carapace – Not your father's america

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

By NIGEL CAMERON
GUEST COLUMNIST

In all the scores of editorials and news stories about using “spare” in vitro fertilization embryos for stem cell research, writers continue to talk “the Bush ban on stem-cell research.” It’s amazing how badly it gets the story wrong.

Stem cell research is forging ahead, and funded by the feds. “Adult” stem cell research, using these amazingly versatile cells taken harmlessly from umbilical cord blood and adults, is leading to cures in dozens of clinical trials — funded by the federal government.

And there is no embryo research “ban.” There isn’t even a “ban” on funding. In fact, President Bush is the first president ever to use federal funds for research on embryos.

In that famous August 2001 speech, he liberalized existing policy — and was criticized by some Christian conservatives for doing so. He announced funding for research on cell lines from embryos that already had been destroyed. It was a principled compromise, and the National Institutes of Health is now spending tens of millions of dollars every year following through — although, despite the hype, we are a long, long way from any “cures” using embryo stem cells.

The current fight is about whether to use federal dollars to fund experiments using “spare” embryos from in vitro clinics. There is no federal law preventing researchers from using the embryos with private funding. The president has promised to veto a bill that would overturn his compromise and force taxpayers who believe using human embryos for medical research is a grave wrong to fund it.

There is much interest in “alternative” ways of getting embryonic-type or “pluripotent” stem cells (cells that can become any type of tissue in the body) — ways that don’t involve destroying embryos.

Complete article at:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/238635_stemcellop.html

02:00 30 August 2005
NewScientist.com news service

Kurt Kleiner

Most published scientific research papers are wrong, according to a new analysis. Assuming that the new paper is itself correct, problems with experimental and statistical methods mean that there is less than a 50% chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper are true.

John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece, says that small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias, and selective reporting and other problems combine to make most research findings false. But even large, well-designed studies are not always right, meaning that scientists and the public have to be wary of reported findings.

“We should accept that most research findings will be refuted. Some will be replicated and validated. The replication process is more important than the first discovery,” Ioannidis says.

In the paper, Ioannidis does not show that any particular findings are false. Instead, he shows statistically how the many obstacles to getting research findings right combine to make most published research wrong.

Read the complete article at: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7915

Space images show how Hurricane Katrina built up strength in the Gulf of Mexico, fuelled by warm ocean waters.

Full story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4197096.stm

ARMY TO RECRUIT AT MTV MUSIC AWARDS
Rappers Could Skip Firearms Training, Pentagon Believes

One day after rap mogul Suge Knight was shot in the leg at a party celebrating the MTV Music Awards, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that the Army would start recruiting soldiers for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at all future installments of the popular awards show.

“We believe that the highest concentration of potential enlistees with extensive firearms experience may in fact be at the MTV Music Awards,” Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon.

The Defense Secretary said he was “impressed” when he heard that someone at the awards party had successfully shot Mr. Knight: “If one of those fellows had good enough aim to hit Suge Knight in the leg, imagine what they could do to some of those pesky Iraqi insurgents.”

He said that by recruiting soldiers at the MTV Music Awards, the Army would be gaining a pool of enlistees who would require no firearms training whatsoever, saving the Pentagon and U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars a year.

“Teaching these guys how to use a gun would be a serious waste of time,” Mr. Rumsfeld said. “It would be like teaching Courtney Love how to snort powder up her nose.”

While the Defense Secretary would not specify how the Army would induce rappers to enlist, he told reporters, “We are fully prepared to offer them a Cadillac Escalade, and we may throw in a ho or two as well.”

Elsewhere, in medical news, redheads who spend time in the sun and eat French fries and potato chips should already be dead by now.

Borowitzreport.com