Paralyzed Woman Walks Again

mgv writes "It's been promised for years, but it's just become a reality. Stem cells taken from cord blood have enabled a paralysed woman in South Korea to walk again for the first time in 20 years. The details are on the Sydney Morning Herald Site which requires registration, but can also be seen on the World Peace Herald. Too late for Christopher Reeve, but not for the thousands of new injuries worldwide each year or the millions of paralysed people from other diseases in the world."

Comments

Adult stem cells

[Anonymous Coward]

Cord blood stem cells are considered to be adult stem cells, not embryonic stem cells. Just wanted to get that out before all the Bush bashing starts.

Re:Cord blood vs. embryonic?

[MagicM]

From here:

So-called "multipotent" stem cells -- those found in cord blood -- are capable of forming a limited number of specialised cell types, unlike the more versatile "undifferentiated" cells that are derived from embroyos.

Get the facts straight

[nwbvt]

Embryonic stem cell research was not banned. Federal funding was given for embryonic stem cell research but limited to pre-existing lines.

There is a huge difference between the two.

Re:Get the facts straight

[magefile]

Pre-existing lines that are contaminated with pathogens and mouse cells, many of which have reached the end of their useful lifespans. It's effectively a ban on federal funding, period.

Re:Nonsense!!!!

[stanmann]

Q: In 1 Ki 7:23 and 2 Chr 4:2-5, does the Bible say the value of pi is 3? A: No. The skeptical Asimov's Guide to the Bible p.328 claims, "The explanation is, of course, that the Biblical writers were not mathematicians or even interested in mathematics and were merely giving approximate figures. Still, to those who are obsessed with the notion that every word in the Bible is infallible (and who know a little mathematics) it is bound to come as a shock to be told that the Bible says that the value of pi is 3." Asimov had a Ph.D. in chemistry, so he should have known better. There are three different possibilities. Rounding with significant digits: Assume the circumference was exactly 30.0 cubits. Since they only gave the dimensions in whole numbers, which number would Asimov have them use? A perfectly round basin with no rim would give a value of 9.55, and that is closer to 10 than to any other number. A rim: Assume either the inner circumference was exactly 30.0 cubits, or that the thickness of the basin made the inner and outer circumference almost the same. A diameter that included a rim of 4 inces (0.22535 cubits) would give a ratio of exactly 3 to 1. A flare: Nothing says the walls of the basin were perfectly vertical. If the basin had a very slight flare of 0.75% at the top, then the outer circumference at the narrow part and the outer or inner diameter at the top would give a ratio of exactly 3 to 1.

11/10/03 "Sir-In the News story about scientists' response to creationists, the scientists `comment that the Bible says that PI is 3, not 3.14' (Nature 398, 453; 1999). The biblical verse quoted (1 Kings 7:23) reads in part: `...measuring 10 cubits from rim to rim... It took a line of 30 cubits to measure around it". Indeed, 30/10 equals 3, but further on in verse 26 it says: `It was a handbreadth in thickness...' Assuming that a cubit measured 18 inches and a hand breadth 3 inches, the inner diameter of the bowl would be 174 inches (10 x 18 - 2 x 3), and the inner circumference would be 540 inches (30 x 18). This yields a value for PI of 540/174 or 3.10. This is about a 1 per cent error from the typical value for PI of 3.14. Although we do not know the exact length of a cubit or a handbreadth, this result is very close to the actual value of PI." (Peil K., "Biblical answer to cooking up pi," Nature, Vol 399, 10 June 1999, p.522)