Skin Cells Turned Embryonic

anik315 writes "Nature is reporting a major breakthrough in embryonic stem cell research. A straightforward procedure using mouse fibroblasts harvested from the skin can be used to produce pluripotent stem cells that can potentially become any other cell in the body. Not only can Yamanaka's method use the most basic cells, it can be accomplished with simple lab techniques. Possible applications of this breakthrough are to check molecular changes in cells as certain conditions develop. Stem cells produced using this procedure, however, can not be used safely to make genetically matched cells for transplant."

Comments

I knew it..

[buswolley]

I knew there was a better way than using dead babies.

Re:I knew it..

[MightyMartian]

Good solutions are usually no match for ignorance, incompetence and apathy. The very best birth control in the world still suffers from one singular and overarching problem; getting people to use it. This is made worse in some parts of the world by organizations (like the Vatican and the current US Administration) working against sound sexual practices out of some bizarre moral belief that distributing condoms and birth control pills makes the Judeao-Christian deity cry. Now I realize that the Vatican feels that it is protecting the dire commandments of its rather limited, seldom-seen and almost always utterly impotent deity (ie. YHVH should goddamn well prevent pregnancies itself rather than requiring Vatican officials spread lies about condom effectiveness), while the US Administration is pretty much a whore of some of the most delusional intellectual and moral deadbeats the Western world has managed to produce since the Reformation, but at some point someone is going to have to say "You're retards. Go fuck yourselves. You're laughing stocks who deserve nothing but universal revilement. You will go down in history as some of the most ignorant, self-important, know-nothing twerps produced by this sad species. You have about as much right to make statements on public health and morality as a dead TB-ridden rat with swollen rectal tissue leaking out its anterior."

Re:I knew it..

[MightyMartian]

Either are stepped on the toes of some mental retard who defends the Bush administration, or on some good-for-nothing YHVH worshipper who can't face the fact that he worships delusions and his coreligionists are advocating health solutions that can only come from sick or low-IQ minds. I welcome such retarded fuckers to waste their moderator points on these posts. Go for it you stupid fucking bastards. Show how fucking stupid, how bereft of morality, brains or any cognitive or emotional capacity that could be considered mammalian, let alone human.

Re:I knew it..

[Anonymous Coward]

If harvesting stem cells from aborted fetuses is wrong then I don't want to be right.

Re:I knew it..

[Tatarize]

What? A skin cell can become an embryos and you think that there's nothing that comes to mind. Scratching ones arm is equivalent to genocide. In fact, the only thing cost us these precious lives is womb space. There's no excuses. All unoccupied wombs are murder!

With so many unquestionably moral methods

[Ogemaniac]

of creating stem cells on the very near horizon, what is the justification for using public money for research that tens of millions of people consider murder? Why not limit public funds to the tens of thousands of research projects (health-related or otherwise) that virtually no one disputes? Additionally, no stem-cell research that I know of is focused on any public health concern such as communicable diseases; rather, it is focused on private health issues such as cancer or Parkinson's disease. Hence, it is debatable whether such research is the domain of government at all. If the government is going to intrude so deeply into the private sphere, should it not do so under only the most benign of manners? I say this because some would argue, for example, that some military research is immoral. That may be true, but what is not particularly debatable that military affairs are the domain of government...indeed, one of its primary roles. The government MUST do military research, and inevitably, some will disagree. In contrast, there is no compelling reason for the government to fund stem-cell research at all...and even less so, given its controversy.

Let's spend the money on cellulitic ethanol, or a new super-collider, or anti-AIDS vaccines instead.

this FP for gNAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Fi8st 4void going

Re:Next step: Embryos

[G-funk]

Bah! There's no such thing as pro-life. The word you're looking for is prudish mysoginst. Think I'm full of it? Ask them if it's OK for a woman to take the morning-after pill if she's been raped.

They want to punish women for having sex. Nothing more, nothing less.