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Senior RIKEN Scientist Involved In Stem Cell Scandal Commits Suicide
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Yoshiki Sasai, a noted stem cell scientist at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe, Japan, who co-authored two controversial and later retracted papers that reported a simple way of reprogramming mature cells, was confirmed dead this morning, an apparent suicide. Local media reported he was found hanging from a stairway railing in the RIKEN complex in Kobe. Sasai was rushed to a nearby hospital but efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. He reportedly left a suicide note, but it has not been made public."
0) Labs around the world are researching patentable stem-cell cures at their own expense.
1) Group finds (comparatively) trivial way to produce them and releases said on the internet, encouraging others to try.
2) [Insert unknown]
3) Research is discredited, careers ruined, and dude is dead.
Is '2' something like "research is totally false and harms science itself by its very existence so the villains must be crushed" or more like "research is close enough to scare the shit out of some heavily-invested peers"?
Whichever one it winds up being, the response to 'crappy scientific paper' is NOT typically burning at the stake, so some unknown must be at work here.
Except his research was on using adult stem cells, so it is unlikely he would have triggered the angst of religious or abortion groups.
Not everyone bothers with these distinctions. To say that the debate is one rife with ignorance is to master the skill of understatement.
Religious people were against stem cells from aborted fetuses because they considered it murder. There is nothing hard to understand about this.
Therefore, a way to do this with adult (or any non-abortion-based cells) would be hailed by the religious.
You should learn what people claim before drawing conclusions. As with the Hobby Lobby argument, stopping implantation might not technically be an "abortion", but it is killing a viable embryo nevertheless, "ensouled", so to speak. People stop being facetious.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.