What scares scientists? What fears keep them up at night worrying? What makes them scream (if only in their heads)? As part of my elephant in the lab series tackling difficult but important topics for scientists, today I am talking fear! Earlier posts in this series included taboo topics about iPS cells, the dirty dozen […]
Fears of academic scientists: elephant in the lab series Read More »
TGIF It’s been a wild week on this blog with many thoughts going out to the future of stem cells in Texas. What about stem cell headlines of the week? Some wildness there too and lots of discussion of translational applications, which is exciting. This week let’s start in reverse order with the ugly and
TGIF: good, bad, ugly stem cell headlines of week of May 25 Read More »
Two articles in today’s New York Times got me thinking about how science can be pursued privately or publicly. I believe that getting that mix of public and private science right will directly determine the fate of humanity. In a pop-science NYT piece, James Gorman writes about how people may in the not so distant
Lessons from The Hunger Games about balancing science: public versus private Read More »
In the biomedical sciences we do a huge number of experiments on cells grown in culture including human cell lines. Where do all these cells come from? It’s an important question to ask. I got my first job in science as a fairly low level technician working at UCSD in La Jolla and my main
Where do my cells come from? Read More »
What’s the real story on adult stem cells? Do they really have little to no risk? As a self-proclaimed fan of stem cells, including adult stem cells, I often find myself writing and talking about them to a large, diverse audience. I’ve become a stem cell ambassador of sorts. However, I am also a realist
The real, but oft-ignored risks of adult stem cell treatments Read More »
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
Why is the human brain super-sized? Read More »
How should we all handle cyber safety issues? Could someone be stealing your work-related or personal data while you travel? If you have recently traveled outside the U.S., particularly to China or Russia, I have bad news for you because you may have already been hacked. Check out this article in the NY Times about how dangerous
Helpful cyber safety tips for trips Read More »
Interestingly, the Komen Foundation appears open to funding human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research. The latest report from Science includes a quote from Komen that denies any changes in funding policy for research and suggests they have not ruled out funding such research: Contrary to circulating online reports, Komen has not “de-funded” any grantee based on human embryonic stem
Komen Foundation open to funding human embryonic stem cell research Read More »
Last year around this time I presented my first stem cell awards of the year, in that case for 2010. You can see whom I thought deserved awards here. Now it is time for our 2011 stem cell awards. These awards reflect my opinions and those not mentioned will hopefully forgive me as there is
Stem Cell Awards for 2011 Read More »
Remember those folks who were pushing an amendment in Mississippi that would have defined the one cell fertilized egg as a full blown person with all the same rights as a living, breathing, thinking Mississippian? Now the new battlefront for their movement is California. They want to get an initiative on the ballot to make
Is a fertilized egg a Californian? Personhood movement brings battle to California Read More »