I remember the first time I ran across an ad for a stem cell face cream and it wasn’t pretty. This was about 10 years ago. The stem cell cream in question made several claims that seemed highly doubtful. In a sense what the cream’s maker was selling was the idea of stem cell-based youth …
Fact-checking stem cell face cream: less than face value Read More »
Some readers suggested earlier this year that I look into a clinic firm called ‘Stem Cell Centers’ with its owner Travis Autor. I didn’t have time to do much since I’ve been very busy in the lab before the state Attorney Generals of Iowa and Nebraska sued them based on a number of allegations including …
2 State AG’s sue ‘Stem Cell Centers’ clinics including for alleged fraud Read More »
Today’s post is a review of Unnatural Selection, the new Netflix science docuseries focused on CRISPR and other disruptive genetic and reproductive technologies. The show is an interesting mix of personalities and stories from patients, scientists, biohackers, and more. One patient thread is the story of a wonderful little boy named Jackson Kennedy. He wants …
Unnatural Selection review: captivating mind-bender but needed more science Read More »
A couple weeks ago I launched our 2019 stem cell pic contest here on The Niche. It was a challenge for me choosing the winner from the top 9 finalists, whose images I made a composite of that is included toward the end of this post. The picture at the bottom of the composite seems …
The Niche 2019 stem cell pic contest winner is Shiri Gur-Cohen Read More »
Maybe the announcement that Commissioner Scott Gottlieb will be leaving the FDA soon shouldn’t have caught us all off-guard, but it did. Gottlieb isn’t a perfect Commissioner, but he brought a sensible, open approach to running the FDA that was very refreshing. Amongst all the top leadership in the Trump administration, Scott Gottlieb stood out …
Scott Gottlieb leaving FDA: possible reasons, impact on stem cell field, & more Read More »
There’s the batmobile for Batman, right, but what about a stem-cell-mobile? Every so often someone sends me some wild new stem cell clinic thing that they’ve seen that is both real and almost unbelievable at the same time. The latest is a mobile stem cell “clinic” business called RegenMed of Florida, which is what I’m …
Cell on wheels: ‘stem-cell-mobile’ delivers unproven therapies Read More »
If you want to fight aging, should you turn to stem cells? Does the idea of stem cells to battle getting old even make any sense? The answer is, “it depends.” It’s a really interesting area conceptually and technically for stem cells. A theory. There is evidence that things that happen to our endogenous stem …
When I read about a stem cell penis growth injection, what comes to mind first when you read that is “Ow!” The goal of today’s post is to fact-check this whole area. What’s in this article Stem cell penis growth | Risks |US Stem Cell Clinic claims |Does it work? | Does size matter? | Data check …
This post is my review of Star Wars The Last Jedi. I’m a sci-fi fan and have enjoyed the various Star Wars movies over the years so I had been looking forward to seeing the new movie, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (TLJ). Here is my review of TLJ and be forewarned that there are …
Review of Star Wars The Last Jedi: Disappointing Read More »
Robots versus scientists? Over the centuries, humans have sometimes had a fear of replacement, whether it is by another human as exemplified in Dostoevsky’s classic short story The Double (or other literature on doubles/doppelgängers) or by machines, most notably robots. Could we be replaced by robots, artificial intelligence (AI), or cyborgs? In some ways, robots …