Tag Archives: Stem Cell

News

Scientists create sperm and eggs from embryonic stem cells

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Story from the UK Daily Mail. (H//T ECM)

Excerpt:

Scientists at Stanford University in California found the right cocktail of chemicals and vitamins to coax the cells into becoming eggs and sperm.

[…]It paves the way for a cure for infertility and could help those left sterile by cancer treatment to have children who are biologically their own.

But it raises a number of moral and ethical concerns. These include the possibility of children being born through entirely artificial means, and men and women being sidelined from the process of making babies.

Opponents argue that it is wrong to meddle with the building blocks of life and warn that the advances taking place to tackle infertility risk distorting and damaging relations between family members.

Children need a stable environment with both a mother and a father in order to be happy and well-adjusted. Right now we are already in the middle of a crisis such that newborn children are not being raised by their biological mothers and fathers. This is become worse as single motherhood, same-sex marriage, cohabitation and unilateral divorce become mainstream. Are children becoming nothing more than a consumer good?

The general trend is for the selfish needs of adults to trump the needs of the children. This is to say nothing of abortion and embryonic stem cell research, in which the selfish-needs of adults result in the actual murder of children so that the more powerful adults be happier. This is, I think, a consequence of the decline of the Christian worldview ( humans relating to a morally good God) and the ascension of materialism and hedonism.

News

The Democrats make war on science to protect their faith-based policies

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Did everyone hear about how the EPA, (a government agency), suppressed a report questioning global warming? Basically, the Democrats wanted to pass the cap-and-trade bill without facing any criticism of their faith in man-made global warming. So they told Carlin not to publish his report or speak about it to anyone. Alan Carlin went ahead and released the report to CEI anyway. And now he tells the whole story in the WSJ.

In the Wall Street Journal. (H/T CEI)

Mr. Carlin and a colleague presented a 98-page analysis arguing the agency should take another look, as the science behind man-made global warming is inconclusive at best. The analysis noted that global temperatures were on a downward trend. It pointed out problems with climate models. It highlighted new research that contradicts apocalyptic scenarios. “We believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science by EPA,” the report read.

The response to Mr. Carlin was an email from his boss, Al McGartland, forbidding him from “any direct communication” with anyone outside of his office with regard to his analysis. When Mr. Carlin tried again to disseminate his analysis, Mr. McGartland decreed: “The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.” (Emphasis added.)

Mr. McGartland blasted yet another email: “With the endangerment finding nearly final, you need to move on to other issues and subjects. I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research etc, at least until we see what EPA is going to do with Climate.” Ideology? Nope, not here. Just us science folk. Honest.

The emails were unearthed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Republican officials are calling for an investigation; House Energy Committee ranking member Joe Barton sent a letter with pointed questions to Mrs. Jackson, which she’s yet to answer. The EPA has issued defensive statements, claiming Mr. Carlin wasn’t ignored. But there is no getting around that the Obama administration has flouted its own promises of transparency.

In case you missed it, CEI wrote a lot more about the Democrats’ war on science here and here.

I blogged previously about how the Democrats undermine science in the university with their affirmative action policies, and how they insist on spending money on unproven ESCR, when ASCR has all the proven cures.

News

Chinese scientists announce stem-cell research breakthrough

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Previously, I blogged about how scientists had discovered a way to prevent ethical adult stem cells from being infected with cancerous mutations. I’ve also written about some of the proven cures that have been developed with adult stem cells and compared it with the number of cures developed by unethical embryonic stem-cell research, i.e. – NONE.

But now we learn about a new source of functional stem cells: PIGS! That’s right, PIGS!

Check out this story from the BBC.

Excerpt:

Chinese scientists have given cells from adult pigs the ability to turn into any tissue in the body, just like embryonic stem cells.

They hope the breakthrough could aid research into human disease, and the breeding of animals for organ transplants for humans.

The study appears online in the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology.

…Tests showed that the reprogrammed cells were capable of becoming any of the cell types that make up the three layers in a developing embryo.

Now you say, “Wintery! What good are pig stem cells for human beings?” So I’ll tell you.

Dr Xiao said pigs were a potentially ideal source of organs for transplant, as their organs were similar in function and size to those found in humans.

He said reprogrammed stem cells could potentially be used to make a pig organ compatible to the human immune system, minimising the risk of rejection.

The cells could also be used to mimic human disease in pigs, allowing scientists to test new therapies without requiring human volunteers.

There’s more in the story, it’s worth a look!

BONUS (depressing, though)

My elusive friend Richard e-mails me this article from the CBC, which talks about Quebec’s plan to pay for screenings for pregnant women to see if their child has Down’s syndrome. The article states that “statistics in other countries show that 90 per cent of women end their pregnancy after a positive test.” Quebec is the most secular and left-wing province in Canada.

What is it about the weak that causes leftists to want to kill them? Is it because they desire happiness for themselves above all and do not believe that humans have certain inalienable rights guaranteed by God? Is it because they believe that there is no value in suffering a little in order to take care of others has no value in a mindless, accidental universe where the only purpose is to have happy feelings until you die?