Month: October 2011

Six fun, amazing, sometimes secret things to do in Seattle

salmon-slide-carkeek-park

Every now and then I do a post on something fun and non-science related, and today it’s all about Seattle. Since it’s Friday, don’t you wish you were on vacation in Seattle? If you can ever imagine visiting Seattle in the near future, bookmark this page because I give suggestions for great things (some that …

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You know about spam, but what does ham have to do with blogging?

I love readers’ comments on my blog. I wish there were a lot more comments so I hope that that builds over time. One challenge to having a dialogue via comments on a blog is that there is so much spam. How much spam you might ask? You may be surprised to learn that my …

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Comment from Roger Highfield, editor of The New Scientist

In response to our post on the recent New Scientist article, which we felt had an anti-ES cell bent, Highfield has responded. He wrote: New Scientist has always backed well-conducted research on ES cells and I have voiced my own support many times, notably in After Dolly (written with Ian Wilmut).  And I am not …

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More on the Vatican $1 million gamble on NeoStem and their upcoming conference in Rome

Pomodorovaticansphere

In mid-November the Catholic Church, in fact the Vatican itself, will do something it has never done before in its very long existence. It will hold a conference on stem cells. Perhaps equally unusual and of interest is the fact that the basis for this conference is a $1 million (USD) gamble by the Vatican …

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The Vatican Stem Cell Meeting…is mixing religion and science a good idea?

Why does it worry me that the Vatican is having a stem cell conference? One of the hallmarks of Democracy is separation of church and state. When states mix religion into politics and government, the results have during human history been disastrous. Equally dismal has been the relationship between religion and science. Ever since the …

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The New Scientist goes after ES cells with strange opinion piece

What the heck happened to The New Scientist? An anti-embryonic stem cell piece they just recently published was an exercise in weird, moral obfuscation. Quite a few scientists and policy makers are fairly regular readers of The New Scientist. They might start reconsidering how they want to spend that $99/year. Why not use it to …

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Is it fair to tell a patient to be patient?

patient-outreach-science

When I talk to people about stem cell science and the timeline for turning data into treatments and cures, their reactions completely depend on whom they are. Scientists are patient, perhaps too patient….perhaps too understanding of the many years that we are told that science takes to get something to the clinic. Patients and patient …

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Sports Medicine and Stem Cells: a miraculous or disastrous combo?

As the list of star athletes and other celebs that have received dubious stem cell treatments grows longer, I don’t think there is any question but that this turn of events will be the spark that drives hundreds of ordinary people to get similar treatments for themselves or for their kids who are either budding, …

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Anti-cure impact of Errant EU stem cell patent decision

There has been concern for months about the direction that the European Union was heading in regards to intellectual property (IP) rights and stem cell patent approaches. Now, a definitive decision banning embryonic stem cell (ESC)-based patents by the EU Court has dealt a severe blow to stem cell science in Europe. The European Court …

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