Stem Cells Cure Paralyzed Rats

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article on Forbes as well as other sources, 'Scientists have used [embryonic] stem cells and a soup of nerve-friendly chemicals to not just bridge a damaged spinal cord but actually regrow the circuitry needed to move a muscle, helping partially paralyzed rats walk.'"

Comments

If only...

[Spad]

If only they put this much time and effort into finding cures for human conditions instead of wasting it all on rodents. Bloody mice get all the breaks.

Re:If only...

[rbarreira]

Except that maybe the mouse will be smashed with a hammer later on the day :)

Well, not always, there's a girl living near me who has a big RAT in her apartment. Reason: She (the girl, the rat no longer) works at a laboratory, knew that they were going to kill the rat and decided to take it home instead so that it wouldn't happen, and also because "it's so cute". The only problem is the chewed cables and bed sheets...

Re:If only...

[bsartist]

Bloody mice get all the breaks.

I don't think you really want the kind of "breaks" those mice got.

Re:If only...

[oudzeeman]

Interesting that she is allowed to keep a rodent pet when she works in a laboratory, even though the rodent originally came from the lab...I work at a genetics research laboratory, and I'm not allowed to keep mice, rats, guinepigs, or hampsters as a pet at home, or keep any animal as a pet that eats any of the forementioned rodents as its normal food (cats are okay, even though they might occasionally catch mice).

The fear is that someone could introduce a parasite, virus, or bacterial infection into one of the mouse colonies, which would be devistating to our research (http://www.jax.org/research/research_areas.html), and our mouse business (http://jaxmice.jax.org/index.html). I don't handle the lab mice, or even come in close proximity of the mice on a regular basis since I'm a software engineer and this restriction still applies to me.

Re:If only...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is your cynicism?

The only reason they're developing medical techniques for rats is that soon the politicians will be the only ones able to afford them, so they might as well ensure that the techniques they will use are compatible.

Re:If only...

[adamlazz]

I don't give a rat's spinal cord on this one.

Re:If only...

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a genetics research laboratory, and I'm not allowed to keep mice, rats, guinepigs, or hampsters as a pet at home

If the lab you work in is part of Jackson Labs, that's a reasonably paranoid restriction. If a university lab has an infection problem, they're often small enough to treat the issue medically. If not, they can buy a fresh population from, say, Jackson Labs. Jackson needs to have the equivalent of "five-nines" reliability in their animals, where a univeristy vivarium is usually happy with two or thee nines.

Re:If only...

[I Like Pudding]

If only they put this much time and effort into finding cures for human conditions instead of wasting it all on rodents.

Please. Broken spine? Cured! Mysterious foot pain? Cured! Crippling halitosis? Cured!

Re:If only...

[ceeam]

Be thankful they don't do test on GIRLFRIENDS!

But on the second thought - nevermind....

Re:If only...

[oudzeeman]

while it would suck having to give up my girlfriends, at least I would still have my wife

Re:If only...

[rbarreira]

No idea about that, I might ask her later though :)

Re:If only...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then don't fucking post. Dumbasses like you are the reason Slashdot is falling in quality.

Re:If only...

[nightcrawler.36]

what do you do?

Re:If only...

[deadlinegrunt]

"while it would suck having to give up my girlfriends, at least I would still have my wife"

Wait - you have girlfriends and a wife? And you are a /. user? So the girlfriend thinks you are with the wife and the wife thinks you are with the girlfriend - leaving more time for the computer. Brilliant!

Re:If only...

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in a research lab in a University and the same rules apply. I can't own rodents, chickens, reptiles or amphibians - period. The purpose of this rule is as the previous poster says - to prevent infection of research animals with diseases from the outside world.

If I took research animals home the penalties would be pretty stiff. But the problem here is the reverse. Any animal that leaves the lab could enter the food chain and cause problems down the line. With the number of mutant mice and mice treated with viruses out there I think it's a pretty wise precaution.

Re:If only...

[jafac]

I'm not allowed to keep mice, rats, guinepigs, or hampsters as a pet at home, or keep any animal as a pet that eats any of the forementioned rodents as its normal food (cats are okay, even though they might occasionally catch mice).
The fear is that someone could introduce a parasite, virus, or bacterial infection into one of the mouse colonies,

That's funny, I'm a systems engineer, and I'm allowed to use computers at home, even though someone could introduce a trojan, virus, or spyware infection onto our corporate network. . .

Re:If only...

[Thomas Miconi]

while it would suck having to give up my girlfriends, at least I would still have my wife

I'm confused. Which one is the rat ?

Re:If only...

[OverflowingBitBucket]

while it would suck having to give up my girlfriends, at least I would still have my wife

Yeah, I call my computers my "girlfriends" too. Nice to know I'm not the only one. What? Oh... er... never mind then. Carry on! ;)

For those

[celardore]

For those rats who did not regain use of their limbs after the experiment, little miniature wheelchairs and sticks were provided.

Let's just tell the animal rights protestors that anyway.

Re:For those

[MancunianMaskMan]

I am a rat, you insensitive clod (or so my friends say anyway).

Oh wait... I haven't got any.

Re:For those

[Idarubicin]

Let's just tell the animal rights protestors that anyway.

Please don't tell the animal rights people anything. Please! Tell them that we're working with nuclear weapons or lasers or something.

One of my coworkers worked in a Drosophilia (fruit fly) lab as a summer student some number of years ago. One Monday morning, he came in to the lab to wryly smiling colleagues. Apparently, animal rights activists had broken in to the lab over the weekend, and set all of the fruit flies 'free'. Unfortunately, this particular lab was working with curly-wing and wingless mutants, so the freed flies took a few tottering steps, then fell out of their open tubes and collected on the floor.

Re:For those

[celardore]

I know, I know... Animal protesters are ridiculous. They were protesting outside my workplace a while back. Reason? We deliver stuff to a research centre. Could be pencils & pens, who knows - but the animal activists wanted us to put a stop to it! Needless to say, we got a court injunction against them.

My boss wouldn't let me throw eggs (from battery hens) at them. Spoilsport.

Re:For those

[SargeantLobes]

Unfortunately, this particular lab was working with curly-wing and wingless mutants, so the freed flies took a few tottering steps, then fell out of their open tubes and collected on the floor.

Lab animals being set free often end up like that. They've been in labs for their entire lifespan (which is required, because all the variables need to be known and controllable), and they don't know how to fend for them selves. All those mice being set free usually just curl up somewhere and die. They don't really know how to look for food (they just nibble everything), and they don't know to run from predators.

Animal rights activists don't usually know anything about animals/nature. Animal rights acivists got egg collecting (from a rare species of bird, that lays it's eggs in fields) banned here last year. What they didn't know was, that when the colletors collected the first batch (which usually freezes to death) they put a flag near the nests so the farmer wouldn't drive over it. So all those years it was the egg collecting sustaining their existance (farmers don't go around putting flags near nests just for the heck of it, they've go 'better' things to do.

Re:For those

[PixelScuba]

I know! And this one time, there were these people who were totally protesting abortion clinics, they were all on the lawn yelling at people telling the women coming in they were muderers and throwing things at them and the doctors! This is why all Anti Abortion activists are ridiculous!

The point I was getting at is that there are clearly lunatics in any movement, but those are the only ones you hear from. Rarely do you hear about animal rights activists who understand the need for many medical experiments on animal, but hope to see those animals treated with some level of dignity (I dunno, maybe breeding too many lab mice and just throwing extras away). I would wager you could call me an "animal rights activist", I think abusing pets should be punished, I've never really been in favor of cosmetic testing on animals, and I think Humans do have a degree of responsibility in taking care of whatever we can... but I don't set lab mice free, or tell how we shouldn't test medical advances on animals. I just feel there is a level of decency we can exhibit in these cases... set a few ground rules for respectfully dealing with animals and their use in medicine, and follow them. I hope that that request isn't too "Ridiculous".

Re:For those

[Anonymous Coward]

they were all on the lawn yelling at people telling the women coming in they were muderers and throwing things at them and the doctors!

The sad thing is that the vast majority of these "Family Planning" clinics also provide services for people who are keeping their kids, and in some more rural regions are the only prenatal clinic in the area. But hey, let's shut them down, the health of women be damned, and if the baby doesn't make it because of the lack of care, at least the mother didn't "kill" it! I've never seen any churches open up free prenatal clinics to compete against the clinics providing free services sponsored by abortions, putting their money where their mouths are just isn't "God's work". God wants that money to go to building bigger temples with more gold trim.

So yes, the majority of anti-abortion activists are ridiculous, hypocritical sheeple who just do whatever the 700 club tells them to do.

Re:For those

[ceoyoyo]

That's because they all work in animal research labs. I've never seen people more careful about treating animals well than the ones who do research on them. A former roommate among them.

Re:For those

[Zaatxe]

A few weeks ago I saw in a newspaper that a company in England was selling bottled water in which the bottles are made of a special kind of plastic, made with corn flour. The nice thing is that this plastic can vanish in 70-90 days when exposed to the elements. The funny note was that Greenpeace didn't approve this plastic, because "it could be made with transgenic corn". The question is, is there a way to please environmentalists and animal rights activists?

Re:For those

[LokiSteve]

Give up on capitalism.

Re:For those

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is, is there a way to please environmentalists and animal rights activists?

Yes, give them what they want. It's the same way you appease a capitalist.

Re:For those

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, most researchers understand the importance of having happy healthy test subjects. Much of the time the validity of their results can rest on this.

Re:For those

[ceoyoyo]

You don't know many university animal researchers do you? At least not ones who work directly with the animals.

My roommate used to cry whenever she had to put down one of her animals. Another animal tech I knew had to take a day off when a careless coworker made a mistake that may have caused an animal unnecessary pain.

How many people have used mouse traps (either the snapping ones or the sticky pads) or poison? If that sort of distress was caused to an animal in the lab there would be a lot of upset people and the project would probably be shut down.

Have some respect for the people who have extended your healthy life span by 20 years and are working to extend it some more.

Re:For those

[killjoe]

No there isn't. That's why you should pollute as much as possible and live your life with no consideration of the environment, animals, plants or the future generations.

Re:For those

[wart]

How many people have used mouse traps (either the snapping ones or the sticky pads) or poison? If that sort of distress was caused to an animal in the lab there would be a lot of upset people and the project would probably be shut down.

I've used the snapping rat traps plenty of times, and I can tell you that they are far more humane and less distressful to the rats than the sticky paper pads and poison. The snapping rat traps kill the rats so quickly that they probably don't even notice it until their dead.

Of course, a more humane trap would be a live catch trap, but then you have to find a place to release it, like sneaking it into your neighbor's house. :)

Re:For those

[StikyPad]

Hey, I'm an insensitive clod and I resent you throwing that term around as some sort of insult, you rat.

Oh nevermind, I don't care.. I'm an insensitive clod.

Re:For those

[StikyPad]

But he never said you couldn't throw protestors at the eggs did he? Eh? Eh?????

Re:For those

[Anonymous Coward]

The point I was getting at is that there are clearly lunatics in any movement, but those are the only ones you hear from. Rarely do you hear about animal rights activists who understand the need for many medical experiments on animal, but hope to see those animals treated with some level of dignity (I dunno, maybe breeding too many lab mice and just throwing extras away). I would wager you could call me an "animal rights activist", I think abusing pets should be punished, I've never really been in favor of cosmetic testing on animals, and I think Humans do have a degree of responsibility in taking care of whatever we can... but I don't set lab mice free, or tell how we shouldn't test medical advances on animals. I just feel there is a level of decency we can exhibit in these cases... set a few ground rules for respectfully dealing with animals and their use in medicine, and follow them. I hope that that request isn't too "Ridiculous".

finally someone in the world who has a reasonable, well thought out opinion! im so sick of all these people who set their mind on something and are convinced they're completely right, and won't even let you reason/debate/argue with them. eg: to make a generalisation, animal rights activists or anti-abortion activists. these people have to realise that killing a baby/killing an animal isn't always pure evil, sometimes it's a necessity. eg: say a baby has a massive malignant tumour in its brain, which will kill it soon after its born, and until it dies it will be severely ill, and let's say there is a high probabiity that the mother will not survive the birth. is it still a good idea to let the baby be born? don't say yes, because if you actually THINK you'll realise the answer's no. you can't just say "abortion is the most evil thing ever. it should never be carried out.", you have to look at it case by case. im not necessarily saying every little whore should be able to go down to the abortion clinic and sort of use it as a form of contraception, but it should be available for necessary cases. my point is (i think i have one), that you people that have your extremeist opinions should stop and actually THINK about stuff, and you'll realise your being an idiot. i guarantee if you think, you'll come up with a more intelligent, informed opinion that you won't be mocked for. idiot.

Re:For those

[buck_wild]

Ok, that was awesome. Comedy gold, right there.

Thanks.

Re:For those

[Weezul]

Yeah, most of the people I know who are actually nice to animals work in labs which use animals.. even a couple vegans. Animal rights protestors are stupid.

This is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

We must immediately ensure that this life-changing new medical technology is placed under a raft of arbitrary and politically motivated legal restrictions.

We must do this as quickly as possible. For science!

Re:This is amazing

[drooling-dog]

Perhaps we can find a way to exempt ourselves and our top campaign contributors from any such restrictions, however...

Re:This is amazing

[argStyopa]

..."This is an important first step, but it really is a first step, a proof of principle that ... you can rewire part of the nervous system," said Dr. Douglas Kerr, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University who led the work being published Monday in the journal Annals of Neurology

Would that be stem cell research...going on at an AMERICAN university? OH MY GOD - WHERE ARE THE BLACK HELICOPTERS? WHERE ARE THE BUSH-CHENEY-ROVENAZI STORMTROOPERS TO STOP THIS EVIL?

Oh wait, the president only said that federal funding wouldn't be available, he didn't actually ban anything (except human cloning), now did he? In fact, there aren't really a 'raft of restrictions' at all, just a short list of stem cell lines for which federal funding is available, and not for any others.

If this is the universal panacea that it's being touted to be, then there should be no difficulty finding state, local, or private funding sources. You just can't feed out of the FEDERAL money-trough on this one.

Given that roughly half the country has moral qualms about this, and in fact a majority voted for a president whose Christian ethic was prominent in his campaign, the holdback on funding makes perfect sense.

(Granted, the OTHER half of the country has achieved a level of moral certainty (or at least self-justification) that they are both able sleep peacefully AND sneer contemptuously at the other half of the country for being stupid Christian hicks...some of us aren't quite so conceited as to self-declare omniscience in this matter.)

Re:This is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that roughly half the country has moral qualms about this, and in fact a majority voted for a president whose Christian ethic was prominent in his campaign, the holdback on funding makes perfect sense.

By that reasoning, the attempted extermination of the jews makes "perfect sense". The anti-semitic and anti-science camps have that in common; each is motivated by religious zeal and a persecution complex without any basis in reality.

How telling that you need to resort to logical fallacies (straw man, appeal to majority, appeal to authority) to defend your favorite politicians.

Re:This is amazing

[operagost]

"Troll" down-moderation coming in 3 - 2 - 1...

Re:This is amazing

[MillionthMonkey]

Oh wait, the president only said that federal funding wouldn't be available, he didn't actually ban anything (except human cloning), now did he? In fact, there aren't really a 'raft of restrictions' at all, just a short list of stem cell lines for which federal funding is available, and not for any others.

Oh wait, you have no idea how science gets funded in this country, and are parroting a talking point that someone prepared for your consumption. Most scientific research depends on federal funding. The stem cell lines on the "short list" are useless because there are so few of them and they are now contaminated with the cells from other animals that are used to keep the stem cells alive. The Bush ban isn't a matter of the government paying for all your lab costs except for particular stem cell lines which get crossed off as a line item. If any lab in any scientific research organization touches a non-Bush-approved stem cell line, it "poisons" the entire organization "GPL-style" and all federal funding gets cut off for all research that the organization might be doing whether it is related to stem cells at all or not. That will effectively shut it down.

If this is the universal panacea that it's being touted to be, then there should be no difficulty finding state, local, or private funding sources. You just can't feed out of the FEDERAL money-trough on this one.

The voters of the state of California approved Prop 71 which set up a bond for a stem-cell research in the state as a result of the federal funding restriction. The state would be getting a new non-federal research facility that would not be tainted by a single dollar of federal funding for equipment or office supplies or anything. Unfortunately, construction on the facility has now been held up for years now because of lawsuits from litigious wingnuts.

Re:This is amazing

[StikyPad]

Most scientific research depends on federal funding.

Yeah.. people have short memories. Back before there was federal funding, there was absolutely no scientific research going on. Oh sure, people would postulate and theorize, but nobody ever followed up because there was no money! As Archimedes' famous quote goes, "Give me federal funding, and I can develop a lever long enough to move the world!" Nobody believed him, of course, but it's still hotly debated whether or not federal funding would have made such a venture possible.

Fortunately, once the NSF was founded in 1950, we could research bouyancy and develop things like boats, which gave rise to the steam engine and, recently, the internal combustion engine. This allowed us to create enormous steel chariots, known as SUVs, which allowed us to travel at will, instead of standing in one place and hoping a wild horse wandered near enough for us to jump on. Once the roof was invented in 1953, and the candle in 1957, research could be conducted at any time of day and in any weather -- amazing!

So for all you nay sayers, just remember that without federal funding we'd still be living in buildings without roofs, driving cars with our feet, and eating with our hands. Hell, if it wasn't for the NSF and their anti-dinosaur technology, we'd probably all be dead by now.

