Stem Cell Update II

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Hot off the presses: a stem cell paper connected to the disgraced Hwang laboratory in South Korea has been just retracted for misleading use of  photos that were claimed to be of different stem cells, but were actually the same (doctored) photograph.

The NY Times had a good article a few months ago on spotting doctored photos; Adobe Photoshop is a very useful tool in laboratory work so you can zoom in on areas of interest or clear up some noise. Astronomers also alter the color scales so X-Ray photographs, for instance, correspond to our visible spectrum (you’ll see how some beautiful photos of astronomical objects are called "false color"–this is an example).

Alas, these powerful programs can also be used for cheating.

Bubble Butt Babies

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[obesity.jpg]I’m with Peter. Americans need to wake up and stop telling people being fat is OK. We’re not talking about making everyone Calista Flockhart or Laura Flynn Boyle (I can’t think of any famous men with eating disorders at the moment.), so you can relax, Ms. Wann. There’s a difference between being fatter or larger than average and being obese. Obesity is unhealthy. People need to learn that and start exercising and eating healthier foods. Not only are you hurting yourselves and your families, you’re burdening the whole country by raising our insurance rates.

In case you’re wondering, I too battle obesity. I’m 5’8″ and a couple of years ago I peaked at 205 lbs. That’s not morbidly obese, but when you factor in my body fat percentage, you could certainly say I was headed down a dangerous road. Today, I am about 180 lbs. I still have some fat to lose and muscle to gain, but I’m heading in the right direction. My diet is not perfect but it’s much better than it was in college. I’m also running 4 times a week. Obesity runs through my genes (from my mom’s family), so I have to stay vigilant and determined. Anyhow, I just wanted you folks to know that I’m not some perpetually skinny person judging people in situations I’m not familiar with.

Now, put down those potato chips, get up from your computer, and move your bovine behind! 😉

Stem Cell Update

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Researchers in both the USA and Germany claim to have produced embryonic-like stem cells from testicular cells. The Germans published the results of their work on mice in Nature last week; the Americans claimed to have done similar things with human testes (ouch), but have not published in a peer-reviewed journal, but rather presented it at a conference. The group that did the work in America is also studying similar work on ovaries.

Presumably these cells can be entirely legitimate from a Catholic bioethical standpoint, provided that the germ cell (i.e., testicular or ovarian tissue) material is donated and procured in an ethical manner (which can get complicated, but we’ll leave that for another entry). The problem with embryonic research to date is that the process involves killing or harming human embryos, and perhaps involves involves cloning to boot. Since this embryonic-like cells are taken from adult donors, this intrinsic stumbling-block is removed.

In addition to avoiding that big ethical issue, this technique, if it works, would also avoid some serious technical barriers facing embryonic stem cells. If you give a patient stem cells derived from an embryo, you must either try to create a cloned embryo or else face the risk of tissue rejection. Human cloning has yet to done, now that Dr. Hwang was exposed as a fraud, and any therapy that involves such a concept faces quite a few issues with expense, technical validation, etc.

In other news, Geron Corporation, which holds the rights to the original human embryonic stem cell lines that Dr. Thompson derived at the University of Wisconsin Madison (thus sparking this whole debate) is preparing to launch a clinical trial of human embryonic stell cells on human patients–and just to clarify, unlike the embryonic-like stem cells that I mentioned above, these ones are derived from destroyed human embryos. I believe that this is the first such trial to happen in the USA in several years–in the last trial on Parkinsons Disease patients, the subjects’ symptoms got worse after getting the cells.

Gas Guzzlers

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Teeheehee…

"It seems someone in the marketing department of/for GM thought it would be a grand idea to advertise the 2007 a Chevy Tahoe by running a contest – a DIY (Do It Yourself) commercial."

I love the results. *evil grin*

A whole bunchmore can be found here.

If they get yanked, look for them on YouTube.

Update 04/03/06: CNET has an article about the broader phenomenon of amatuer advertizing.  The Tahoe campaign is mentioned.

Immigration Debate

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I’ve been doing a little thinking about the current immigration debate. The two main lines of argument that seem to be dominating discussions are as follows (in broad strokes).

  1. Illegal immigrants are hard workers who just want a piece of the American pie and are willing to do jobs that Americans aren’t willing to do. Leave them alone.

  2. Illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes and heavily burden America’s educational and medical services. They’re also a security risk. Kick them out.

I think both are right and both are wrong.

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