Vatican Stem Cell Meeting 2.0: from stem cells to prison cells to hell?

February 1, 2021 / By / 7 Comments
Get-out-of-Hell-Free-Card-300x1701

We have another Vatican stem cell meeting coming up this spring. This meeting raises some extremely important questions and complex issues at the interface of science, religion, philosophy and ethics. From the perspective of scientists, an important issue is whether (assuming one is invited) to attend such a meeting and if one does attend, is …

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Can science be a 9-5, Mon-Fri job for trainees?

February 1, 2021 / By / 1 Comment

Some colleagues of mine (not all faculty) around the country have been having a heated email debate on which I have been an eavesdropper of sorts. The topic? How many hours should trainees in science (grad students and postdocs) work in the lab per week? Or as they put it in their emails: “Can trainees …

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Why is the human brain super-sized?

February 1, 2021 / By / 4 Comments
human-brain

Why do people have such a big brain compared to other animals? Vertebrate embryonic development is a highly conserved process, particularly in the earliest phases. (note: you may find this September 2020 post on regulation of bee brain size to be interesting.) A wide variety of vertebrate animals including humans start out with embryonic body plans …

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Are Republican leaders anti-science? Take our poll

February 1, 2021 / By

I recently did a poll to which we’ve gotten a large number of responses asking the question: Is Obama anti-science? You can still take that poll here. The result so far indicate that vast majority believe that Obama is not anti-science. While 18% believe his policies are a mixed bag, only 2.6% flat out say …

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The war propaganda myth of adult versus embryonic stem cells hurts everyone

February 1, 2021 / By / 5 Comments
war

If someone is not in a war, but someone else declares war on them or actually attacks them, I would say the reality is that war has started and there are two opposing sides. However, has that happened when it comes to stem cells? Are we in a stem cell war? There have been times …

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