Re:This is amazing

[DurendalMac]

If you think that major drug/medical companies aren't researching this like mad, you're seriously deluded. Whoever is first to market with a cure for many types of paralysis (among many other ailments) will see their stock price skyrocket into the stratosphere, and they know it. Federal money isn't necessary if it's something a private company wants to do.

Re:This is amazing

[MillionthMonkey]

The NSF was founded because the easy research like buoyancy, boats, and candles were all pretty well covered. But this isn't the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries anymore, and scientific advances now require lots of time, money, and resources since we had pretty well covered the easy stuff like candles already. That is why we set up a federal support structure for scientific research that only a few short years ago was the envy of the world. The earlier paradigm does not work. You cannot cut all scientific funding and expect some lone genius working in his basement to discover new things about DNA for you on the cheap in time for your cancer treatment. As we advance further, scientific and technical advances tend to cost more in time and treasure, and in general they will not happen unless they are profitable. That's just common sense, which seems to be in short supply.

Re:This is amazing

[StikyPad]

No, the NSF was founded because after WWII, the government realized how important engineering was to winning wars.

Don't get me wrong, the NSF is a good thing, but..

A) The government is not a benevolent organization, and bureaucrats are subject to being captured by private interests.

B) All research has always cost an enormous amount of time and money; it's just that we don't remember it, and we discount it as "simple" because much of it has gone from undiscovered to the realm of general knowledge. 100 years ago nobody knew what lift was. Today pretty much anyone with a highschool diploma does (or should). We still stand on the shoulders of giants, we just take it for granted because we didn't do the hard work to get there.

C) Private funding is the primary source of money for medical research, not the NSF.

D) It's not a zero-sum game, and sciences are interrelated. Dollars that aren't being spent directly on stem cell research are still being spent, and breakthroughs in other areas, including other areas of biotech, may be just as beneficial or moreso.

E) Results are not directly proportional to money spent on research.

Would it be better if the NSF's hands weren't tied in regards to stemcell research? Of course, but it's not the end of the world. The research will go on regardless of who funds it or how much funding there is. To focus in on stem cells as if they're the end all and be all of medical science is neither warranted nor prudent.

Re:This is amazing

[BiggerIsBetter]

Yup. I'm fairly sure every paralysed person I know would find a way to raise a million bucks to pay for this kind of treatment. Money should not be a concern for this kind of reasearch.

Re:This is amazing

[DurendalMac]

No, but just the announcement and demonstration alone would make the stock price shoot through the roof. The price would eventually drop, but there are enough people who are paralyzed that could afford it. Money shouldn't be a concern? Well guess what, it is. That's the way the world works.

Re:This is amazing

[argStyopa]

Argue the minutae, miss the point. Throw in an ad-hominem, and you're golden.

Most scientific research depends on federal funding.
SMBS. Nice fact, if you could prove it.
Again, the Bush ban is on FEDERAL FUNDING only. The rest of your post agrees with that by referring to the Kalifornia efforts.

If any lab in any scientific research organization touches a non-Bush-approved stem cell line, it "poisons" the entire organization
Because you and I both know that the same nutballs that believe that they are entitled to suck from the Federal Teat would have NO compunctions about buying equipment for their 'non stem-cell related project' and it "accidentally" ending up in the stem cell lab next door or down the hall.

I'll go through it again:
The taxpayer (I wish it was only them!) votes for the elected officials, who in turn then decide how the taxpayer's money is spent. Majority voted for the clearly-Christian Bush, ergo don't really have much problem with a funding ban in a morally grey area. In Kalifornia, they voted to spend their money on the stem cell research project - TERRIFIC. Why (in your mind) aren't Federal taxpayers/voters entitled to make the same decisions regarding their tax dollars?

Don't like it? Find enough of your friends that agree with you, and vote in a different guy.

And, how are these 'litigious wingnuts' distinctly different from the 'litigious wingnuts' that prevent freedom of speech from being applicable within X yards of abortion clinics? From the ones that have effectively stopped all civilian nuclear power development in this country for 30 years? That are trying to effectively neuter the 2nd Amendment? That shut down massive projects over the fate of an utterly meaningless little amphibian that exists in a handful of ponds?

Do I think that our country is too litigious? Yep. Personally, I'd LIKE to see the Kalifornia initiative continue. That's what being a REPUBLIC is all about....STATES' rights. (Which in a sense brings us back to the original point, doesn't it?)

Re:Also works as a gender change medicine!

[LMacG]

Gender? o.O

John Hopkins == NIHM!!

[bloodredsun]

Life imitates Art yet again.

...literally...

[OscarBlock]

From the article ""They did something that people have been trying to do for at least 30 years and literally hit a brick wall until now," said Dr. Naomi Keitman..."

Is this why they developed an interest in repairing spinal cord injuries? I think we should be told...

Re:...literally...

[Quinn]

Bravo.

Re:...literally...

[Anonymous Coward]

I searched for "brick" before posting something less hilarious. He might be a brain surgeon, but he's a butcher of english.

Good job :)

Got ya

[overbaud]

"bridge a damaged spinal cord" so if anyone is thinking of sticking their head in a life sized rat trap... good news!

Re:Got ya

[Citizen of Earth]

if anyone is thinking of sticking their head in a life sized rat trap...

...more commonly known as a 'car'...

Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[LiquidCoooled]

a Surface mount chip.
Its always going to be messy and you will likely fuse the wrong things together.
But having some movement/sensation is good so Thumbs (and index finger) up to this research.

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[Col. Bloodnok]

A beautiful analogy, having some experience of soldering surface mount stuff. No one has let me loose on wetware (yet).

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[bsartist]

But having some movement/sensation is good

I think you've underestimated the level of improvement. I saw a before/after video of this on last night's network news. Before the treatment, the rat's back half was totally paralyzed. After, it was completely mobile, although it did look like one leg was a little stiff. So we're not talking about just being able to wiggle a few toes here, we're talking about getting up and walking around, albeit with a bit of a limp.

A better link for that video would be appreciated, btw - the above requires IE and MS Media Player.

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[SpaghettiPattern]

and you will likely fuse the wrong things together
I hope the nervous system constitutes a discovery protocol of some kind.

It'll be something like:

• You try snapping your right hand fingers.
• But your left foot stamps.
• So you snap you right hand fingers to stamp with your left foot.

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[Anonymous Coward]

Bruce Lee did better, without stem cells.

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[fodder69]

The difference being that the cpu (brain) can recognize those miswired connections and reroute them to work properly. Usually.

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[alohatiger]

I think remapping is more appropriate. It's like the experiment where you put on prism glasses that invert what you see. Initially everything is upside down. After a while you don't notice. At the end of the day when you take the glasses off, everything looks upside down for a while.

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[smellsofbikes]

Surface-mount soldering by hand is easy. I've loaded upwards of 300 components, mostly IC's, on a board and gotten it working. BGA's are a bitch, though, as are LLP's.

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[Ced_Ex]

Bruce Lee never was paralyzed by a spinal cord injury. It was made up to add drama to the movie.

In reality, he just injured his back muscles.

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds really cool. Anyone know where I can get a pair of those glasses to try it? I really want to know if the transformation in the brain is like "Yeah, everything's upside-down, but it doesn't bother me anymore" or if it's more like "Everything looks right side up now." If it's the latter, that would be really freaky.

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is that we now have the neurological equivalent of Solder-Wick?

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[is as us Infinite]

Here's a link to the paper that contains links to the videos in .avi format.

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press/2003/June/030 627.htm

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[davidsyes]

How long b4 we see the "focus factor" (bogus factor?) equiv of this? It might very well be called "Muscle Factor". But, if they somehow connect the rectum or the thigh to the brain, that would be a bridging too far...

Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering

[SteveAstro]

I've handsoldered 25 thou TQFP with no probs.
Used a microscope though !

Steve

All those poor mice...

[x-vere]

Now, when a mouse is hit by a broom, there is a shred of hope that the little fella will walk again. *sniff* Walk, WALK! *sniff* *sniff*

Question

[Francisco_G]

Who paralyzes the rats in the first place? Do the scientists step on 'em?

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering that as well. Is there someone that that is official rat back breaker? Some poor persons life is grabing mice and bending them in half until they hear a snap.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Spinal injuries are pretty common sports injuries so the real question is did the scientist have to teach the rats to ski and play football first? I can't believe there are enough wheel accidents to provide a decent test group.

Re:Question

[ceeam]

You say "back breaker" and I imagine 300 pounds wrestler doing piledrivers and shit on poor mice.... Ooh.. Nice.

Re:Question

[Aqua_boy17]

Not at all. They user mallets to bang on them and make them play "The bells of St. Mary".

Re:Question

[LoonyMike]

I wouldn't be surprised if Steven Seagal were giving a hand to this research.

Re:Question

[poot_rootbeer]

Who paralyzes the rats in the first place? Do the scientists step on 'em?

Not the scientists, no. That what lab assistants are for! I wish I was joking.

Actually, they probably design some sort of rat-spine-breaking device so the assistants can paralyze them more uniformly than could be achieved just by stepping on them. I wish I was joking about that too.

Re:Question

[Majestros]

We use a device like the Infinite Horizon Impactor or the NYU Impactor. The vertebrae is exposed and a small section of bone is removed to allow access for the small tip of the impactor. Then a know force/displacement is applied to the cord and the rat is sewn up. There are then a number of measures to assess recovery. Rats recover MUCH fast than humans, becoming almost normal in 2-8 weeks for most levels of thorasic contusion (incomplete) injury. This makes them easier to get a real amount of research done during the course of a study.

Re:Question

[LouisZepher]

I have mod points, and would mod this +1 Funny, but given some of the crowd around here lately, the MP reference would be lost and the up-mod would be reversed.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine 300 pounds wrestler doing piledrivers and shit on poor mice.

If the dude's 300 pounds, I imagine the shit alone would break the mouse's back. Especially if he takes it standing up.

Rather old news!

[masikh]

This article (well maybe not this article, but same research) was posted on slashdot about a year ago. Thus is this research a nice copycat or just a person who hasn't done it's homework? Still nice development.

According to NAFTA...

[Ardeocalidus]

"Pied Piper inc. is reportedly suing John Hopkins University under Chapter 11 of the NAFTA trade agreement, for fears that this will have an adverse effect on the rat-catching market as a whole. The Piper could not be reached for comment."

If this goes commercial...

[dartarrow]

...would viagra go out of business...?

Re:If this goes commercial...

[Zaatxe]

I didn't know that the vision of once paralyzed rats being able to walk would turn on men with erectile disfunction...

Re:If this goes commercial...

[gstoddart]

...would viagra go out of business...?

Of course not, and asking means you understand neither how an erection (and Viagara) work nor how spinal cord injuries work.

Viagara is a Vasoconstrictor which causes blood vessels to contract. It was developed for other clinical applications, and had the happy side effect of granting erections to people. Except for a few people, it's probably not used very much for its original purpose.

Using stem cells to re-connect severed nerves means that the conduit to transmit nerve impulses had been severed. Think spinal cord injuries. This technique allowed them to re-connect themselves and return mobility.

For the record, a quadraplegic can probably get an erection (give or take some injury-specific considerations) -- they may not be able to feel it, but they can have one. A spinal cord injury doesn't cause impotence, it causes loss of voluntary muscular control. The blood still flows, and many of the other muscles involved are involuntary anwyay.

So, NO, stemm cells to repair spinal cords will probably not affect the sales of Viagara. (Unless people who can suddenly walk again decide they also want to buy viagara.) Completely different body systems are affected by the two.

Cheers

blind?

[NuShrike]

No longer will they be the 3 blind mice group, someday?

I have to say it...

[cloudkiller]

And if the mice step out of line... No Soup For You!

Re:I have to say it...

[Lisandro]

Come back, one year!

Re:Lol, I read that as...

[WillerZ]

You sir, are an idiot.

rats or mice

[illtron]

So are they rats or mice? Headline says mice, summary says rats. They're not the same thing. Think before you write!

Re:rats or mice

[LMacG]

obHHGTTG: "Look, sorry --- are we talking about the little white furry
things with the cheese fixation and women standing on tables screaming in
early sixties sit coms?''

Unfortunately, the headline has magically changed, so nobody's going to understand all these mice/rat posts.

Re:rats or mice

[ElleyKitten]

So are they rats or mice? Headline says mice, summary says rats. They're not the same thing. Think before you write!

From the article:

First, Kerr mixed embryonic stem cells from mice with chemicals that caused them to turn into motor neurons. He transplanted them into the spinal cords of partially paralyzed rats.

Uhh, so both then? Or maybe the reporter is confused too?

Re:rats or mice

[LouisZepher]

Earthman, it is sometimes hard to follow your mode of speech. I have been asleep for five million years and know little of these 'early sixitie sitcoms' of which you speak.

There is a theory that states if ever a /. editor read a submitted article, the title would immediately be changed into something far more bizzarely inexplicable.

Re:rats or mice

[LMacG]

There is another theory that says this has already happened.

This is what we're talking about

[Cleon]

Really, this exemplifies the sort of research we've been talking about when it comes to stem cells. Unfortunately, the actual scientific possibilities were overshadowed by a bunch of political bullshit.

Stem cells, biology (evolution!), global warming...The subjection of science to political considerations has to stop.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[richpoore]

Did the article say if it was adult stemm cells or embryonic stem cells were used. It seems to me it doesn't need to be a political issue. Use adult stem cells. They've shown much promise in humans.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[indifferent children]

These were probably rat stem cells, so who cares whether they were adult or embryonic?

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Das Modell]

I think it's about time we subject political considerations to science.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. Let's apply the scientific method. I will make the hypothesis that "Politicians are full of shit" and look for supporting and contradicting evidence to support this hypothesis. Let's see..*buffer overflow*

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

Unfortunately, the actual scientific possibilities were overshadowed by a bunch of political bullshit.

One could just as easily say "Ach, mein Fuerher, too bad the actual scientific possibilities of eugenics were overshadowed by a bunch of moral concerns." Part of subscribing to a moral code is realizing that its requirements are overriding. If embryos are considered human beings, which at least according to statistics of religious affiliation (add up the number of Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and non-mainline Protestants) is a belief held by the vast majority of the Western world, then one simply cannot experiment on embryos no matter how much one desires to see the results.

It seems like a lot of Slashdot posters think that the best thing human beings could do is just junk whatever moral notions they have about the dignity of the human person, and just do a lot of crazy whizbang scientific experiments just because they are there.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[shrubsky]

I saw a different report on the research that says they were embryonic cells, and that the embryos were destroyed in the process.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Alinabi]

Part of subscribing to a moral code is realizing that its requirements are overriding.

Here is the thing about moral codes: individuals subscribe to them according to their own beliefs. The government has no business legislating them. If christians of various flavors have a problem with stem cell research, they are free to refuse treatments based on it.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

Here is the thing about moral codes: individuals subscribe to them according to their own beliefs. The government has no business legislating them. If christians of various flavors have a problem with stem cell research, they are free to refuse treatments based on it.

Many moral codes require that one do one's utmost to save innocent human life. One is not permitted to simply look over the taking of human life, as you suggest when you say that "they can just refuse treatment". Now, legislative power is a means to protect life in this case, therefore it is entirely sensible that it be used for such a purpose.

You obviously disagree with the viewpoint against the use of embryonic stem cells. Fine. But don't try to pretend that that viewpoint simply doesn't exist. It does exist, and those who hold it have certain responsibilities toward it. Surely in order to obtain a university degree you did the obligatory Ethics course.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Tekzel]

Oh it matters, because one day they will want to apply this to humans, and we certainly can't use rat embryonic stem cells. The application of stem cells to cure all sorts of ills will probably go down as one of histories most important medical science breakthroughs, but unfortunately it is hampered by religion. As an Atheist, I normally have no problem with anyone wanting to believe what they want, until it starts to intrude into my life, and this is a good example of that happening. Now, I do NOT want to see humans being harvested for their stem cells some day, but if it is the only way to get the stem cells that could allow me to walk again, or cure someone in a vegitative state, etc, so be it. We just have to decide where that line should be drawn. While abortion is legal (and thats a whole other ball of twine) it seems like such a waste to let those stem cells be thrown away when (someday) they can give a fully developed human a much better quality of life. Sometimes the selfishness of religious zealots just astounds me.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[hasbeard]

Here is the thing about moral codes: individuals subscribe to them according to their own beliefs. The government has no business legislating them. If christians of various flavors have a problem with stem cell research, they are free to refuse treatments based on it.

Do you really believe "The government has no business legislating [moral codes]"? Does that mean that you won't care if someone kidnaps your children, hacks into your back accounts and empties them out, steals your car, and backs a moving van up to your home and empties it? Some people believe that the government's job is to help protect its people--all its people, including the unborn. Abortion and creating embryos (human lives) for the purpose of using their parts are morally wrong and the government would be remiss in not prohibiting them.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you have a problem with killing retired/disabled people, you're free to keep paying social security.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[E 99]

I think it's about time we subject political considerations to science.

If we did that, Al Gore would explode.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[ElleyKitten]

Did the article say if it was adult stemm cells or embryonic stem cells were used. It seems to me it doesn't need to be a political issue. Use adult stem cells. They've shown much promise in humans. They used embyronic. Why? Because they're much more usable than adult stem cells. Get over it.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[ArikTheRed]

"kidnaps your children, hacks into your back accounts and empties them out, steals your car, and backs a moving van up to your home and empties it?"
These are all questions of ownership, not morality. Arbitration of ownership disputes are something that the government very much does have a monopoly on.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[E 99]

The government has no business legislating [moral codes].

