November 30, 2007
More trouble in Proposition 71-Land: The California State Controller–in what I must say is a gutsy move given the politics of the matter–has ordered an audit of the CIRM citing charges of conflict of interest. From the story: California’s top … Read More
November 30, 2007
Roger Highfield reports that the alternative to cloning continues to show promise. Skin cells from the face of 36 year old woman have been converted into her own embryonic like cells directly, in experiments that bring closer the day that … Read More
November 30, 2007
Remember biology class where you learned that children inherit one copy of a gene from mom and a second from dad? There’s a twist: Some of those genes arrive switched off, so there is no backup if the other copy … Read More
November 30, 2007
Charles Krauthammer, the Washington Post columnist who favored ESCR funding but also saw that the scientists would never be satisfied with being limited to leftover embryos, has a column on the great iPSC breakthrough. He writes (prematurely in my view) … Read More
November 30, 2007
A massive AI project called CALO could revolutionize machine learning. (Technology Review)
November 30, 2007
Scientists have reversed the effects of ageing on the skin of mice by blocking the action of a specific protein. (BBC)
November 30, 2007
Meyer decided Wednesday to allow 14-year-old Dennis Lindberg of Mount Vernon to refuse blood transfusions — based on his religious beliefs — in his fight against leukemia. Lindberg died later that evening. (Seattle Times)
November 30, 2007
American scientists are using tissue from aborted babies in genetically engineered mice to study how certain diseases are spread, and the experiments are being paid for with U.S. tax dollars. (CNS News)
November 30, 2007
When the industrial revolution of the early 19th century threatened the centuries-old caste of the English artisans by replacing man with machine, they rose up, allegedly led by a man named Ned Ludd, in protest. To protect their way of … Read More
November 30, 2007
A decade ago, Thomson was the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells. Last week, he (and Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka) announced one of the great scientific breakthroughs since the discovery of DNA: an embryo-free way to produce genetically matched stem … Read More
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