Every now and then I collect a bunch of recent science good news that I’ve come across. Here are some past ‘good news’ posts. Today’s post includes such a recent collection and some funny stuff too at the end. Enjoy! BTW, science is not necessarily all about stem cells, right? Talk about good news. 1,000th […]
Good news science digest: HIV, brain, CRISPR, cats vs. dogs, space, & more Read More »
My daughter Julie and I have written a book together entitled, “How to Build a Dragon or Die Trying, A satirical look at cutting edge science.” The book will be out sometime in June most likely. This is a very different kind of book than my first two, Stem Cells: An Insider’s Guide and GMO
How to Build a Dragon or Die Trying: check out new book with my daughter Julie Read More »
There are many potential causes of erectile dysfunction or ED and a host of ideas about how to treat it. Some approaches to erectile dysfunction are evidence-based and even have been rigorously proven such as the drugs Viagra and Cialis, which increase blood flow to the penis. Depending on the causes of the dysfunction, these
Sexual Medicine Society on Unproven Regenerative Therapies for Erectile Dysfunction Read More »
Yesterday we learned that the FDA issued a warning letter to the cord stem cell firm, Cord for Life. In this warning, the FDA indicated that the firm’s product is actually a drug product and lacks necessary pre-market approvals. In addition, the agency highlighted apparent deviations from CGMP practices. The most important part of the
Perspectives: FDA warns umbilical firm & continues stream of “mini-warning” letters Read More »
Some unproven stem cell clinics just make things up, but when a big medical organization like Seattle’s largest nonprofit health firm, Swedish Medical Group, has a marketing segment on TV with what in my view are odd and inaccurate claims related to regenerative medicine, the negative impact could be far greater. The segment in question
KING 5 TV pulls odd Swedish Medical regen med infomercial off YouTube Read More »
For more than a dozen years we’ve subscribed to The Sacramento Bee newspaper here in Northern California. During those dozen+ years, newspapers across the U.S. have been under huge financial pressures. At a science level, one of the terrible results of this pressure on newspapers has been the vast number of excellent science writers who
Have you given up on your local paper? I might with The Sacramento Bee Read More »
Two prominent scientists, Robin Lovell-Badge and George Daley, have been amongst the most outspoken proponents of leaving the door open to heritable human genetic modification via CRISPR. While they each have articulated their reasons in somewhat different ways at times, their core reasons arguing in favor of future heritable CRISPR appear largely the same. In
Counterpoints to Lovell-Badge & Daley’s CRISPR baby rationales Read More »
Swedish Medical Center in Seattle is now marketing regenerative medicine therapies including some things that in my view are not really scientifically proven to work including via an infomercial. This is part of a bigger trend where more legit medical centers have begun selling regenerative medicine “treatments” that are still being developed. Sometimes they even
‘So you don’t get eyeball in your hand’: Swedish Medical Center ‘infomercial’ Read More »
What happens next to He Jiankui (贺建奎) or as some people now refer to him, the “CRISPR baby guy”? China has a challenging situation to resolve here, but such conflicts between scientists and governments have happened regularly in history. When scientists go “rogue” (i.e. don’t conform to norms or ethical standards in an extreme way or
When I was a little kid I played this game called “connect the dots” or “dot-to-dot”, where you draw a line from dot-to-dot in numerical order and at some point a picture starts to emerge. I think kids and even some adults still play this today. They even come in extreme versions with hundreds or
Trying to connect the dots on CRISPR baby story paints a dark, cloudy picture Read More »