What do you imagine to be the purpose of government, if not to legislate and enforce moral codes?

Re:This is what we're talking about

[anti-pop-frustration]

First of all: moral != religion

It seems like a lot of Slashdot posters think that the best thing human beings could do is just junk whatever moral notions they have about the dignity of the human person, and just do a lot of crazy whizbang scientific experiments just because they are there.

Welcome to the a world ruled by religious beliefs were trying to cure people is described as "crazy whizbang scientific experiments"

Re:This is what we're talking about

[RobotRunAmok]

Here is the thing about moral codes: individuals subscribe to them according to their own beliefs. The government has no business legislating them. If christians of various flavors have a problem with stem cell research, they are free to refuse treatments based on it.

Here is the thing about governments: it serves the people. More than that, it represents the people (ideally), and it makes laws in a way that reflect the constituency.

If the US was a representative democracy with a majority composition of pagan Inuit hunter/gatherers, there would probably be no laws on the books protecting the elderly and disabled, and government-sponsored science would be culling their organs because, let's face it, they've stopped contributing to society.

But, no, the US is a representative democracy with a majority composition of Judeao-Christian manufacturers and industrialists, so we not only have laws protecting the very old, but also the very young, as well.

It's religious, it's cultural, it's who we are. Most of us, anyway. When it ceases to be "most of us," or when the majority voice gets lazy (or the minority voice gets sufficiently energized and organized), things may change. Who knows, maybe in a few decades, when you're ready for your rocking chair, society will have hardened to the point where we once again cast the useless among us out onto the ice floes.

Dress warm, D00d.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[ElleyKitten]

There's a lot of Christians who don't believe that embryos are people. You can't just look religious affiliation stats and say that all of these people believe this, because they don't.

Also, we're not talking late-term fetuses that look like babies. We're not talking about fetuses like the ones you see on ultrasounds. We're talking about microscopic eggs that have been fertilized for a few days. If they were in a woman, she wouldn't know. If they failed to implant or miscarried, she'd never notice. However, they're not in a woman. Most embryos for stem cell research come from fertility clinics, extras created for backup and then unneeded, so they will never go in a woman and grow into a baby. If they weren't donated to science, they'd be thrown away. I for one, would rather they be used to help people, or even animals, rather than be thrown away.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

There's a lot of Christians who don't believe that embryos are people. You can't just look religious affiliation stats and say that all of these people believe this, because they don't.

If they profess membership in a church and don't actually agree with the church, then that makes them hypocrites. Seems like quite a problem, don't you think?

Re:This is what we're talking about

[hasbeard]

These are all questions of ownership, not morality. Arbitration of ownership disputes are something that the government very much does have a monopoly on.

So you don't believe stealing is a matter of morality? Then why does the government regulate ownership? Because people have realized that stealing is morally wrong and unacceptable. People have a moral right to retain their property without interference.

But, for the sake of discussion, let's say it is a matter of ownership. The government regulates ownership, humans own their own lives, the unborn are human, therefore the government regulates, supports, and protects their right to life.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[tcopeland]

Foarte buna, Christopher! Well said indeed. Multemesc.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Tom]

It seems like a lot of Slashdot posters think that the best thing human beings could do is just junk whatever moral notions they have about the dignity of the human person, and just do a lot of crazy whizbang scientific experiments just because they are there.

Without such an attitude, we'd still consider leeches as the pinnacle of modern medicine. The human body was once considered holy and untouchable, and cutting it open was not something a doctor could even consider without risking to be burned alive.

In a couple years, we'll have the same attitude towards embryos. After all, you can just make a new one, it isn't very complicated and it happens to be a lot of fun, too.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[autophile]

Surely in order to obtain a university degree you did the obligatory Ethics course.

I have two university degrees, and we never had Ethics. Uh, I mean... Here in the U.S. at least, Ethics isn't required. Uhmmm...

Forget it.

--Rob

Re:This is what we're talking about

[stud9920]

Meanwhile in Europe, 400m godless baby eaters are wondering what the fuss is all about, if they even are aware of it...

Re:This is what we're talking about

[plunge]

"Part of subscribing to a moral code is realizing that its requirements are overriding."

But at least when talking about laws and actions in the real world, I'd like to only include moral reasons that actually have a real world basis. Claiming that stem cells have tiny little souls is as useful in a moral debate as claiming that rocks have then and geology is evil. If someone thinks that killing a stem cell is wrong, then they've as much sent up a giant firework that blows up and displays the words "I have no idea what morality is all about, I just follow rules a bit too literally without understanding what they are for!"

Er, well, I guess that's a bit long winded for a firework.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[DeadMilkman]

Ah, so we should just throw them away instead!
(this is the reality, they end up in a dumpster)

I seem to recall the bible AND churches, including those you named, disagreeing with wasting God's gifts.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[plunge]

I guess you better leave America then, unless you agree with every single bill passed, ever, including the ones that contradict each other.

And, in addition, not all Christian churches believe as a matter of doctrine that zygotes are little tiny people screaming out for protection with their cytoplasm mouths.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[azuravian]

I agree it does seem like a waste. My brother-in-law (moderate republican) and I (left of center Libertarian) had a debate about this recently, and he made one good argument. The concern (coming from those who would seek to make abortion illegal) is this: We use the stem cells that we already have due to abortions being legal. Then years from now if a bill is on the table to make it illegal, we have setup a roadblock against it. What??? Illegalize abortion and lose all those great stem cells that have been doing so much for us.

Personally, I have realized that abortion for the forseeable future will remain legal, so I agree with you. Let's use what we've got.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

And, in addition, not all Christian churches believe as a matter of doctrine that zygotes are little tiny people screaming out for protection with their cytoplasm mouths.

Nor did I say so. Look at my post, where I mentioned the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, which have very clear stances against the use of embryos, and certain non-mainline Protestant groups.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Vancorps]

Most humorous statement given the history of the christian religion. Let the stoning begin! Seriously, just because you're christian doesn't mean you give up the right to form your own opinions without being a labeled a hypocrite. It's not hypocritical because the church is not the voice of a priest or even a Pope. Over time their opinions change because people challenge common accepted ideas.

With that said I think a lot of people completely misunderstand exactly what an embryo is. It's a pile of goo and a small one at that. This pile of goo looks exactly the same whether its a deer, mouse, dog, or human. Why whould this be destroyed rather than put to scientific use? It's completely asinine to waste such an opportunity. The source will exist whether you like it not, so the question is then only what you should to do with the result. The embryo will never turn into a fetus which is when it starts to look like a wee baby. Of course that takes quite a while.

I guess I'll never understand this logic that we should throw away something instead of put it to use.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[plunge]

The full text of your post was "If they profess membership in a church and don't actually agree with the church, then that makes them hypocrites. Seems like quite a problem, don't you think?"

I pointed out that: no, it wouldn't. If I didn't see the context of the earlier discussion, then my second point was indeed offtopic, but the first point is the more important one.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, yeah so we'll just let all the "sinners" do the experimenting and stuff and secure their place in eternal damnation then the Christians can use the treatments because God made the technology and scientific break throughs in order to save their lives. I just love hipocracy.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[MonsoonDawn]

Oh bullshit. Governments are made of people. All governments act according to a moral code. The best governments act according to a code dictated by the citizens. Bad governments operate on a code dictated by very few powerful people or in the worst cases one person.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Oersoep]

Who's talking about parts of embryos?
The cells get multiplied and implanted. Not killed. Every single stemcell can still become a unique human being when inserted into an empty egg-cell and activated. Like dolly the sheep.

So let's completely reverse the view:
One could say the "poor victim" is granted nearly eternal life, because stem cell branches will never be discarded and are preserved in a lot of people. Hell, the cells might even wander around and end up in someones testicles and reproduce.

It makes me wonder if religious fanatics just can't stand being proven wrong on a number of subjects.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[ElleyKitten]

If they profess membership in a church and don't actually agree with the church, then that makes them hypocrites. Seems like quite a problem, don't you think?

First of all, whether they they're hypocrites or not doesn't make them pro-lifers.

Second of all, not all churches are against abortion and stem cell research. The United Church of Christ very much supports a woman's right to choose, and The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has information on being pro-choice within other faith traditions.

Another minor point, not all churches are Christian. Unitarian Universalism used to be a part of Christianity and still call their places of worship churches, but split off and now atheists, pagans, and people with other non-Christian beliefs make up a large part of it. I go to church every week and I'm pro-choice and don't believe in the Bible, yet I am not a hypocrite because my church does not require me to be pro-life and believe in the Bible. Sometimes UUs are still lumped in as Christian, and if the people that did your stastics did that, then there's a whole lot more pro-choicers in your group that you thought were homogenously pro-life.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[hoeferbe]

CRCulver wrote:

If embryos are considered human beings, which at least according to statistics of religious affiliation...

"Consideration" and "belief" shouldn't enter into the discussion. It is an objective fact that embryos are human beings. One needs only look at the embryo's genetic make up.

Deciding if embryos are human or not via statistics of beliefs or opinion polls of the populace is subjective to the whims of the day. It is like 1850's United States southern farmers `deciding` if blacks were people or 1930's German citizens `deciding` if non-Aryan peoples were sub-human.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

For pete's sake, read my original post above and you'll see that I specified only a few churches, namely Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and certain non-mainline Protestant denominations. Together, these make up the vast majority of Christian bodies.

The churches which have enshrined the right to abortion, the mainline Protestant denominations, are shrinking rapidly according to recent research.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

Valid point. I should have written "human person", which has the proper legal and ethical overtones.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[hasbeard]

In a couple years, we'll have the same attitude towards embryos.

No offense intended toward you Tom, but if we keep loosening our standards of what is acceptable and not acceptable we may come to the point where we will see other classes of people as expendable.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[ElleyKitten]

You didn't specify which non-mainline protestant churches you were talking about. I don't believe the UCC is considered mainline, and the RCRC has information about being Catholic and pro-choice. And again, you still can't assume that people who go to a specific church believe everything that church believes, even if you would call them hypocrites for not.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

If someone thinks that killing a stem cell is wrong, then they've as much sent up a giant firework that blows up and displays the words "I have no idea what morality is all about, I just follow rules a bit too literally without understanding what they are for!"

Total nonsense. The existence of the soul is an important part of the ethics of Plato and Aristotle and the anonymous Indian philosophers.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

I don't believe the UCC is considered mainline, and the RCRC has information about being Catholic and pro-choice.

The Unitarians that the UUs grew out of were mainline, and so Unitarian Universalism inherits the status. As for pro-choice Roman Catholics, the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church teaches that any who support abortion have essentially excommunicated themselves. Witness public supporters of abortion being refused the Eucharist in many churches. There is a long, long tradition of canon law against abortion in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches going all the way back to the Didache.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people believe that the government's job is to help protect its people--all its people, including the unborn.

Including the unborn and including the deceased, too! It is morally wrong for cremations to take place. The body is burnt, which leaves the soul with no clear path to heaven. The atheists say that people should be able to do whatever they want with their own bodies, but we pro-lifers know better. The government needs to step in and take control to ensure that innocent souls don't get lost in limbo. And once we acomplish that, we'll pass a law making baptism mandatory. Then we'll make Christianity the official state religion. We wouldn't want innocent people to go to hell, and it's obviously the government's job to guarantee that.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Illserve]

So you don't believe stealing is a matter of morality? Then why does the government regulate ownership? Because people have realized that stealing is morally wrong and unacceptable. People have a moral right to retain their property without interference.

No, people have realized that society cannot exist in its current form without protected ownership. Morality has nothing to do with it, it's pragmatism.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Guuge]

The government regulates ownership, humans own their own lives, the unborn are human, therefore the government regulates, supports, and protects their right to life.

So the mother doesn't own her uterus? By getting pregnant, does she cede rights over her body to the government? That's some eminent domain for you! I'd like to know the reasoning that allows the government to seize her body for the purposes of a potential life. As both a moral and an ownership issue, that seems highly questionable.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Do you really believe "The government has no business legislating [moral codes]"?

I firmly believe this. The government should be about enforcing agreed upon ethics that result in a conflict between individuals, not about morals.

Does that mean that you won't care if someone...

There is a difference between "caring" and thinking it is the government's job.

...kidnaps your children,

Common ethics says children need to be protected until they mature. If one individual tries to violate that ethical rule and in so doing violates the agreed upon ethical rights of others, then it is the government's responsibility to arbitrate the dispute.

hacks into your back accounts and empties them out, steals your car, and backs a moving van up to your home and empties it?

Common ethical rules say a person can make, trade for, and own possessions and taking those without permission violates that right. Again this is an ethical rule, not a moral one and suitable for government intervention.

Some people believe that the government's job is to help protect its people--all its people, including the unborn.

The problem here, is the reasoning behind classifying something as a person. If I claim toasters are people and need to be protected from being dismantled, I need to have a logical argument for why a toaster fits the definition of being a person, within that ethical framework. If my justification for this is, "god told me so" it becomes a religious/moral issue, rather than an ethical one. I agree it is the government's place to intervene and protect the life of all people, but only according to logical and ethical definitions of what a person is, not religious ones.

Abortion and creating embryos (human lives) for the purpose of using their parts are morally wrong and the government would be remiss in not prohibiting them.

Morally wrong according to religious rules or not, the government must look to ethics. I've yet to see a definition of human life that places value upon it for logical and ethical reasons instead of religious ones. Arguing that a bundle of cells has an "invisible, undetectable soul" which needs to be protected is religion, not ethics. There is no logical or evidentiary support for it. It is demonstrable that they do not have brains or conscious thought or any other criteria that make them more worthy of protection than sperm or skin cells, which do not enjoy protection under ethical guidelines.

If you feel each stem cell or embryo has a soul and your god has doomed most of them to a natural death, but it is your religious duty to keep as many alive as possible, I have no problem with that. But the government has no more justification for trying to enforce that religious belief than it does for my religious prohibition on the disassembly of toasters. If you have a religious belief, feel free to adhere to it and even encourage others to via persuasion. Do not, however, think that you are justified in forcing others to comply with your religious beliefs. In fact, the teachings of Jesus implicitly forbid trying to enforce your interpretation of right and wrong on others, while he is somewhat less forthcoming on the topic of stem cell research.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[hasbeard]

It is morally wrong for cremations to take place. The body is burnt, which leaves the soul with no clear path to heaven. The atheists say that people should be able to do whatever they want with their own bodies, but we pro-lifers know better. The government needs to step in and take control to ensure that innocent souls don't get lost in limbo. And once we acomplish that, we'll pass a law making baptism mandatory. Then we'll make Christianity the official state religion. We wouldn't want innocent people to go to hell, and it's obviously the government's job to guarantee that.

I would rather not get into a discussion of the metaphysical mechanics of souls. Let's suffice it to say that if you do a wrong to a person, you're doing it to the whole person--not just their "soul."

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

I've yet to see a definition of human life that places value upon it for logical and ethical reasons instead of religious ones.

Read Aristotle

Arguing that a bundle of cells has an "invisible, undetectable soul" which needs to be protected is religion, not ethics. There is no logical or evidentiary support for it

If you've read Hume, you'd know there's no logical support for anything, which means that your hope the government could base ethical decisions on the certain and fixed set of criteria you desire is ridiculous. However, there is reasonable support for the existence of the soul, and a trip from Plato through Plotinus would do you good.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[hasbeard]

No, people have realized that society cannot exist in its current form without protected ownership. Morality has nothing to do with it, it's pragmatism.

Well, what would you consider a moral choice?

Re:This is what we're talking about

[operagost]

Many cultures believe that sex crimes such as rape and incest are morally acceptable, at least in some circumstances. How is it that we have justified legislating against this behavior?

Re:This is what we're talking about

[ArikTheRed]

So you don't believe stealing is a matter of morality? Then why does the government regulate ownership? Because people have realized that stealing is morally wrong and unacceptable. People have a moral right to retain their property without interference.

Wow. Maybe that's the problem with modern government... people like you have no idea why it exists, and bend it to unintended consequences.

Stealing is socially unfeasible. Its morality is incidental. Enforcing codes of ownership is a primary function of government, that's why they do it, not becuase of abstract moral codes. I personally don't want government to exist to force my morals on the population, because I don't really care about the 'population'. I want a government to protect me, protect my friends, and protect my right to own stuff. Despite the high-minded mis-ideals of fools, this is what most people want (which is why they form governments). When your stuff is stolen, you'll right right to the police. What will you tell them? Someone did something immoral? Yeah right, you'll want you stuff back, and then want revenge (read: jailtime) on the perpetrator.

Back to the unfeasibility. For example: No one would buy land if there was no enforcement of ownership (and by extension, enforcement of life). It's just easier to buy guns, kill the previous owners, and move in. Regulation of ownership is precicely what allows modern life to exist. If no government existed, people would form "home associations" to protect large groupings of property (honestly, who wants to stand watch 24/7 to ensure their house doesn't get invaded?). Perhaps these people would rotate responsibilities for protection of the larger group (such as, manning the machine gun turret perimeter around the neighborhood?), so the rest could spend their time doing other things. Some people would not want to do "protection duty" at all, some would prefer to do protection all the time. Hey! I have an idea! Let's pay a small fraction of the group to protect us all the time, and we can spend our time doing other things! Right, there you go. That's the government. And just to ensure there are no competing "security groups", there can be only one. So, in a nutshell, government must have a monopoly on violence. If you notice, nowhere did I mention anything about morality. Thats because, as I stated before, government regulates ownership, not morality.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[hasbeard]

She is free to use her uterus as she sees fit. But the life of a child is its own. A mother is meant to protect the lives of her children. It should not be the government's place to have to legislate this.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[ElleyKitten]

I'm not sure why you think UCC stands for Unitarian Universalism, but it actually means United Church of Christ. They're rather different. Anyways, UUism no longer counts as mainline Protestant, because it no longer counts as Protestant. As for the UCC, I don't know. What are you defining as mainline and not mainline?

