need to account for the reserve zone of MSCs and the perfect growth stimulation factor combo.

To listen to a talk by the CEO, refer to this vimeo – https://vimeo.com/64006097

 

3D Printing New Functional Epiphyseal Growth Plates Cartilage – Major Updates

I have not written a major post in maybe 4 months and the reasons are personal. However, what I will write will be major updates to our research.

In the last month, I was able to get new information on where the cutting edge of printing is actually at.

Here is what I have found. When I attended a 3D Printing Expo last year, I talked to multiple companies and all of them said that the their current 3D Printings can NOT be used to print human tissue. Almost all the printers could only handle ABS or PLA.

There was only maybe 1 or 2 hints that some company was out there making human tissue that can be implanted back in the body, and work en vivo. The main company that was mentioned was Organovo. I have been aware of Organovo for a while now.

The stories you hear about the biomedical team in Wake Forest University who printed out the ears show that the academic researchers are still being very cautious. However, I think we know that there is a much bigger potential here.

I recently came across this company based in China called Qingdao Unique Group, website www.sinounic.com who have one type of 3D Printer which has been purposely designed to print human tissue, layer by layer.

Now, they have purposely have said that their current model is to print out the tough, non-living organic scaffold, with injectors which add cells into the porous scaffold structure, which eventually overtakes the non-living scaffold. However, I can see that it has much more possibilites.

I managed to get a quote on one model that they are selling which is for $60,000 for one unit. I am not sure if that includes also the modifications that I asked for.

They will be attending this conference in Boston at the Wyndam, Beacon Hill from Jul 8-9 called the Organ-On-A-Chip World Conference & 3D Printing held by SelectBio. I plan to attend that conference and see just how far the various groups of biomedical researches in the universities around the world have actually gotten. The cost for a non-student from industry is about $1,300 just for a ticket but for a student it is only $300.

I am hoping that Dr. Robert T. Ballock, Jean Welter of Case Western University, and Warren Grayson at Johns Hopkins are able to attend something like this.

From a completely technical perspective, 3D Printing cartilage and bone is probably the easiest of all of the human tissues to print out and get correct. The application of Bio-printers to create functional growth plates just seems so obvious and easy.