Stem Cell Research Bill Clears Australian Senate

jaunty writes "A private members bill has passed the Australian senate which paves the way for the cloning of embryos to gather stem cells. While it only passed by a narrow margin it is expected to gain support in the House. From the article: 'The final shape of the bill is now subject to further debate on amendments including measures to toughen penalties for breaches of cloning regulations, and possibly a move to stop the use of animal tissue in the cloning process.'"

Comments

And in the UK, they want to make human/cow hybrids

[Colin Smith]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6121280.stm

Quite a good way of getting round the shortage in eggs.

Re:Good!

[ToddML]

You do realize that the U.S. Senate and House approved a stem cell funding bill, right? It was vetoed by Bush (the only veto of his entire tenure in the White House). It was simply that the houses didnt have enough votes to override the veto. That may change today.

Re:Good.

[Fordiman]

"The average IQ has increased."

Uh, not to be nit picky, but average IQ can't increase. The IQ score is always relative to a bell curve, with 'average' alwaysbeing smack-dab at the 50th percentile (the mean). 200==100th percentile, and 0==0th percentile (both more or less immeasurable).

Now, you could say that the bell-curve's getting humpy at the high end (which it is), and you could say that an IQ of 100 is smarter than it used to be (also true, though most people with higher intelligence but less education never notice), but the 'average IQ' is always 100.