As for Catholics, I don't care what the magisterium says, there are people who consider themselves Catholic who are pro-choice. Google them, there's lots.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

As for Catholics, I don't care what the magisterium says, there are people who consider themselves Catholic who are pro-choice.

They consider themselves Catholics, but they are not obedient to the teachings of their Church. It's that simple. In Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, the laity do not get to decide doctrine or pick and choose what to believe. Revelation is provided by Tradition and (in the case of Roman Catholicism) a Magisterium, no matter how many individuals want the Church to bend to their will.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[constantnormal]

Just because a moral code dictates that some course of action be taken does not necessarily make the case for doing so.

Moral codes can be wrong.

The radical Islamists believe that it is their moral duty to try and convert an unbeliever to their faith, up to and including killing them. Should we infidels (and non-radical Islamists) either convert or die to conform to their moral code? Is there no other possibility?

If you want to defend your moral code, be prepared to argue the case for it, and to consider changing your beliefs if you cannot adequately defend them.

People who oppose doing research with embryonic stem cells, yet support military conflict that kills many times more "people", haven't an ethical leg to stand on. I'm not saying that you fall into this group, but a great many people do.

People who revere all "life" and yet merrily chow down on meats and vegetables, seem to forget that meats and veggies were once "life" -- or are some forms of life somehow different from others? Or is "life" something less than all-important? I only ask these questions -- I do not propose to have the answers.

There is a great deal of difference between a non-sentient bundle of cells that have the potential to develop into a sentient human being and a living, breathing child -- just as there is a great deal of difference between a year-old infant and a 30-year-old adult. People insist on treating them as equivalent, while no one would ever think of allowing a year-old infant to vote or drive a car, and no one would expect a 30-year-old adult to learn at the rate of a year-old infant.

By treating an embryo as equivalent to an adult, you are equating potential with realization, and that's simply not true. Ask anyone's grade school teachers. The question of whether to use embryonic stem cells in order to advance medical technology is a complex and difficult one, with no clear answers. To answer that question means resolving the difference between "potential" and "realization", and comparing the difference in the realization of life's potential in those crippled or killed by injuries to the difference between the potential of an embryo and its realization, with the probability of successful realization taken into account for each case.

Of course this does not end with the embryo. Suppose we decide or agree that an embryo's potentiality should be preserved. What if we arrive at a means to duplicate the structure of an embryo from the raw DNA, proteins, etc? So far as I know, there is nothing in physics that prevents this from eventually being achieved -- and we already routinely assemble DNA sequences from the constituent amino acids. Are these also to be considered "protected organizations of matter"? After all, they have the potential to be assembled into an embryo, which has the potential to be assembled into a full human being. Where does it stop, and why?

Simplistic answers will not yield ethical results. The likely progress from here is that some people will fight tooth and nail to prevent research using embryonic stem cells, and other people will be hell-bent to advance the art of medical science as far and fast as possible, whatever the consequences. Ethical considerations are likely to be left behind in favor of whatever meme makes people feel good about themselves.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Many moral codes require that one do one's utmost to save innocent human life. One is not permitted to simply look over the taking of human life, as you suggest when you say that "they can just refuse treatment". Now, legislative power is a means to protect life in this case, therefore it is entirely sensible that it be used for such a purpose.

This is incorrect, because it violates ethics. For example, suppose I have a religious belief that people born on Halloween are evil and those babies need to be immediately killed. (Note, this was a religious practice in some places.) If I can get enough people to agree with me, does that mean I am justified in trying to pass laws to enforce this practice? The answer is "no." The reason the answer is no, is because I'm trying to enforce a moral belief, not an ethical belief. There is no common code of ethics that makes this common belief, only a religious one, which the government has no business enforcing. It is unethical for one group to enforce their religious beliefs upon others and in fact it is forbidden by the teaching of Jesus. That means those claiming to follow those beliefs and trying to enforce them upon others are not only trying to unethically misuse the government, but are also violating their stated moral codes. This means they are adhering to only some of their moral codes, not all and it becomes an excuse for action, rather than a reason.

It does exist, and those who hold it have certain responsibilities toward it.

Yes, but when those responsibilities are in conflict with other, ethical agreements, and their own stated moral code, they lose all credibility as trying to do anything other than bully others to demonstrate their ability to do so.

Surely in order to obtain a university degree you did the obligatory Ethics course.

Surely someone who took such a course understands the distinction between morals and ethics.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[bunions]

If you've read Hume, you'd know there's no logical support for anything, which means that your hope the government could base ethical decisions on the certain and fixed set of criteria you desire is ridiculous. However, there is reasonable support for the existence of the soul, and a trip from Plato through Plotinus would do you good.

Reading this was like reading a grocery list from Alpha Centauri. It has nothing to do with anything. Hume, Plato and Plotinus don't butter any biscuits in these, our modern times. If any of them had any actual answers instead of clever wordplay and redefinitions, we'd have had this whole ethical mess worked out long ago. Sadly, philosophy can't do that, because it's simply people talking. Anything of value in philosophy has been folded into mathematics or other hard sciences a long time ago.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Illserve]

Well, what would you consider a moral choice?

To me moral choices are decisions for which the ends don't justify the means.

Hitler may have been on to something with Eugenics. Artificially eliminating certain genetic mutations from our DNA by restricting who is allowed to breed may result in a long term benefit for humanity (hypothetically)

However, regardless of its ends, the means of Eugenics are unacceptable in a moral society so we draw a line in the sand there.
For stealing, on the other hand, sometimes the ends do justify the means. A starving child stealing a loaf of bread from a rich bakery, for example, can be strongly argued as justified. You'd be hard pressed to describe that scenario as "morally wrong" to anyone.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[operagost]

That's fine, if you really believe that human life is nothing more than a collection of cells. Maybe we are just "ugly bags of mostly water."

Re:This is what we're talking about

[poot_rootbeer]

"If embryos are considered human beings, which at least according to statistics of religious affiliation (add up the number of Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and non-mainline Protestants) is a belief held by the vast majority of the Western world"

That's a fallacy -- argumentum ad populum, specifically.

Just because a majority of people believe something (eg, that embryos are human beings) would not make it objectively True.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[operagost]

a woman's right to choose

What is it with this meme? Is abortion not wholly acceptable among you people? Why not spell it out: "a woman's right to abort her fetus." Or, if you like the "choosing" verb, it's "a woman's right to choose life or death." Simply truncating the statement at "choose" is a weaselly way of suggesting that if I'm anti-abortion that I'm anti-choice, or anti-feminist. I'm not against a woman's right to attend school, pursue a job, get a tattoo, or hack the Linux kernel.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[operagost]

Without such an attitude, we'd still consider leeches as the pinnacle of modern medicine. The human body was once considered holy and untouchable, and cutting it open was not something a doctor could even consider without risking to be burned alive.

When was that, exactly? Seems like centuries before modern medicine, we were drilling holes in people's skulls and bleeding them. There was a great advance in the 19th century when we began to observe symptoms, develop treatments, and do a lot less cutting.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[operagost]

Claiming that stem cells have tiny little souls is as useful in a moral debate as claiming that rocks have then and geology is evil.

This is a straw-man argument as there is general consensus that rocks are not even alive. The argument that embryos are human is based on the observation that embryos are alive and, when properly developed in the mother, become human beings. The debate begins in deciding exactly when that takes place.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

No, it is not a fallacy, for I nowhere claimed it was objectively true. I claimed that a majority of people believe, according to statistics of denominational affiliation, that the killing of embryos is wrong. My point was not that it is objectively true, but rather that those believing so hold a responsibility to their moral beliefs.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[professionalfurryele]

I think you will find if you look at the test cases that some of the worst atrocities in history were conducted under popular regiems. Stalinist Russia, Hitlers Germany, The Golden Hoarde. These were, with their people at least, pretty popular, for a time.

Governments do not exist to enforce morals. They exist to control society to the degree that it works from a pragmatic point of view. Murder, stealing, rape, these are all illegal because if they were not, the government would fail in it's objective of protecting the rights of its citizens. They are not illegal because they are immoral. They are illegal because they infringe upon one individuals basic rights.

Consider homosexuality. Should homosexual acts be illegal? Homosexual acts do no harm to those parties not involved. No ones basic rights are infrigned. The government has no business in the matter. Same goes for abortion, unless you believe that the fetus has rights, and that those rights are infringed by arborting it. Same goes for experimentation on fetuses.

However, if you are going make these arguements, then I for one would like to see a slightly better approach than "this inconsistent 2000 year old book told me so". The definition of what consitutes a human being is the last place where religion can get its grubby paws on the state and drag us back to theocracy.

We are tottering on the edge. If the Christians, Muslims, etc win, then we slide back to the dark ages. Or we can complete the work started in the Enlightenment.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[plunge]

"This is a straw-man argument as there is general consensus that rocks are not even alive."

It's not a straw man precisely because it is the nature of supernatural arguments to make things up. If you can claim a zygote has a soul (whatever that is) and that (for some unexplained reason) is why we can't destroy it, I can make up the same about rocks. "Alive"? What does that matter: it has an ETERNAL SOUL.

"The argument that embryos are human is based on the observation that embryos are alive and, when properly developed in the mother, become human beings."

That's not an argument at all. It's a statement of facts with all the moral content missing or sloppily implied without really thinking it through.

At no time in the human reproductive process does anything "not alive" become suddenly "alive." Any many points, something alive can die, but most of them have no moral consequences. A stem cell dying prevents a human being from being created in exactly the same way not having any sex in the first place prevents a human being from being created. In both cases, you've ended a potential chain of causality that could have resulted in a human being BEFORE even the most basic structural elements distinctive to human beings have ever been put together.

Stem cells contain instructions, a sort of recipe for how to go about constructing a human being. But these instructions haven't even made it to the "construction site" at the time stem cells are cultured and harvested, much less has the edifice been put together.

It's worth noting that almost all cells in your body contain exactly the same instructions which, if carried out in the right conditions, will build a new individual. Every skin cell you mercilessly squish while typing could be a new human life!

Re:This is what we're talking about

[plunge]

Eh? What? Hunh? What does this have to do with anything? The existence of a soul is gobbledygook in an argument, no matter who is making it. Maybe such a thing exists, maybe it doesn't (though given that no one can actually define it in any coherent fashion, it doesn't much matter since we can't "know it when we see it" anyway), but since we have no way of determining it or anything about it aside from simply making stuff up out of the blue, it's as irrelevant to a serious debate as if I claimed that you can't invade Iraq because of sdfkjghsdf and iounsmndf.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Read Aristotle

I have. Allow me, however, to clarify my previous statement, which you have removed from its context. I've yet to see a definition of human life, that applies to stem cells or fetuses and that places value upon them for logical and ethical reasons instead of religious ones.

If you've read Hume, you'd know there's no logical support for anything...

I have read Hume, but your statement is empty rhetoric. He does not invalidate logic, rather he discusses the context for it.

...your hope the government could base ethical decisions on the certain and fixed set of criteria you desire is ridiculous.

Who said anything about a fixed set? Rather, I said based upon ethical principals that are commonly agreed upon, and thus can be logically applied to particulars, as opposed to a series of dogmatic rules with no consistent basis, other than particular version of a conflicting collection of religious stories and essays. It is the differnce between laws bounded by the Bill of Rights and laws bounded by the Qua-ran.

However, there is reasonable support for the existence of the soul, and a trip from Plato through Plotinus would do you good.

If you bothered to study and understand the works of some of the people whose names you cite, you'd have something more to add to this discussion other than non-specific assertions. Providing, for example, your logical and evidentiary support for the existence of a soul would be constructive. All of those you cite were familiar with the rhetorical method (except perhaps Plotinus from whom I have read little) ) and would likely be appalled by your casual lack of arguments. Maybe you're the one who should give the classic rhetoricians and philosophers another pass.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Just imagine where we might be if our Pope in Chief were not using his pulpit to limit the research being done.

For those talking about abortion; embryonic stem cells come from embryos not abortions. If it has never been implanted in a woman, it can't be aborted.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Wildclaw]

the same could be said about "pro-lifers". They seem to be pro quantity of life, but against quality of life.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[eaolson]

However, there is reasonable support for the existence of the soul

Really? In what peer-reviewed journal was it published?

Re:This is what we're talking about

[hoeferbe]

CRCulver wrote:

Valid point. I should have written "human person", which has the proper legal and ethical overtones.

That's OK. My comment was really directed more to the other replies to your e-mail. I suspected many of them would argue that one's religious belief/practices shouldn't be forced upon another. (A stance I agree with.)

Many of those same people, however, will argue that since society cannot agree that an embryo or fetus is a person, there should therefore be no restrictions. What they forget is that they are making just as much as a subjective judgment that shouldn't be forced upon others, either. At least when Pro-Lifers say using embryonic stem cells kills a human being, they are scientifically/medically correct.

The debate then properly becomes "should society judge the worth of individual human beings?" and, if so, "at what level of benefit (to us) should we approve the killing of innocent human beings?"

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Cleon]

Of course, "pro-life" is perfectly honest and open, right? Please.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Civil_Disobedient]

Many moral codes require that one do one's utmost to save innocent human life. One is not permitted to simply look over the taking of human life, as you suggest when you say that "they can just refuse treatment".

And there lies the problem. It's not enough for them to simply not do something, they must proselytize and cram their beliefs down the throats of non-believers. Even when those beliefs defy thousands of years of progress in civilization. So we get jihadists telling us to get rid of our Western excesses or they'll kill us. And in our own country we have right-wing nutters throwing people behind bars for using drugs, or proposing amendements to limit the rights of homosexuals. The one common theme among all these groups: they can't keep their noses out of your affairs.

Doctrine number one for my new utopia: Mind your own fucking business.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[ElleyKitten]

Wow, someone's touchy.

It's short for a woman's right to choose what she does with her own body. That's kinda long, so we shorten it.

Say stupid shit like you support my right to choose if I get a tattoo or not all you want. Sorry, but my choices over my body are not limited to what you like and what you don't. I don't tell men what to do with their bodies, don't tell me what to do with mine.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[vertinox]

Now, legislative power is a means to protect life in this case, therefore it is entirely sensible that it be used for such a purpose.

However embryos are not sentient life in a sense. They have as much life as the cells in our bodies are alive, but they obviously they do not have thoughts, language, or much of a conciousness.

They don't have any opinions of life, death, or suffering for that matter and cannot comprehend such concepts as much as my finger could by itself.

They may of course have a soul and that is open to theological debate, but if that were the case aren't these souls more open to going to heaven? Or perhaps reincarnation?

Surely a kind, good, and loving god would not send these souls to hell for something they have no control over?

As the saying goes "God knows what we must do here. Otherwise he is not a god."

Apologies to whoever wrote the Kingdom of Heaven script.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[KingPrad]

Your extreme argument has no relevance to the discussion. You are talking about acts that injure other people. The parent poster was talking about personal actions that affect no one else. Maybe it disgusts some people, but it doesn't hurt anyone. He wasn't talking about absolute freedom of action. Did you really think that is was he was saying?

Re:This is what we're talking about

[SiChemist]

However, there is reasonable support for the existence of the soul, and a trip from Plato through Plotinus would do you good.

Just exactly what is the "reasonable support" for the existence of a soul? You have an objective, independently verifiable answer?

Re:This is what we're talking about

[GaepysPike]

Because they're much more usable than adult stem cells. Get over it.

Sorry, but a citation please? Because I've found a few to the contrary for you:

1) http://www.stemcellresearch.org/facts/treatments.h tm
      (with it's own reference list a mile long)

2) http://www.i-sis.org.uk/stemcells2.php
A snippet:
"These latest results show that the ES cells need to be genetically modified and extensive manipulation in vitro before they can be transplanted safely. Direct transplant of ES cells are known to give rise to teratomas and uncontrollable cell proliferation. There is already evidence that ES cells are genetically unstable in long term culture, and are especially prone to chromosomal abnormalities."

3) http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/interr ogatory022601a.shtml
(An interview with the same scientist (for those lefties among you who love to hate the conservative rags):

4) http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/nov/03112001.html (If you like canadian docs' opinions...)

Contrary to how I'm sure it sounds, I'm not yet categorically opposed to using embryonic stem cells for research. I'm for science- and this mice story is absolutely incredible.

But cut the unsupported, non-cited one liners. They bring nothing to the table.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[thefirelane]

But don't try to pretend that that viewpoint simply doesn't exist. It does exist, and those who hold it have certain responsibilities toward it

The real problem is, that most people realize stem cell research is a continuation in a line of medical advances that are opposed by healthy Christians until they themselves need it:

• Doctors learning on cadavers
• Organ donation
• Curing of 'divine wrath' diseases

Also, we see STD vaccines being added to this list as well.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[TheGarggh]

Some people believe that the government's job is to help protect its people--all its people, including the unborn. Abortion and creating embryos (human lives) for the purpose of using their parts are morally wrong and the government would be remiss in not prohibiting them.

