Brain cells on demand

Regenerative medicine scientists at the University of Florida's McKnight Brain Institute have created a system in rodent models that for the first time duplicates neurogenesis -- the process of generating new brain cells -- in a dish.

Writing in today's (June 13) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers describe a cell culture method that holds the promise of producing a limitless supply of a person's own brain cells to potentially heal disorders such as Parkinson's disease or epilepsy.

I love the was diseases are the first thing mentioned for such applications. I personally find the potential affects on society once intelligence can be increased without consequences to be more important. Unfortunately, like anti-aging, there is a certain societal aversion to playing god like this. FuturePundit often comments on the potentially huge positive effect an increase in average intelligence of even a minority of a population can have on GDP.

It would also be interesting to see what affect this has on growing wetware interfaces to computers.