Germans announce stem cell advance

[WhiteTara]

thanks chimpster for making us even more third world.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/03/25/germans_announce_stem_cell_advance/

German scientists said yesterday that they have created cells similar to embryonic stem cells without using embryos, suggesting a way that stem cell research might advance without the controversy that has surrounded it.

The team of scientists removed sperm-producing stem cells from mice and transformed them into cells that appear to be identical to embryonic stem cells, which can become any type of cell in the body and which lead to new treatments for a variety of diseases.

If the same technique can be adapted to human cells, scientists would not need to use frozen embryos to create the equivalent of embryonic stem cells, and they would not need to clone stem cells -- the two approaches most scientists have been investigating.

Scientists have suggested other ways of avoiding the ethical controversy around embryonic stem cell research. But the new results electrified the scientific community yesterday because the results provided the most convincing evidence yet that doctors may be able to take cells from a patient and turn them into any tissue their body needs, without creating or destroying an embryo.

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Sorry we are so backward that we haven't had a new scientific innovation for six years. We spend all our money on guns and war.

If Al had not been robbed, I think we would be a world leader in science and global warming would have been slowed. I hate George Bush and Dick Cheney. May they both rot in jail and then hell.

[babylonsister]

1. How many more advances might there be if this country weren't

going backwards instead of progressing? When I think of all the people who would benefit from stem cell research, including my own step-son, the fact that we aren't allowed to contribute makes me ill.

[AuntiBush]

11. Backwards is right, sadly so.

We're in a 50 plus backwards decline.

[blondeatlast]

18. The US pioneered stem-cell research, now we are WAY behind other countries

and will remain so as long as we have this idiotic idea about what goes into it.

I know that I, an ID diabetic, won't be around to see it happen, but I'd like to think a baby born today will.

Alas, if the wack-jobs continue to get their way, that baby will suffer as I have for 39 years. Sigh.

[adarling]

2. even if it did work for humans

the right wing would find someway for it to be immoral and try to get it blocked. They don't give a crap about anyone but themselves. Generalized yes, but i am exhausted so i will let it slide today :(

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. no shit. Like cervical cancer prevention. AIDS drugs. every single issue

based on science has been perverted by these people.

[Zookeeper]

14. Really!

Let's see....the cure comes from sperm producing cells? We'd be violating god's plan to create sperm, which creates unborn humans, which we're obligated to protect until they become "born" humans...then they are on their own.

[Botany]

4. But we have "Mega Churches"

The Germans find treatments for Alzheimer's

The Koreans find treatments for type #1 diabetes

The Indians work on spinal cord damage

The Brits on work Parkinson's disease

The French on connective tissues

The Poles on the nervous system

(sad this is a true list)

So what we done got the ten commandments up in our classrooms and Neil Bush is selling the
software for no child left behind ..... Praise Jesus!

[Frangible]

21. Find a new group to hate

Most Christians, especially the popular "megachurch" denominations, support federal funding of stem cell research. Isn't it funny how the news media overemphasizes the extremism of a minority group in a religion to sow hate and fear of the religion as a whole? Even conservative evangelical Christians, aka "fundies", support it by a small majority. So exactly which magical non-existant Christian group are you basing your assertations upon?

And the US still conducts the most medical research in the world, sorry to burst your bubble. Science knows no national boundries.

[Occulus]

22. the costs of those damn megachurches could feed and house

a whole bunch of people. I think that every single time I see one, too: what a self-entitled, grand, Goddamn (literally) waste.

Those are sad places. They almost make me weep. Sometimes, they even conduct business inside the same building. Every single one of those huge megachurches represents an entire congregation so beglamoured with the "glory" that they apparently step away from the faith.

If they wanted the truly grandest church, they would pray outside, under the sun and the sky, and use all that money as a tool to help others instead of building something massively huge for themselves. Does a little humility harm anyone?

The churches around here just keep getting bigger and bigger, as do the numbers of homeless, underfed, unhealthy people. These are the people their own religion commands them to help, and help most- and it's simply being allowed to happen as the churches get physically larger and "grander".

Jesus wept.

[chaumont58]

5. Prior to Hitler coming to power, Germany was the nation that won

the most Nobel Prizes. After that, it was the US. With the fundies having some success at destroying US education that is not Christian bible oriented, I wonder what the future has for future American Nobel laureates.

[AngryAmish]

6. See what an intelligent people can accomplish?

Americans are sooooo stupid.

[DrBloodmoney]

7. All of the future advances in this technology

will be happening in other countries. We'll be left behind.

[Igel]

8. Too bad some Americans didn't apply for an NIH grant

to investigate this.

There's just a single, specific sort of research that isn't eligible for federal funding. This, and things like it, would probably have gotten federal funds.

[LisaL]

16. What federal funds? NIH budget is being cut.

[blondeatlast]

19. Let me add--DRASTICALLY cut.

It's science, pioneering science at that. We can't have that in a God fearin' country, can we?

BTW, I'm a Christian who abhors the theocratic direction we are moving towards.

[Talismom]

20. Right you are! Drastically cut as in down from 25 to 9% of the highly

rated grants now being funded! At this rate, many will no longer be able to support themselves by working in biomedical research within a few years.

[lala_rawraw]

9. well, then, maybe I can save enough to

Fly to a different country in order to get treatment.. In my US of fucking A, the Christian right decided that stem cells were little people who have more value than I do and because of that, I have to sit here and read news like the above as though I was praying to god. How pathetic have we become? Arghhhhhhhhh!!!!

[AuntiBush]

10. Who Would Have Thought

that someday Germany, respectfully speaking, would surpass us. To think, not 5 years back we were the envy of the world.

1 adm later and we're sunk, globally. How do they sleep at nights?

[Burried News]

12. I will still give my left nut to have Bush Impeached.

[Auntie Bush]

13. May I second that? "May they both rot in jail and then hell." nt

[tandot]

15. That is what happens if you stifle science here.

Very soon we'll have to beg other countries to share their medical advances with us because some people here decided that the dark ages weren't so bad after all.

[skyblue]

17. Stem Cell supported by over 100 medical organizations

This issue makes me want to puke. People will die. Die. Because he's reduced the amount of available supply to conduct research with. This affects people with alzheimer's, Parkinson's... I will be old some day and sure as hell don't want to have to worry about my relatives or myself having to worry about these diseases. They can clone sheep and dogs, if you need a new kidney and can't find one they should be able to clone these organs somehow to help your diseased organ in the meantime instead of undergoing torturous treatments or death because some theofascist has it in their mind that using embryonic stem cells will send us all off to eternal hell fire.