So coercing the American population to send thousands of its sons and daughters into Iraq, directly into harm's way, to "spread freedom" is a worthy sacrifice of human life, yet stem cell therapy is a big no-no -- even though its benefits to Americans' quality of life are of a much more immediate and plausible nature? Yes, these brave soldiers may have voluntarily joined the armed forces to defend their country, but somehow I doubt that when they signed up they foresaw the arbitrary Bush doctrine of preventative war or the neocon collective's predilection towards misleading the entire nation into grave, uninformed decisions that threaten their very lives. There seems to be a little bit of a double standard here. I always wonder how the ultrareligious wingnuts reconcile their positions on those two issues. Then I settle on the notion that they are simply incapable of the critical thinking necessary to draw that parallel.

-J

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Guuge]

Which is it, then? Does each person make up her own mind about the metaphysics of embryos? Or do you arbitrarily decide for everyone else, and get the government to enforce your viewpoint?

Re:This is what we're talking about

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

What is it with this meme? Is abortion not wholly acceptable among you people? Why not spell it out:

Referring to anyone as "you people" is a good way to make people think you are prejudiced. Maybe some people just want something that will fit on a bumper sticker?

Simply truncating the statement at "choose" is a weaselly way of suggesting that if I'm anti-abortion that I'm anti-choice, or anti-feminist.

They are expressing a complete sentence and everyone understands what they are talking about. If the communication is successful, what is the problem? As for anti-choice, that is exactly what it is, isn't it? You want to choose for someone else whether what they do is right or wrong and if they should be stopped from doing it by a bunch of guys with guns. Otherwise, you'd be minding your own business and not trying to pass laws that tell others what they must do. Finally, for the anti-feminist part, have you read your history books? A lot of women died in childbirth, sometimes with unwanted pregnancies. They were literally strapped onto a bed and kept there for months in the hopes of saving the pregnancy and in the hopes it would be a boy, since the life, decisions, and freedom of the pregnant woman were of little consequence in a male dominated society. Thus, when some people associate the pro-lifer movement with anti-feminism, there is a lot of history to back them up. It does not help that the foremost supporters are christian groups that still talk about "family values" and "women's place in the home" and "obeying their husband's will above there own." It's not exactly a feminist, friendly company with which you have placed yourself. When your allies still talk about how women are born inherently evil, maybe you need to take extra care when standing next to them to not be considered to likely hold anti-feminist beliefs.

I'm not against a woman's right to attend school, pursue a job, get a tattoo, or hack the Linux kernel.

No, but you do believe that you have the right to impose your view of what is right in this instance upon them, superseding their judgement. You assume you know better than they do, and thus you should be able to force them at gunpoint to do what you believe is right. If you believe abortion is wrong, I have no problem with that. If you support the pro-life movement, however, which is trying to make choices for others under the assumption that they are a better judge of right and wrong than an individual woman, well, that is unethical, presumptuous, and very unchristian. Maybe you should read Jesus' teachings about not judging right and wrong and religious matters for others, but letting each decide for themselves.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Tom]

No offense intended toward you Tom, but if we keep loosening our standards of what is acceptable and not acceptable we may come to the point where we will see other classes of people as expendable.

You mean like the tens of thousands of Iraqis who die and aren't newsworthy?

We never had any standards of the kind you claim. Two hundred years ago, we killed people for what's considered minor crimes today. Five hundred years ago, we burned them alive due to superstition. Two thousand years ago, we let people kill each other for entertainment.

I don't mind loosening those standards. And that includes the modern world, where I'm always surprised that everyone but me apparently considers it normal to read a front-page article about how prominent person X was rescued from the Tsunami area and oh yes a hundred thousand or so locals were killed.

How far is this de-valuation really from considering people expendable? How far is "I don't care if they die" from "if there's profit, why not make them die"? In fact, there are quite a few allegations that US companies are using that very philosophy while operating abroad. Bopal comes to mind...

Re:This is what we're talking about

[i_finally_got_an_acc]

I hate to disagree with you about this, but here we are. Maybe my moral beliefs tell me that human sacrifice pleases my god. If there are people who have these moral beliefs, and I'm sure there are at least a few, well, the government has plenty business legislating that it's wrong.

To many people, stem cell research is very similar since they consider embryos humans. It's just sacrificing humans for science this time. Woah, turns out this issue is more complicated than you think. I have no difficulties seeing the other side of the argument here.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Gnostic Ronin]

My take on these moral codes:

PUT UP OR SHUT UP

If you really want to ban stem cell research, then go ahead. But it means when you get crushed under your Hummer, you won't get the stem cell treatment that you think is so horrible. And another thing -- how many "moarlists" out there know an actual human being in the position to need this stuff? How many would be willing to go to a hospital or a nursing home and tell those people how "eeeevil" it is to use stem cells so that they can walk or see or whatever else?

Anyone? *chirping crickets*

Your case isn't with me or anyone else on /. It's with the paralysed, the alzheimers patient, the guy down the hall with Lou Gehrig's disease. Convince them of the evils of these almost cures from embryonic stem cells. Convince them that it's better to do the moral thing and stay in the wheelchair.

There are moral issues, sure. There are moral issues in animal reasearch as well. (hint: someone had to physically break the rat's back -- and I bet the rat felt it too.) But just as with any result from animal research or any other so-called immoral research, you are free to opt out. If you think ESCR is "ickypants", don't use it. Convince your friends to do the same, and draw up legal documents so that you'll never get an ESC treatment. Fair enough, and if enough people do the same, the research will die out -- because medicine is a business. What isn't fair is to tell some cripple that he has to live by your code. They have the right to decide for themselves if they'd rather stay in the chair for the moral issues involved or to get the treatments and walk around.

I'll admit that there are some moral problems with using ESCs, and I can't quite say for sure how bad ESC is morally. But until the day when I get the cajones to say that death is preferable to taking ESCs as a treatment, any "moral" bleating I may do on the subject is meaningless. Just another healthy 1st world know-nothing bleating about the ethics of something that I don't really understand.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Alinabi]

A society cannot function properly unless all the acts you mention are criminalized. However, there is a HUGE difference between outlawing something for such a practical reason and outlawing it to satisfy someone's moral qualms. Many people find eating meet deeply disturbing. Should we outlaw pig farms then? I don't think so, as their existance, while disturbing, does not hinder the proper functioning of society.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Anonymous Coward]

These were probably rat stem cells, so who cares whether they were adult or embryonic?

Actually, these were human stem cells injected into rats. The particular cell line is derived from cells that were taken from aborted human fetuses in 1998.

These are classed as embryonic stem cells. If I'm not mistaken, a human fetus is actually an embryo, though it is a much later stage than the 'undifferentied ball of cells' that you hear about when politicians and scientists promote embryonic stem cell research.

[reference]

In my not so humble opinion, there are serious ethical questions with this kind of research which the nascent field of bioethics has spent the last decade dodging. Bioethics is basically a bad joke. Bioethicists are kept in-house by universities like Stanford and Duke, and spend their time justifying experiments done by these same institutes -- which is a rather serious conflict of interest right there. They never seem to seriously consider whether that a type of research is actually acceptable or not... instead their goal is to make arguments to convince other people that the research is a good thing.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Anonymous Coward]

ahem ... all those who glorify embryonic stem cells because they feel they are slapping the 'religious right' ... this isn't as big news as the media puts out ... U of Louisville did it already (media didn't fall all over because embryonic = sell!!!)

There are real scientific reasons to not support human embryonic stem cell research.

1) It put's women at risk - from where do you think the embryos come?
(Few clinic embryos are available for research - and almost none are of quality wanted by researchers). They are targeting poor women of color! Women can die from donating.

2) Embryonic stem cells have no therapeutic advantage over other stem cell sources - because they form TUMORS if they aren't differentiated out. (The also can't be used as 'injections' like other SCs can - like in curing diabetes - nor can it address multiple systems, like other SCs can, ex. brain & connective tissue repair in stroke victims.)

3) They have to CLONE to not be rejected ... and we can't clone an ape (due to meiotic spindle issues). Even if we could - your body's always with you when you travel ... your clone is not.

4) 'Adult' stem cells purpose IS to repair ... embryonic is to make an entire individual (hence tumors) - and then only if intact.

4) Listen to the researchers ... this is about DRUG THERAPIES - not reparative therapies.

The embryo has no clothes. Really.

This is sourced out at: http://www.stemcellscure.info/ More info can also be found at http://www.endeggsploitation.org/ and http://www.handsoffourovaries.com/

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Stackman]

I know that a viewpoint against the use of stem cells exists. I dont understand any part of that viewpoint whatsoever though. The government should not be legislating RELIGIOUS ethics upon the rest of us. Who are you or they to say that a scientist doesnt have the right to use cells that will be discarded and destroyed as a matter of course anyway. George Bush wants to sound magnanimous in his permission of scientists to do research upon specific strains of stem cells that are to-date useless for any meaningfull research. He is in fact pushing his religious ideaology down our throats.

Why wouldnt you want those same cells to be used to help those of us that are still living, in the interests of curing currently incurable diseases or helping someone paralyzed in an awful accident walk again.

Who are you to say when an embryo becomes a "human life" anymore than the people who are trying to do this research (who happen to be some of the smartest people on the planet) Abortions are an awful thing, but they will continue to happen. Maybe we can take some good out of one of the horrors of our world

Re:This is what we're talking about

[Oersoep]

Does it need to be more?

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

Finally, for the anti-feminist part, have you read your history books? A lot of women died in childbirth, sometimes with unwanted pregnancies. They were literally strapped onto a bed and kept there for months in the hopes of saving the pregnancy and in the hopes it would be a boy, since the life, decisions, and freedom of the pregnant woman were of little consequence in a male dominated society.

Please give a citation that this was true for all social classes of all Western societies, or even for most. In the peasantry, women continued to work until the last months of pregnancy just like today.

When your allies still talk about how women are born inherently evil, maybe you need to take extra care

Cite that this is true for all or even most religious groups opposing embryonic stem-cell use?

Maybe you should read Jesus' teachings about not judging right and wrong and religious matters for others, but letting each decide for themselves.

Maybe you should read about the two biggest groups opposing the use of embryos. Neither the Roman Catholic Church nor the Orthodox Church teaches that people can interpret the Bible and right and wrong for themselves, but rather the Church exists to provide an interpretation for Christ's teaching and a doctrine. If you've read modern philosophy, where the question of what exactly a text means is itself very much in question, you'd appreciate the system by which correct interpretation of the Bible has been safeguarded for a couple of thousand years already.

...well, that is unethical, presumptuous, and very unchristian.

How can it be "un-Christian" if the Church, all the way back to the age of the apostles (read the Didache) has condemned abortion in no uncertain terms? Banning abortion is part of the very definition of Christian life.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Please give a citation that this was true for all social classes of all Western societies, or even for most. In the peasantry, women continued to work until the last months of pregnancy just like today.

Why would it have to apply to all social classes to be relevant? It was a valid and important concern to the feminist and women's lib movements.

Cite that this is true for all or even most religious groups opposing embryonic stem-cell use?

Again, who has bothered to perform a study of which sects even oppose stem cell research? All that matters is that very vocal elements who oppose stem cell research, also promote the concept of original sin, and women submitting to men. It is a common theme of christianity and is still a very common part of many wedding ceremonies in that religion.

Neither the Roman Catholic Church nor the Orthodox Church...

There is no an "Orthodox" church, but many disparate ones.

...the Church exists to provide an interpretation for Christ's teaching and a doctrine.

Okay, if your particular sect forbids you to do your own interpretation, how is it that they do interpret those teachings and why do they promote something that does so blatantly violate some of the clearer teachings and examples in the new testament?

If you've read modern philosophy, where the question of what exactly a text means is itself very much in question, you'd appreciate the system by which correct interpretation of the Bible has been safeguarded for a couple of thousand years already.

Hahahahahaha! Whew! I hope that was a joke. Someone needs to take a real course in biblical history. Common versions of the bible deviate drastically in meaning from earlier version and the catholic church itself has reversed its own position on every topic imaginable numerous times, from killing to homosexuality. There are even old, catholic and orthodox greek wedding ceremonies specifically for same sex couples. To claim that a religion that has bent rather than broken and conforms itself to the common opinions of the day so readily has not changed their interpretation of the bible is patently ludicrous.

How can it be "un-Christian" if the Church, all the way back to the age of the apostles (read the Didache) has condemned abortion in no uncertain terms? Banning abortion is part of the very definition of Christian life.

Because, while it may be in the bible (which is collected from many religions) it violates the teachings of Christ, you know the guy the religion is named for. Even if abortion is specifically banned by the words of Jesus himself, he also commands that you don't try to tell others what to do and to leave them to decide what is and isn't sin. Ergo, even if it is wrong, it is still unchristian to try to stop others from doing it. Don't try to make decisions for others or judge if what they are doing is right or wrong. Look to your own actions only.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[mfrank]

Can always get them from China. Most of the people on this planet aren't fundamentalists.

Re:This is what we're talking about

[CRCulver]

There is no an "Orthodox" church, but many disparate ones.

The term "Orthodox" is often used in English-language scholarship to refer to those churches in communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople, and encompasses the national churches of Greece, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc. While organized on the national level, they all form one church.

There are even old, catholic and orthodox greek wedding ceremonies specifically for same sex couples.

No, there aren't. There were ceremonies of brothership intended to provide defence against being killed in feuds, since you'd be less likely to be done in if you were in alliances. These are gone from most of the Byzantine sphere of influence, but survive today in Albania. The only scholar who has tried to claim that these were for "same-sex couples" in a sexual or romantic sense was Boswell, and his work has been soundly refuted from nearly all sides.

All that matters is that very vocal elements who oppose stem cell research, also promote the concept of original sin, and women submitting to men. It is a common theme of christianity and is still a very common part of many wedding ceremonies in that religion.

The concept of "original sin" that you are talking about applies to both genders, it hardly means that women alone are "born evil", as you suggested in your post. Furthermore, this specific concept of "original sin" is very Augustian-Anselmian, and is not accepted as dogma by all, in particular the Orthodox have not made any such pronouncement on it.

Common versions of the bible deviate drastically in meaning from earlier version

Cite? Leaving aside the non-canonical texts, which aren't taken seriously even by most non-Christian scholars because of their late dates, the canonical texts show little difference from manuscript to manuscript. Pick up the Aland-Karavidopoulos-Martini-Metzger New Testament that shows variations in manuscripts, and you'll see that it's usually a minor difference in wording that doesn't change the meaning.

Because, while it may be in the bible (which is collected from many religions) it violates the teachings of Christ, you know the guy the religion is named for.

Again, you are trying to force your own individual interpretation of what Christ taught when the community he founded would know better.

he also commands that you don't try to tell others what to do and to leave them to decide what is and isn't sin. Ergo, even if it is wrong, it is still unchristian to try to stop others from doing it. Don't try to make decisions for others or judge if what they are doing is right or wrong. Look to your own actions only.

That applies to individuals in individual matters, the Church and the government are permitted to enforce Christian standards of living at a societal level.

Stem cells + gamer wrists = An RSI-free future?

[Bruce McBruce]

I really do hope that in however many years when use of stem cells grows to a point where they're used in common surgery, they'll be able to cure or at least help with RSI. What I wouldn't give for my wrists will once more be able to handle an hour of Xbox useage again.

Re:Stem cells + gamer wrists = An RSI-free future?

[BiggerIsBetter]

Xbox usage??? Get some perspective you little shit. This gives hope to people have lost the use of their legs, or their whole freaking bodies, possibly lost their families in accidents, or maybe fought in wars protecting your sorry ass, and all you can think about is playing fucking video games?!

If you want to help RSI, go and do something that doesn't involve computers or jacking off. This research is bigger than your limp-wristed melodramas. I only hope religion and politics doesn't slow progress any more than it already has.

Try it on my cat, please!

[ManoSinistra]

Now try this science out on my cat please!

Embryonic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm article says stem cells, halfway down they are talking about embroynic stemcells.

which ones did they use to help the rats walk.

stem cells are legal to use.

embroynic stem cells can be used but require private funding.

article doesn't distinguish wich ones are used on the rodents :(

Re:Embryonic?

[aardwolf64]

There is nothing illegal about using embryonic RAT stem cells...

Re:Embryonic?

[davygrvy]

What a great fuss this discovery makes :)

There is nothing illegal about using embryonic RAT stem cells...

So how will the progression of this "Stem cells repair spinal cord injuries" discovery work in real human trials? That's the next step, right?

How will George Bush defend his stance on human embrionic stem cell research with this news?

Re:Embryonic?

[Anonymous Coward]

"which ones did they use to help the rats walk."

This is more interesting than you might think, as the controversy surrounds embroynic stem cells.

I've heard scientists say that embroynic have the most potential, but all reports from trials showing practical uses seems to be using adult stem cells.

Something having the most theoretical potential is all fine and dandy, but what's the point if there are no practical benefits to an alternative which has benefits in other areas.

Miracle

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be silly. Jesus cured those rats, and He would have cured even more of them if those godless scientists hadn't been mucking about with evil stem cells...

soup of nerve-friendly chemicals

[losec]

thats what i'm going to call long island ice tea from now on.

Tests on people

[LoonyMike]

The guys at Valve totally rock with their Stem technology.
They are already moving to the next step, testing it on humans.

Actually

[Shivetya]

getting the government out of the way has opened more doors.

many don't realize the numbers of restrictions and amounts of red tape that come with government funding. So while the motive for limiting federal participation in stem cells may be political/religous/etc in basis it does also follow the theme of letting private industry take the risks and reap the rewards.

making people well is big business but along with that comes great cost and time. Innovations come from those who are not bound by restrictions and having the government looking over one's shoulder.

look at it this way, with private entities doing the work, competeing with each other, we will may end up with different cures for the same problems allowing a broader range of people to benefit. we also have multiple avenues to not being impacted in the future by the government agencies as the work was performed in the free market.

Re:Actually

[ericspinder]

Innovations come from those who are not bound by restrictions and having the government looking over one's shoulder.

Business has a tendancy to demand 'profitability'. Fortunately, stem cell research is considered 'profitable' by Wall Street right now, and those companies are getting the funding they need.

Re:Actually

[oh_my_080980980]

I want to nominate you for Twit of the Year Award.

It has been demonstrated time and time again that Big Business is not in the habit of taking risks. They would rather tweak an existing drug, repackage it and bingo we have another anti-histamine (Claritin-D). If you have done the research you will know that the big cures have NOT been happening. That drug companies have dumped more money into advertising than R&D. The bottom line, government funding is necessary for BASIC RESEARCH. Basic Research is very necessary but is not necessarily profitable. Thus a company operating on bottom line principles - which is all of them - will not TAKE RISKS.

What is needed is less politics in government funding. NIH and the NSF are setup to do just that - hand out grants based on merits of the research not the politics. Tell all the tree-hugging hippies, that includes the religious conservatives, to go home!

Re:Actually

[misleb]

look at it this way, with private entities doing the work, competeing with each other, we will may end up with different cures for the same problems allowing a broader range of people to benefit.

See, the problem with that is private entities are quite often not interested in finding cures. More than anything, they try to come up with long term treatments that will bring in recurring profits from each and every user over the lifetime of their patent. Privatization is not the answer to everything. I'd almost rather entrust research to entities whose only motivation is prestige. Treatments are good. Cures are better... and not just for the people, but also for the prestige.

-matthew

Re:Actually

[craigob]

"I want to nominate you for Twit of the Year Award."

"What is needed is less politics in government funding."

Oh man, you're killing me. "less politics in government funding"???? Give me a break. These are the same people that publicly regard a budget increase of only 3% instead of 4% a spending cut. Government is tied to politics, and we'll never be able to remove or eliminate politics from any government funding. I hereby nominate you as President Of the Twits.

  "NIH and the NSF are setup to do just that - hand out grants based on merits of the research not the politics."

Right, and those that judge the merit of the research aren't put in place for political reasons, just like any other government decision. Perhaps you also think it will actually work properly instead of politicians playing favorites with their favored research companies that respond in kind with campaign donations in exchange for research money.

Re:Actually

[Richy_T]

Why would business want to take risks when their government protected patents will allow them to continue to milk what they have for another 25 years?

Rich

Re:Actually

[cain]

Why can't it be both? Private research is not dependent on gov't funding. The argument that, "well now the gov't isn't doing research so private companies can" assumes a finite amount of research can be done. This is simply not the case.

I for one

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome our recently unparalyzed rat overlords.

How long till they get cancer?

[RecycledElectrons]

Every human ever treated with embryonic stem cells developed terminal cancer in a few months. We'll see how long until these rodents die of cancer.

Andy Out!

Re:How long till they get cancer?

[sirinek]

Hey, this is SLASHDOT. If you're going to troll, at least do a decent job. I mean that was simply amateur!

Re:Gee ... too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

grow up

Huh?

[linuxinit]

Why haven't you all see that episode of Southpark where superman sucks the juice out of fetuses? *shudders

Geeze

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

I wish I could be a rat, they can cure paralysis, aids, being overweight, being underweight, many types of cancer, mood disorders, aggression, lots of diseases and I even think baldness.

Groups like Peta think that rats are abused in laboratories, but they don't realize how easy a life they have it. Scientists are curing all sorts of problems in rats, making it easier for rats to survive. Billions of dollars are spent every year to cure rat problems.

I just wish that scientists would start curing stuff in humans, it would be nice if one of these days they started applying these discoveries on humans and maybe helping the human race out. If they could just take some of those billions spent on rat research and put it towards humans, what a wonderful world it would be.

So, hurray, scientists cure something else in some lab rat! Let me know when they start working on humans.

Re:Geeze

[lbbros]

I wish you'd understand that working on animals is the first step towards making things work on humans. I don't like the sensationalism of certain discoveries (that are indeed important), however this enables to perform experiments in a controlled environment without risks on humans. Unless, of course, that you want this to be done directly on humans without any prior animal testing...
And last but not least, research takes time. More than you can think, sometimes. After the discovery, there are loads of new questions that pop up, consequences, etc.

Re:Geeze

[Threni]

> Groups like Peta think that rats are abused in laboratories

Groups like PETA *demonstrate* that rats (amongst other animals) are abused in laboratories. The argument is usually around the question of whether this abuse is worth it. Some people are comfortable experimenting on humans, but most appear not to be, so the real question which is rarely tackled would actually appear to be 'why are humans somehow exempt from experimentation?'.

Whatever, it's pretty unusual to hear people suggesting that what animals undergo in laboratory experiments isn't abuse (using any sensible definition of the term) once they've looked into the nature of experiments commonly carried out there.

Re:Geeze

[AviLazar]

I am sure you were being sarcastic (well hope) but on a more serious note. Write your congressman, governer, president, newspaper, etc and bitch at them for supporting religious zealots.

What we need is a president and a few high ranking congressman in wheel chairs. Once they know how it feels to be paralyzed they won't be so quick to say stem cell research is evil.

While I do not believe an embryo should be grown and harvested specifically for research, I do think that if a woman does have an abortion her embryo should go to research. At least put it to good use. For those pro-lifers....as long as abortion is legal, wouldn't you like to no that an "evil" will at least produce some good? Maybe save your family member, friend, or yourself of some incurable disease or life-impairing condition (like paralysis).

Re:Geeze

[angelasmark]

My view on this is simple. It sure sucks being lower on the food chain.... If you're tasty and/or cutting you open is an educational experience get ready to be exploited by those above you on the food chain. This is why the aliens experiment on us... We're either tasty or our anatomy is interesting. We may be the galactic equivalent to froggies for some alien science class.

Re:Geeze

[Threni]

> My view on this is simple. It sure sucks being lower on the food chain....

In other words, "might is right" - animal testing occurs because we cannot be physically prevented from doing it, not because there's a moral obligation, or even right, to do so.

Supposing aliens *did* come and start experimenting on human beings, but also engaged in communication with us, I wonder if we would be capable of convincing them rationally that they should stop the experiments, or if we would simply appear hypocritical?

Re:Geeze

[asuffield]

I wish I could be a rat, they can cure paralysis, aids, being overweight, being underweight, many types of cancer, mood disorders, aggression, lots of diseases and I even think baldness.

You were joking, but actually this is an important point. There's two reasons why they experiment on small rodents for these things. One, it's easy to obtain a large number of genetically uninteresting rodents. Two, rodents are very *simple* creatures which makes them much easier to work on.

The thing is that they're small and they don't live very long, so their biology is much less sophisticated than that of a human. Getting those 80-year lifespans that people enjoy requires far more wetware. This is important because it means that while they can do all these things to rats, it is much much harder (or sometimes impossible, or just nonsensical) to get them to work on humans.

The cancer cures are a big one. The experiments are useful and advance our understanding of biology, but most of them aren't going to lead to cancer cures that work on humans. Why not? Because a lot of them are either manually implementing anti-cancer mechanisms that are already built into humans, but are missing from rodents, or else would be effectively defeated by another part of the human body's far more powerful mechanisms for fighting diseases. So while the scientists learn a lot about how stuff like cancer works from the experiments, you shouldn't expect them to be able to create the same effects in people.

Many small animals can regrow lost limbs. Humans can't; instead they live ten times as long. There are tradeoffs involved here.

Re:Geeze

[angelasmark]

If the aliens are enlightened and have better over all moral views then us - yes. We could reason with them. If they view us the same way we view most animals then I hope we don't taste very good. Many animals communicate just fine. Make lobster some time. It will communicate with you just fine. We just don't care.

Sources?

[lbbros]

Can you quote the sources?

Stem Cells Cure Paralyzed Rats

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first read the topic I thought a "Stem Cell Cure" did paralize the rats.
Please editors - English is NOT a case insensitive language.

Re:Stem Cells Cure Paralyzed Rats

[$RANDOMLUSER]

> Please editors - English is NOT a case insensitive language.

i ThInk MAybE iT Is. hoWEver, CAPItalizINg tHe FIrSt leTTer oF eaCH WOrd in A HEADline iS coMmoN PRactiCE. (ALsO trUe foR CamelCase).

This could be crucial to the stem cell debate

[99luftballon]

If they can get a similar process in place for humans it'll cut the legs out from under the luddites opposing stem cell research (no pun intended). It's amazing how many people will decide the ethics of stem cell research aren't that much of a problem when they have the chance to see loved ones walk again, or recover from illnesses like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.

Re:This could be crucial to the stem cell debate

[bizzynut]

"If they can get a similar process in place for humans it'll cut the legs out from under the luddites opposing stem cell research"

We are talking about embryonic stem cell research,and it wouldn't change my viewpoint to have a cure for myself or a loved one dangled in front of me. Some of those "luddites" are not expressing an irrational fear of technology, but a set of deep-seated values.

Re:This could be crucial to the stem cell debate

[99luftballon]

The term could be seen as abusive but then again the luddites were also acting on deeply held beliefs. Nevertheless I admire your strengh of belief in refusing the treatment if it was available.

But at what point are one person's beliefs allowed to harm those who do not share them? If people object to embryonic stem cell research then don't use it, but the millions of people who don't should be allowed to benefit from this god-given knowledge.

Re:This could be crucial to the stem cell debate

[99luftballon]

Nancy Reagan was a case in point.

Re:This could be crucial to the stem cell debate

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing how many people will decide the ethics of stem cell research aren't that much of a problem when they have the chance to see loved ones walk again, or recover from illnesses like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.

Why would we even consider it will all the greater advances in alternative stem cell research (i.e. adult stem cells)? Great article on the many benefits to using non-embryonic stem cells can be found here.

Not only would you be benefiting from access to federal grants, but you'd be in the clear with any religious group as there are no unknowns unlike those with embryonic stem cells. It's a win-win situation for everyone!

Re:This could be crucial to the stem cell debate

[bmalia]

The human race would be much better off if noone feared eternal damnation.

Re:This could be crucial to the stem cell debate

[bigbird]

But at what point are one person's beliefs allowed to harm those who do not share them? If people object to embryonic stem cell research then don't use it, but the millions of people who don't should be allowed to benefit from this god-given knowledge.

You don't get it. People who oppose embryonic stem cell (ESC) research do so because using ESCs is (in their view) harming millions of embryos - humans at the earliest and most vulnerable stage of development. Should millions be killed to benefit millions? You may not agree that embryos are worthy of consideration, but to those who do believe that, ESC research will never be acceptable no matter what the benefit.

Re:This could be crucial to the stem cell debate

[alfs boner]

"luddites"

Refrain from using quotation marks next time.

Too true

[Biotech9]

It's not just medical research that's being handicapped by the politicisation of the stem cell issue in the US. Stem cell research has the potential to generate billions in revenue in the future. For example, in my University and some others in Sweden and Germany (Including the pre-eminent Karolinska institute), the EU has started and is funding a project to use embryonic stem cells to analyse drug toxicity and metabolism. The eventual goal is to replace animal testing with cell culture testing.

Results would be much more accurate, at the moment hundreds of animals are used to generate enough statistically safe data about drugs being tested, with embryonic stem cells many more tests could be run at a fraction of the cost, with much higher accuracy (as the cells would respond as a human cell would, and not as an animal cell would.) Drugs could be ready for the market place in a much shorter time, and pharmacy companies would save billions while also saving many hundreds of thousands of animals lives AND getting more accurate results to give consumers more safety.

  The US Government is shooting itself in the foot here. There are so many fantastic areas where stem cells can deliver so much, and it's a race that they have not yet started in, while the rest of the world is already competing.

Important political debates

[amightywind]

Really, this exemplifies the sort of research we've been talking about when it comes to stem cells. Unfortunately, the actual scientific possibilities were overshadowed by a bunch of political bullshit.

The source of stem cells is a profoundly important debate. Do we really want to breed and sacrifice a race of sound humans to fix broken bodies already deselected by nature?

Stem cells, biology (evolution!), global warming...The subjection of science to political considerations has to stop.

The debate over evolution will end once the science starts getting a better defense. Global warming is political by nature. It is a scientific growth industry which obtains venture capital by spreading fear. Its track record of prediction is among the worst in all of science. It is also the primary tactic of a "green movement" whose real motive is to foist a weird, agrarian, impoverished ideal on prosperous industrial society.

Re:Important political debates

[plunge]

"The source of stem cells is a profoundly important debate. Do we really want to breed and sacrifice a race of sound humans to fix broken bodies already deselected by nature?"

No, we want to culture cells, which are as different from "sound humans" as almost any living thing aside from viruses and bacteria as anything could be. The full grown cow that I eat for lunch is FAR FAR more like a human being than any stem cell. Stem cells are just that: cells. That they are genetically human and can under certain conditions have the set of instructions within them construct a functioning human being is interesting, but it doesn't make them in any way morally comparable to even a fetus of _any_ species, much less a human fetus. With stem cells, the instructions for human being building haven't really even started to get carried out yet. There is no nervous system. There are none, NONE of the qualities or characteristics present that in any way relate to WHY we care about the lives of fellow human beings. None of the basic structures that undergird these qualities (like a nervous system) even exist yet.

On abortion, I can see the reason in saying that with no bright line, we must err on the side of life. But with stem cells, they are so far over on the "non-person" side of that line that that argument becomes nonsense.

"The debate over evolution will end once the science starts getting a better defense."

The debate over evolution in general (common descent, natural selection shaping speciation events, etc.) is over. The only reason people are still debating is because they generally don't know what they are talking about, but they sure are proud to demonstrate it!

Re:Important political debates

[amightywind]

On abortion, I can see the reason in saying that with no bright line, we must err on the side of life. But with stem cells, they are so far over on the "non-person" side of that line that that argument becomes nonsense.

Seems we agree. The source of stem cell lines will continue to be of interest.

The debate over evolution in general (common descent, natural selection shaping speciation events, etc.) is over. The only reason people are still debating is because they generally don't know what they are talking about, but they sure are proud to demonstrate it!

I support the idea of evolution. But unlike base theories in physics or chemistry it has gone 150 years without a serious mathematical formulation and is underdeveloped. What we are taught is trivial and provokes questions. The description in words that species morph through random mutation and natural selection is not good enough. The mutation of species seems to be governed by a least action principle of some kind. Say this and get the response, "Nothing more to see, luddite, move along." Sadly, this is the nature of the response of biologists to the cranks, and has opened up the "debate".

Re:Important political debates

[plunge]

"Seems we agree. The source of stem cell lines will continue to be of interest."

Intellectual interest. I don't see any sound reason why it should be of moral interest.

"But unlike base theories in physics or chemistry it has gone 150 years without a serious mathematical formulation and is underdeveloped."

That's pretty strange claim. Population genetics is a serious mathematical formulation, as are any number of models for mutation, as are the mathematics behind things like genetic algorithms and other such models of how things in biology works. I have no idea what other than those things you'd be asking for.

Compared to physics, the basic variables and known things about biology are to a much higher precision in some sense. We only know the correlation of measurements of G to maybe one decimal place reliably. In contrast, the correlation between the genetic and inferred fossil/morphological record is up to 32 decimal places, even just using 30 major taxonomic groups. Evolution in biology also provides a large unifying framework than physics, for instance, still lacks. Biology isn't necessarily as inherently mathematically inclined as physics, but that's in part because the things it studies are less fundamental and unitary. All the evidence, however, is processed with mathematical measurements and modeling, just the same.

"The description in words that species morph through random mutation and natural selection is not good enough."

That's only the barest of descriptions of what evolution is. The actual papers, the field, is far far far more specific and precise in how it collects, compares, models, and explains evidence.

"The mutation of species seems to be governed by a least action principle of some kind."

Again, I don't see what you are talking about. Models and descriptions of how mutation happens, when, and why, and where and to what degree, is a very complex and robust subject in biology that cannot be summed up in any simple principle.

Re:Important political debates

[amightywind]

That's pretty strange claim. Population genetics is a serious mathematical formulation, as are any number of models for mutation, as are the mathematics behind things like genetic algorithms and other such models of how things in biology works. I have no idea what other than those things you'd be asking for.

Hardly. Biology stands alone among the major sciences for its empiricism and lack of rigor. Population genetics is an admirable exception.

Compared to physics, the basic variables and known things about biology are to a much higher precision in some sense. .. Biology isn't necessarily as inherently mathematically inclined as physics, but that's in part because the things it studies are less fundamental and unitary. All the evidence, however, is processed with mathematical measurements and modeling, just the same.

Seems to me that biochemistry (DNA) and cellular biology are fundemental and unitary. As for biology not being "mathematically inclined", that is crap, it is just that concepts are complicated and deep. That doesn't stop physicists.

Again, I don't see what you are talking about. Models and descriptions of how mutation happens, when, and why, and where and to what degree, is a very complex and robust subject in biology that cannot be summed up in any simple principle.

If you haven't studied classical dynamics (principle of least action), thermodynamics (basic laws), quantum mechanics (wave postulates and Schroedinger's equation), general relativity (principle of equivalence) you wouldn't. My point is there are postulates based on simple elegant ideas from which the ediface of those subjects are derived. The ideas of evolution, at a fundemental and unitary level, must have a similiar representation. That is the point of my last post.

Re:Important political debates

[plunge]

Your point is simply silly then. There is no such requirement. Biology is too complex to have any simple "I can only understand simple concepts, whaaaa!" principles. Try reading a bio-chem textbook someday. What you'll find is not a lack of math, but rather an insane amount of math, most of it only simplified approximations for beginners.

"Seems to me that biochemistry (DNA) and cellular biology are fundemental and unitary."

Not in the slightest. They are immensely complicated to learn. There is no G= x/v for how cellular transport membranes work. You have to instead understand the interplay of hordes of different protein shapes and more to even get a basic grasp of what's going on.

"Biology stands alone among the major sciences for its empiricism and lack of rigor."

Lol, whatever. You just sound like a bitter dude who flunked biochem.

I once saw...

[OctoberSky]

About 3 years ago I was driving and saw a woman in a wheelchair (electric) driving along the sidewalk. As I passed her I noticed a small dog in front of her with a wheelchair as its hind legs!
I have come to question how one aquires a paralyzed dog? Usually a household pet will be saved and given some sort of help, but the dogs you find at the pound would be put down if they were "broken" from the waist down (although I don't agree with it, it is true). I mean, you couldn't obtain a paralyzed dog from the vet/shelter/pound/breeder. So where did this woman find a paralyzed dog?
I like to believe that it was given to her by some society that helps out those wheelchair bound, but I think the sad truth is that A) That dog doesn't need a wheelchair, she likes it in there... or B) She broke that dogs legs.

Re:I once saw...

[bazio]

There are several breed-specific and general rescue organizations that will foster and adopt-out "special needs" animals, as well as "healthy" animals. My particular favorite is the Guardian Angel Basset Rescue (http://www.bassetrescue.org) which features pages of special needs animals (http://www.bassetrescue.org/homeless/index.htm) for adoption. Or you can go to Pets with Disabilities (http://www.petswithdisabilities.org), which has an adoption program as well.

Re:I once saw...

[operagost]

Many, many places are no-kill. I know for sure my vet, definitely not a non-profit org, will accept any cats (they only treat cats) and will keep them until they die or are adopted. I can't say whether they'll put down a cat with extreme trauma (we're talking we-can-rebuild-him-for-six-million-dollars type), but I adopted a cat that was found near death with pneumonia from them.

Re:I once saw...

[Fred_A]

The most likely scenario is that she ran her dog over with that electric wheelchair...

Re:I once saw...

[whimmel]

It's handy for cat vets to keep a bunch of extra cats around the office. They can draw blood from them for surgery.

Re:John Hopkins == NIHM!!

[kalirion]

Wouldn't that be NIMH? Unless of course you meant the New Iceland Heritage Museum?

Re:Also works as a gender change medicine!

[scsirob]

Sheez.. Thanks for changing the headlines afterwards... It said MICE in the headline and RATS in the text.

In an interesting twist of irony

[gelfling]

The very Christian fundamentalists who violently oppose biomedical research are ensuring the Darwinian survival of the fittest they themselves deny exists.

Re:In an interesting twist of irony

[E 99]

The very Christian fundamentalists who violently oppose biomedical research are ensuring the Darwinian survival of the fittest they themselves deny exists.

1) No Christian fundamentalist I've ever heard of denies the existence of survival of the fittest, or opposes biomedical research.
2) From a Darwinian perspective, the growing influence of Christian fundamentalists is attributable to the ("more fit") beliefs which enable them to reproduce at much higher rates than the population at large.
3) Also from a Darwinian perspective, the availability of fetal cell treatments to atheists but not to fundamentalists could not concievably alter their general comparitive reproductive rates. But it would increase the probability of reproduction of an afflicted person in the athiest group, and the passing on of the genetic basis for the disease. Given enough generations, the atheist group could become dependent on the fetal cells for survival.

Stem-Cell Pact

[LunarStudio]

I say we make everyone who's against stem-cell research sign a pact that they will never use nor benefit in any form or fashion from the results of this research.

Re:Stem-Cell Pact

[xmorg]

I say we make everyone who's against animal research sign a pact that they will never use nor benefit in any form or fashion from the results of this research. :p

In other news

[ThatsNotFunny]

Scientists have discoverd that Christopher Reeve has been reincarnated as a rat.

University of Louisville method

[jbeaupre]

I like this approach better: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic le?AID=/20060308/NEWS01/60308003

I've met these folks. They are getting great results with procedure that is easy to duplicate AND the method uses the patient's own cells. Not only does that avoid the pesky ethics issues, there's no tissue rejection issues.

An effective treatment, NOT a "cure"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the entire article, you will see that the treatment was only effective on 11 of the 15 rats in the primary experimental group (a 73% success rate). Further, the description of the abilities restored by the treatment states: "The paralysis wasn't completely gone, but six months after treatment, 11 of the 15 animals could bear weight, take steps and push away with the affected leg." I would hardly call this a "cure." It is misleading to use the term "cure" recklessly like this. A better term would be "treatment" since the rats showed improvement, but were not completely free of their affliction. But then again, saying "stem cells show promise for improving mobility in paralyzed rats" isn't nearly as cool sounding as "Stem Cells Cure Paralyzed Rats."

Reading too fast.

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the summary title to mean, "The cure for stem cells have been found to paralyze rats."

Hwang Mi-Soon

[the.Ceph]

This is a bit off topic but does anyone know of any follow up papers on Hwang Mi-Soon? She was the woman from South Korea who after being paralyzed for 20 years was able to walk again. Here is one story about it.

I'm not sure how reliable the Christian Post is with regards to stem cell reporting but I recall it being elsewhere and maybe even on slashdot. It was the sort of achievement that seemed almost too good to be true at this point in time and I was hoping someone could tell me if it in fact was.

Re:Hwang Mi-Soon

[goof21]

Here and here are a couple interesting articles on the aftermath.

It appears she didn't prove much of anything. In fact, it may have been decompression on her spinal cord that caused the short-term improvement, not stem cells at all.

Yes, but what goes around comes around...

[Flyboy210]

If something like this research was to get into the mainstream, it could definately fix some things that have been bothering the human race for at least a good deal of it's life span. But we also have to think of who this would benefit. Sure, if we can get around the political and legal and moral bullshit that all the "Animal Rights" people, Puritans, and the political puppets who listen to them, and get a thing like this out into the public to cure, can we simply deny giving it to the aforementioned people?

"Please, please help! I lost use of my legs after an accident freeing some lab fruit flys and burning down abortion clinics!"
"Well, then you will not get any of the product that you tried to get rid of. Have fun!"

Can we honestly and morally do that?

Re:Yes, but what goes around comes around...

[hasbeard]

I think you will find that many of the people who are against this treatment would refuse to accept it.

Re:Yes, but what goes around comes around...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you want to reject the converts? Nothing is a bigger blow to those type of people than to see one of their own switch sides.

Old news

[bchernicoff]

The Israelis did this years ago. Norm MacDonald even made a joke about it on SNL's Weekend Update. Something to the effect of "That's good news isn't it? Getting all those rats up and around again..."

Re:Also works as a gender change medicine!

[Anonymous Coward]

Rats and Mice are different species, not different sexes of the same one.

What we are talking about is Cells!

[Freedom451]

Not people.

The religious rightists are killing real people with this "moral code" that blocks desperately needed medical research for cures for terrible diseases. It is not a secular moral code of any sort, it is simply a purely religious belief that a soul is created in the human egg cell when a human sperm cell enters it.

These cells are created and expired all the time in fertility clinics, the religious rightists would prefer that these cells be thrown in the trash rather be used to help cure disease.

There is no basis for the rightists assignation of human being status to these cells other than their particular religious belief in the timing of soul creation. Restricting federal funding based on this religious belief is the establishment of religion, anyone who has sworn to uphold the US Constitution should be dismissed for enforcing this religious belief in the United States.

The "innocent people" in the moral equation are the ones with diseases who are being denied cures due to the beliefs of the religious fundamentalists.

Re:What we are talking about is Cells!

[CRCulver]

These cells are created and expired all the time in fertility clinics, the religious rightists would prefer that these cells be thrown in the trash rather be used to help cure disease.

No, those who belong to the churches in question would prefer that these embyos not even continue to be created in the first place. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches in particular have long stood publicly against in-vitro fertilization and attendant themes.

As far as enshrinement of religion, if morality is an overriding concern, as Swinburne et al. have demonstrated in no unclear terms, then the need to fulfill the requirements of one's moral code overrules any artificial notion of "separation of church and state".

Re:What we are talking about is Cells!

[operagost]

These cells are created and expired all the time in fertility clinics, the religious rightists would prefer that these cells be thrown in the trash rather be used to help cure disease.

Actually, I oppose the use of this kind of in-vitro fertilization for exactly that reason. No contradiction in my beliefs, here.

There is no basis for the rightists assignation of human being status to these cells other than their particular religious belief in the timing of soul creation.

Obviously, abortion and embryonic stem cell research advocates have assigned human status to some other time as well, or there would be no debate whatsoever on the treatment of infants or children. Some place this milestone at the heartbeat, a level of brain activity, or some arbitrary measure such as the third trimester. These are all judgement calls.

Restricting federal funding based on this religious belief is the establishment of religion, anyone who has sworn to uphold the US Constitution should be dismissed for enforcing this religious belief in the United States.

Unless you can prove that embryonic stem cell research is opposed only by a single religious group (hint: it is not) and that it infringes on the free exercise of your own religious beliefs (hint: it cannot), then you would have a hard time justifying this argument.

I believe the funding was restricted due to a debate having arisen in a nontrivially large segment of society. When a large number of constituents have raised an issue, usually it is a sign of economic responsibility to withold funding until such concerns are addressed. I would not like my tax dollars to be thrown at any trendy scientific movement, moral concerns notwithstanding.

Re:What we are talking about is Cells!

[Freedom451]

then the need to fulfill the requirements of one's moral code overrules any artificial notion of "separation of church and state".

So also say the Mullahs. Anyone who doesn't know that the anti-stem cell crowd's real agenda is to establish their own version of Sharia law in the Uninted states hasn't been paying attention.

Re:What we are talking about is Cells!

[jsebrech]

Obviously, abortion and embryonic stem cell research advocates have assigned human status to some other time as well, or there would be no debate whatsoever on the treatment of infants or children. Some place this milestone at the heartbeat, a level of brain activity, or some arbitrary measure such as the third trimester. These are all judgement calls.

Seems a might odd to say that when a sperm cell and an egg are next to each other, they're not a human, and once they have combined they are a human. The difference is virtually nil. Logically one would expect that if the combined cell deserves a chance to grow into a human being, the separate cells deserve that same chance, which would lead to a requirement that all women be pregnant all the time, and somehow I don't think anyone really wants to go there.

I mean, are you honestly going to argue that the combination of the two cells is so much different than the two cells separate that you could call one a human and the other not? You do realize that the sperm cell is not a necessary component and medical science will one day be able to make egg cells grow into full human beings without the sperm cell, right?

Anyway, all of this is irrelevant. Democracy dictates that the majority rules. If the majority want to outlaw all foods except for cheese because they worship the all-mighty cheese god, then that's what we'll get. The only point to argue is whether a majority of americans really want federal funding cut off from stem cell research.

Stem Cells Cure Paralyzed Rats...

[dr_turgeon]

Democratic Party Rejoices

Maybe we have a fighting chance!

Really Big Artificial Brain?

[Ruvim]

I wonder if this opens possibility of growing a really big artifitial brain? Or maybe just growing some extra brain for certain people?

Two mice are wanted for questioning on this...

Re:Really Big Artificial Brain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently nobody else got the "Pinky and the Brain" reference.

***NOBODY***.

Re:Really Big Artificial Brain?

[Ruvim]

Sad, but true.

Meanwhile, in human beings...

[gillbates]

Scientists are using adult stem cells in clinical trials. Kind of interesting that the cures which show the most progress are the least morally problematic.

I've always wondered why, embrionic stem cell research advocates remain so adamant about pushing a morally questionable practice when adult stem cell research show much more promise of creating cures today. Sure, the theoretical possibility of curing paralysis 20 years from now is a nice thought, but how does it help someone who will be dead by then? Or is it that they are more concerned with the research than with actually producing something beneficial?

Re:Meanwhile, in human beings...

[Guuge]

I've always wondered why, embryonic stem cell research opponents remain so adamant about creating morally questionable restrictions when embryonic stem cell research shows promise of creating cures. Sure, the possibility of curing paralysis 20 years from now is on the horizon, but how do restrictions help someone who will be paralyzed by then? Or is it that they are more concerned with the politics than with actually producing something beneficial?

Re:Meanwhile, in human beings...

[is as us Infinite]

It's about freedom to choose. It's about pursuing any path that might produce societal benefit because we literally don't know how much benefit we can get from any path. I mean, you could be begging the question here. For all you know (and I'm inferring from your post, so I may be wrong about that,) the reason that adult stem cells are creating cures today may be because their research _isn't_ restricted.

Or is it that they are more concerned with the research than with actually producing something beneficial?

That's obviously just FUD. The point of doing research is because it _might_ lead to something beneficial. You don't know. You can't know until you actually _research_ it.

Anyway, it just doesn't make sense to me that scientists would be restricted in such a fashion. It's not like people would be getting abortions just to support stem cell research.

Re:Meanwhile, in human beings...

[dcam]

Money.

My understanding is that some of the techniques and discoveries relating to adult stem cell are patented.

Re:Gee ... too bad

[NoSalt]

I don't want to grow up `cause I'm a Toys `R Us kid ... there's a million toys at Toys `R Us that I can play with ... from bikes to trains to video games it's the biggest toy store there is, gee wiz ... I don't want to grow up `cause baby if I did, I couldn't be a Toys `R Us kid.

Despite my little digression there I still stand behind my earlier statement. Close-minded, conservative, religious nuts are killing scientific advancement. If God didn't want us to use these tools he wouldn't have given them to us ... or the intelligence to wield said tools.

(now back to our regularly scheduled immaturity)

You grow up ... :-P

Stem cells good... stem cells bad...

[joeyblades]

Contrast this bit of news with the story in the current Scientific American that links stem cells with cancer. The current working theory is that most cancers arise due to stem cell mutations... more stem cells, higher probability of cancer.

For every kid with a balloon, there's always some joker with a needle lurking around the corner...

Absolutism and human dignity -- always equivalent?

[ianscot]

One could just as easily say "Ach, mein Fuerher, too bad the actual scientific possibilities of eugenics were overshadowed by a bunch of moral concerns."

Nice toss-in of the Hitler reference, there. Nothing subtle about that. It's not like this is an area where moral people might differ; people who think embryonic stem cells from infertility procedures are even a grey area are to be equated with Hitler's willing sycophantic minions, period. So it seems.

You go on to dismiss "a lot of Slashdot posters" for their straw man willingness to junk "whatever moral notions they have about the dignity of the human person." That's interesting. It's precisely my unwillingness to dismiss my own notions about human dignity which lead me to think this might be a little more complicated than any authoritarian or absolutist stance. Same with abortion, on much the same lines.

(By the by, despite all sorts of noisiness about birth control, for the most part America's religious communities were pretty sympathetic with the eugenics movement. Take a look at "Evangelical Engagements With Eugenics, 1900-1940":

"(E)vangelicals often accepted eugenics as a part of a progressive, reformist vision that uncritically fused the Kingdom of God with modern civilization."

The same people who today take questions like stem cells as set in stone were quite willing to entertain eugenics. I've got a book in the basement at home that phrases eugenics in very religious terms, handed down to me by the Missouri Synod Lutheran side of the family. It's a very weird read.)

Some nerve.

[Doc Ruby]

Goddamn rats are giving false hope to humans that embryonic stemcell therapies can make them walk again. Everyone knows that embryonic stemcells have never cured anyone. It's just part of the rat plan to take over the world with superior healing powers for them, and fake medical research for us.

title

[helfom]

Stem cells cure(noun) paralyzed(verb) rats
My god! stem cells are worse than we thought!

Stem cells cure(verb) paralyzed(adj) rats
Oh, nevermind...

Re:Also works as a gender change medicine!

[Anonymous Coward]

-Although the first poster's mistake brings up an interesting question as to whether a literal gender change might be aided using stem cells.

If they can grow nerve cells, it's an interesting question what else they might be able to eventually grow.

That one *almost* makes sense

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

One of the (many) obstacles to making this work has been the problem of getting through the tough, thick wall of scar tissue that the body builds around the injury site.

So there is a physical wall involved, rather than a metaphorical one.

Though the word "literally" does conjure up a picture of bricks in someone's spine.

It is not a "judgement call"

[Freedom451]

to say a mass of undifferentiated cells are not a human being. It is a clear scientific demarcation. A bit of cells from my arm are not a human being, a cancer cell (which has unique DNA) is not a human being. Fertilized eggs have no potential unless implanted into a mother's womb.

They are routinely discarded by fertility clinics, this is an established practice with established laws surronding it.

Various things are opposed by all sorts of fringe groups. The only group of anti-stem cell research advocates that has any large membership and ability buy votes are the ones who believe the fertilized egg has a soul. If not for this group, the research would proceed apace.

The only real opposition is religious, not scientific. Medical scientists are the ones best positioned to judge whether research has medical potential, not religious groups. The NIH assembles teams of expert researchers to judege whether a proposed avenue of research is worth spending money on, only with stem cells this process is poluted with arbitrary limits, which are based on purely religious beliefs.

At least be honest about your motivations: you want to impose your beliefs on the time of soul creation on eveyone else, and you don't care a bit if valuable research is blocked due to your imposition, and people die or lead needlessly limited lives because of it (which Christian Fundamentalists* rationalize by believing that a short life of pain is followed by eternity of pleasure in paradies--for those who prove themselves worthy by imposing their beliefs on anyone they can't convert).

Re:It is not a "judgement call"

[operagost]

I won't make that admission because you didn't bother to read and comprehend my post. Otherwise, you would gleaned more "nuance" out of it and responded with something other than a repeat of your anti-Christian boilerplate.

Re:It is not a "judgement call"

[Freedom451]

Do you also accuse people of anti-Muslim boilerplate when they criticize Muslim Fundamentalists for imposing Sharia?

Maybe you missed the 'nuance', but "Fundamentalist" generally applies when members of a religious group try to impose their particular beliefs on everyone elese.

Re:It is not a "judgement call"

[QMO]

Oops. Your prejudices are showing.

"Fundamentalist" generally applies when members of a religious group try to impose their particular beliefs on everyone elese.

From google
    - In comparative religion, fundamentalism refers to anti-modernist movements in various religions.
    - anti-modern and/or biblically literalist Protestant Christians

From dictonary.com
    - A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.
    - a. An organized, militant Evangelical movement originating in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century in opposition to Protestant Liberalism and secularism, insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture.
      b. Adherence to the theology of this movement.

Did you notice that none of these implied an imposition of beliefs on others.

Re:It is not a "judgement call"

[Freedom451]

Fundamentalists usually subscribe to young earth creationism and universal flood geology. Some Fundamentalists view all modern versions of the Bible as corrupted and are thus referred to as the King-James-Only Movement.

Additionally, most Fundamentalists oppose human cloning, abortion, same-sex marriages, homosexuality, physician-assisted suicide, and embryonic stem cell research.

Perhaps you can find something on the web discussing fundamentalists who don't think there should be laws against stem cell research? What would be your politically correct term for the religious right? Crusaders?

You're missing my point

[ElleyKitten]

Sure, if they're Catholic they probably should believe what the Magisterium says, but not all of them do. My friend's family are all devote Catholics who go to mass once a week, yet when she got pregnant out of wedlock they practically dragged her to an abortion clinic. You might not call them Catholic, but do your statistics count them? How many people go to church or mass every week out of habit and don't really believe what their paster or priest or whoever says? We have no idea. You can't use a survey that doesn't take into account individual beliefs and assume that everyone surveyed believes the way you think they should. Go find a survey that asks people their feelings on abortion and stem cell research (they do have those!) because that's way more useful. Though I bet you'll find that pro-lifers don't have the overwhelming majority you seem to think they have.

Re:You're missing my point

[Anonymous Coward]

Elley... I think it's rather pointless to try to argue with this person. He expects the infidels to take seriously the idea that a dead faith healer is going to come back after 2000 years of absence (jeez, how long does it take to believe that someone is dead??), yet refuses ideas that can be independently verified. Nice standard.

It's like trying to convince a retard that he's retarded... even if you win the discussion, you still lose.

The painful reality is that you/we/humanity are NOT the center of the universe or part of some magical grand plan.

Seriously... you have to realize that the whole church business and their hierarchies, politics and so on have very little to do with powerful invisible beings but more with powerful visible humans.

The problem is with the peons who keep following these people not realizing that it goes against their own best interests.

Human sized

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean human sized. Or else you have a very tiny head. Maybe both.

Dupe article

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Meh, article is a dupe from last year anyway...

Ban all research!!

[paynesmanor]

Think of where we would be if it was a "Fully open source" on stem cell research, since before Dolly! Lets open things up people, let them all "Go Nuts" its better for all humanity...

Human Clinical Trial

[Bones3D_mac]

They're already working to get human clinical trials (bottom of the page) going on this. I'm strongly considering being a test subject for it if they can get a site set up near my area.

Considering how things are currently going in the US though, this could end up being the only chance many of us will have for getting this sort of treatment any time soon. Eventually, some self-righteous asshat is going to propose federal bans on this, forcing those of us suffering from this type of condition to either live with the problem as-is, or leave the country and pay for it out of pocket.

The precident was set with organ donors.

[the_REAL_sam]

There is, perhaps, a loophole in your assumptions. Step by step:

You don't have a problem with voluntarily donating organs, do you? (No?)

And what if the family volunteers the organs (heart, liver, etc) from a recently deceased relative, to save your life, or your child's life, is that ok, too? (Yes?)

And what if the family of the deceased fetus donates his/her/its organs (heart, liver, stem cells, etc) to save your life, or your child's life, is THAT ok, too? (Yes.)

HOW the fetus died is a seperate issue.

I can understand how you might say abortion should be illegal, and therefore fetal tissue from abortions would not be legally unavailable. However, fetal tissue could come from accidental miscarriages (although nobody WANTS miscarriage to happen), or from cloning the existing cells.

Or other ways?? Who knows.

Re:Also works as a gender change medicine!

[Golias]

From the latin, "gender" is based on the word "genus" or origin. It's only fairly recently that the word has come to refer to sexual identity.

However, it's not common to use the word to distinguish between species. I think the original poster's point was joking that if you could turn a mouse into a rat (as the original headline error implied), you could probably change a woman into a man. (of vice versa.)

The thing is, gene-splicing sex changes are probably not that far down the road. Figure out just the right hormone and chemical signals to send to stem cells (adult or embrionic) and you could probably grow an entire uterus for an adult male. It's probably too late, in an adult, to turn the testicles into ovaries, but it might someday be possible to simply replace them with new ovaries grown from the patient's own DNA.

'Soup of nerve-friendly chemicals'

[nosredna]

So when are the scientists gonna get off their asses and make a soup of Shaky's Pizza friendly chemicals?

You're breaking my balls!

what about Christopher Reeve?

[juan2074]

If scientists could just bring Christopher Reeve back from the dead, then cure him. . .

Answer: yes

[brian0918]

"The question is, is there a way to please environmentalists and animal rights activists?"

That's easy. Take your pick:

A. Kill off the entire human species.
B. All of the above.

Re:Answer: yes

[Anonymous Coward]

C: Kill -all misanthropes

Do quadriplegics get erections?

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent,

While I can't believe you took the time to answer in such detail what I think was someones poor attempt at a joke, you brought up a very interesting points.

Do quadriplegics (guys) get erections? Do they have wet dreams? If they do, is there any type of satisfaction? Even thought they can't feel the ejaculation part of the pleasure, can they still have the afterglow feeling?

Re:Do quadriplegics get erections?

[gstoddart]

Do quadriplegics (guys) get erections?

I believe I specifically mentioned this ... yes, of course they do.

I've had several friends who were quads. They had sex lives, the plumbing all worked. It was much more mental than physical in terms of the experience I believe. We didn't discuss it in much further detail.

Quadriplegic males can and do get erections, have sex, and all sorts of things. I never felt inclined to discuss it in full detail, but I was definitely assured that the young thing he was banging was enjoying herself, even if she had to do all of the work. (Or, because of it maybe ;-)

Of course the poster I replied to was being facetious -- doesn't mean I can't give him a factual answer.

Cheers

Re:Do quadriplegics get erections?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the record, a quadraplegic can probably get an erection

Sorry I interpreted that as you not really being sure...

But still leads me to the question of if they get off. Their johnson gets the message to get hard from a chemical released from the head and neck into the bloodstream I'm assuming. I mean if some chick were playing with his thing and he didn't even notice she had walked into the room cause he was looking the other direction. I don't think he would get hard. So what controls the ejaculation? Does he just last forever? If he does get off, does he know it or does she have to tell him? This whole thing is blowing my mind.

Re:Do quadriplegics get erections?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Viagra (sildenafil) is a Vasodilator, not a constrictor. (Deep breath) It mimics the effect of the release of Nitric Oxide (NO) by endothelial cells onto the Smooth Muscle Cells by antagonising the phosphodiesterase inside the smooth muscle cells of the corpus cavernosum (and other vessels) which reduces the breakdown and thus increases the concentration of cyclic-GMP inside those cells which triggers the dephosphorylation of Myosin Light Chain (MLC) Kinase which prevents Actin-Myosin interaction which thus triggers the relaxation of the Smooth Muscle Cells. As the cells relax, blood flow to the Corpus Cavernosum increases, thus causing an erection. The drug was originally developed as an antihypertensive agent, with one of the major side effects being massive erections (!!), much in the same way that Rogaine (minoxadil) was developed for hypertension, with one of its SE being occasional hirsuitism.

As a side note, the stimulation of erection is controlled by Parasympathetic innervation, (which gets the ball rolling by triggering the release of NO fron the endothelial cells) via the pelvic splanchnic nerves for which leave the spinal cord in the sacral levels near the base of the spine, and so I'm not quite sure how the signals from the brain are bridging the cervical spine injury that causes quadriplegia... Interestingly enough, the stimulus for ejaculation is controlled by the opposing Sympathetic nervous system, for which there might be fibers exiting the cord at the Superior Cervical Ganglion which might be superior to the cervical spine injury (and thus still intact) which takes an alternate course, communicating with the sexual organs via the Sympathetic chain which is exterior to the spinal column, thus perhaps allowing ejaculation to occur without erection. But, I have not done any studying specifically on this topic and am totally speculating. Any neuroscientists or physicians or clinical anatomists care to comment?

Re:Absolutism and human dignity -- always equivale

[CrimsonAvenger]

One could just as easily say "Ach, mein Fuerher, too bad the actual scientific possibilities of eugenics were overshadowed by a bunch of moral concerns."

Nice toss-in of the Hitler reference, there. Nothing subtle about that. It's not like this is an area where moral people might differ; people who think embryonic stem cells from infertility procedures are even a grey area are to be equated with Hitler's willing sycophantic minions, period. So it seems

Keep in mind that eugenics were not just espoused by the Nazis. It was soundly approved of by US Academia in the early part of thelast century, as well as many in government - I even recall that a law was once proposed requiring the forceful sterilization of morons in the USA.

Eugenics was considered as much mainstream science as evolution is, in fact.

Paralyzing effect?

[ubeans]

Stem Cells Cure: Paralyzed Rats

The problem is...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...some people disagree over whether some bits are actually yours. You say "her own body" as if there is universal agreement over what is and isn't "hers". I can say "I own X" as often as I like, but repeating it doesn't make it so.

Re:The problem is...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

...some people disagree over whether some bits are actually yours. You say "her own body" as if there is universal agreement over what is and isn't "hers". I can say "I own X" as often as I like, but repeating it doesn't make it so.

What an interesting, but poorly thought out point. So who owns a bunch of cells that could, possibly become a human being some day? Do you own the cells in someone else's body, that you have the right to say what is done with it? Does the group of cells own itself, even though it has no consciousness and cannot conceive of the concept of itself, ownership, or anything else? Does a chair own itself? Should we ban the destruction of chairs, since they should be the ones to choose if they exist or not?

Here's what I propose. You don't know the answer, so you should not make the decision for anyone else. The woman whose body is involved, who will have to pay the medical expenses, risk her own life, and be responsible for feeding and protecting another human being for the next two decades, certainly has more right to make the decision than you do. So stop trying to force others to abide by your beliefs.

Re:The problem is...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

So stop trying to force others to abide by your beliefs.

I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. Trying learning to read.

Does a chair own itself?

We, as a society, don't grant ownership to chairs for all sorts of reasons, many of which are completely self-evident. Trying learning to think.

Re:The problem is...

[ElleyKitten]

...some people disagree over whether some bits are actually yours. You say "her own body" as if there is universal agreement over what is and isn't "hers". I can say "I own X" as often as I like, but repeating it doesn't make it so.

Do you have any idea what you're saying? The fetus, even if we decide it doesn't belong to the woman, is affecting her body. It sucks nutrition from her and basically parasites off her, taking what it needs irregardless of whether it hurts her or even leads to her death. Sure, it's sweet and wonderful (besides the pain and side effects) if you want to be pregnant, but it's hell if you don't. Women have a right to decide if that's not what they want to do to their bodies.

Re:The problem is...

[OverflowingBitBucket]

I can say "I own X" as often as I like, but repeating it doesn't make it so.

I'm sure EK didn't say "I own X", nor repeat it, so I'm not sure what your point is? She just claimed that women (I would generalise to "people") can decide to do what they wish with their own body.

Yes, I do know exactly what you are getting at, but I'm curious how you bridge the gap between your statements.

Re:The problem is...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. Trying learning to read.

Are you, or are you not trying to pass a law to restrict, using armed police, what people can and can't do?

We, as a society, don't grant ownership to chairs for all sorts of reasons, many of which are completely self-evident.

Yes, reasons that apply equally to stem cells.

Trying learning to think.

Wow, such a brilliant rebuttal deserves... a golf clap. *clap* *clap*

Of mice and men...

[posterlogo]

This is really quite amazing, as spinal cord injuries are one of the things for which there really is good evidence for the involvement of stem cells in repair. To show that it can work is great news -- this is the sort of thing that people talk about when talking about "the promise of stem cells". Men are a different beast, and scientists know that it is generally easier to "cure" mice of cancer, viruses, injuries, and other diseases, than it is to cure people, so I look forward to additional work on how this research can be translated to primates, and finally people.

Re:Of mice and men...

[octopus72]

This sounds very interesting because, if I understood correctly, stem cell grows into a whole nerve from the muscle up to the brain. Of course, it probably involves learning again to use muscles, however even this is a great hope for paralyzed people.
Finally we have a breakthrough in this area, showing that regrowing the spinal coord might not be only a science fiction.

Re:John Hopkins == NIHM!!

[Anomalyst]

I thought it was Not Invented Here Mantra.

Questionable grammar (in the title)

[Skevin]

You just interpreted the header wrong:

Stem Cells Cure Paralyzed Rats
A potential cure for the degenerative disease known as "Stem Cells" was found to cause paralysis in rats, a recent Tobacco Industry study showed. "All test rodents suffered from Stem Cells since birth," a researcher commented, "but upon administering the cure, most of the subjects, particularly the rats, became paralyzed." The potential Stem Cells Cure was in the process of being approved. FDA officials declined to comment.
"This is not a complete dead end," notes Pharmaceutical CEO John Doe. "We are not yet certain this potential cure causes paralysis in humans also." Doe added that penicillin is 100% fatal to guinea pigs, despite the unquestionable value it has for humans. "If the FDA were around a hundred years earlier, penicillin would have never been approved."
Meanwhile, PETA demonstrators are rallying at the offices of Megacorp Co., the company that conducted these experiments. "What these so-called scientists have done to these once-functional rats is reprehensible!" decries Wanda Bea Anne Activist. "These researchers should be testing on humans first!" PETA intends to conclude the protest by volunteering their own members for testing the Stem Cells Cure.

I think I've been reading the Onion too much.

Solomon Chang

Isn't that ironic?

[Grendel Drago]

People use those sticky-paper traps and let the rats starve/dehydrate there because they'd be too freaked out to see a rat with a broken neck. It's not for the rats' benefit, it's for theirs.

Analogously, in societies that practiced infanticide (ancient Sparta, recent China), infnats are generally left to die of exposure in a jar on a hillside. Not because it's more humane for the infant, but because the people doing the killing are too squeamish to do it humanely. I think that's irony.

How magnanimous of you.

[Grendel Drago]

im not necessarily saying every little whore should be able to go down to the abortion clinic and sort of use it as a form of contraception, but it should be available for necessary cases.

Your generosity knows no bounds. I may cry, I'm so glad to have you around to tell us when it's "necessary" and when it's not.

You misrepresent this procedure

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a "judgement call" to say a mass of undifferentiated cells are not a human being. It is a clear scientific demarcation.

The rat study we are talking about did not use "undifferentiated cells." The cell line used was made in 1998 from human fetal cells grown on a mouse cell feeder layer. [1,2] The fetal cells were obtained from 5-9 week old human fetuses. Presumably the fetuses were aborted in a clinic or hospital, but I don't know for sure. These cells are not undifferentiated. They are pluripotent stem cells, not totipotent.

Of course, The Fine Article does not bother to tell you that the cells they used are human, let alone that they came from 1-to-2-month-old human fetuses rather than the undifferentiated cells of blastula stage embryos.

Why the HELL do I have to go to the scholarly articles to find this out? Practically all the newspaper articles are cribbed from the Johns Hopkins press release, which carefully avoids saying any mention whatsoever of what sort of stem cells were used. How am I supposed to take these scientists' ethics seriously when their university unaccountably keeps important facts like this out of their press releases?

References

[1] Deshpande D, Kim YS, Martinez T, Carmen J, Dike S, Shats I, Rubin L, Drummond J, Krishnan C, Hoke A, Maragakis N, Shefner J, Rothstein J, Kerr D, "Recovery from Paralysis in Adult Rats Using Embryonic Stem Cells." Annals of Neurology, 60, 22-34. (2006)

[2] Shamblott MJ, Axelman J, Wang S, Bugg EM, Littlefield JW, Donovan PJ, Blumenthal PD, Huggins, GR, and Gearhart JD, "Derivation of pluripotent stem cells from cultured human primordial germ cells". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 95, 13726-13731 (1998).

Possible oops

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I see now that I might have been working from a 2001 article by the same lab, rather than the 2006 article. I can't tell for sure yet, since the journal won't actually publish the article for general subscribers online until June 26, so I'm working from a CDC summary of the embargoed article, and it is a bit ambiguous. (Grr...) Anyway, apologies if my information turns out to be mistaken.