"a fertilized egg has its own DNA distinct from that of the parents from conception.  everything from the fertility of your sperm when you hit puberty 13 years later to your baldness at age 40 is determined in hour one."

No, they aren't. There's something call Omnipotent cells which mean they can take the form of any cell and they don't develop in an hour ... infact it takes them serveral weeks to do so, in that time if say you took what "would" be blood cells and injected them into the spine, they'd turn into vertebrae cells (could be osteoblasts, fibroblast, cells that make up the CSF, or nerve cells)

Furthermore stem cells come from umbilical cords and embryos, only problem with umbilical cord cells are that some have lost the ability of becoming omnipotent. embryos aren't people ... merely a ball of cells ... and furthermore they take the cells from the embryos that ppl "throw" away ... i'll go into details about the whole process abit later as i just got back from doing my internship at the hospital and super tired :\ ... however i can see plenty of ignorance in this thread so far and plan to clear it up with evidence-based facts

~ Cloud

> K. William Fancsali wrote:

> I think this whole topic has been strangely warped in the US.

I just signed a release yesterday to have my records sent to doctors in California. If they think it may be useful they'll be using stem cells from my bone to try to fix up something that was damaged 8 years ago. if they think it may be useful we'll be doing it in Mexico. Because this cutting-edge work just isn't done here. While we're whining and moaning that we should be allowed to grow and destroy human beings in labs for research that doesn't yield results (that is, desirable results. it does yield tumors sometimes!), we don't do the research on and work with stem cells (which do not require growing and killing anyone) that already exists and isn't morally questionable.

yep, the liberals hide the success of adult stem cells inorder to help them justify their "right" to kill other human beings.

> Zidi wrote:

> Well they whats the difference between an egg and 3-5 day old embryo? They are both cells, which have the capacity to begin life. Are they not? Isnt a human being defined by a concious? They have no more concious then an egg at that level.

Not all people are religous avo. Im assuming your against IVF and Abortion then as well?

the difference between an egg and a 3-5 day old embryo is comparable to the difference between an arm and an adult human.

" They are both cells, which have the capacity to begin life. Are they not?"

neither begin life, life began once on this earth. or at least that we know of.

"Isnt a human being defined by a concious?"

you can define human however you want, but a scientist would not define a human as you describe.

"Not all people are religous avo"

i agree, but going against science in your definition of a human, is a religious stance.

"Im assuming your against IVF and Abortion then as well? "

i am, but lets try to stay on topic, if thats not too much of a challenge for you.

Lies!

> Acolyte wrote:

> Zarf Beeblebrix: "How about because, although there are huge benefits in the long term for said projects, in the short term, they are wholly unprofitable?"

Oh, right, businesses don't have a conception of what long-term means.

Never argued that businesses have no concept of what "long term" means.  However, long term projects have a way of draining huge amounts of money, which jeopardizes the short term.  If a company can't foresee that a long term project can continue while retaining short term financial stability, the company will jettison the long term project or collapse, making the long term project's loss inevitable.

The thing about the federal government funding the project is that the federal government, just by its sheer size, has the capability of pooling society's resources to create massive research projects.  And since the federal government has a greater likelihood to continue surviving than a business (this at least referring to the United States federal government), it is better able to take a short term loss for long term gain.

"Seriously, what new toothpaste will we be able to develop as a result of the LHC?"

Who knows? That's what's so fun about science. If the debate over global warming is any indicator, science is not more or less perturbed by government influence than it would be by private influence. The politicization of the climate issue has muddied the waters so, that whomever hasn't jumped on the IPCC bandwagon either fervently denies anthropogenic factors, or has suspended judgement altogether due to the ambiguous nature of the statements regarding the big "what ifs" of global climate change. Moreover, I would add that an individual's failure of imagination should not be construed as the failure of the free market.

Okay, here's the problem there: business investment requires at least some direction of a profitable goal.  I want to make this very clear: in areas where a profitable goal is conceivable, the private sector does awesome.

Take, for example, nanotechnology.  Businesses have already popped up trying not just to develop the short term nanotechnology areas, such as tougher metals.  Some research businesses have popped up trying to be the first to build extremely long term, theoretical projects, such as the molecular manufacturer (a device that would essentially rearrange atoms from matter to construct whatever object a person wanted).

The difference, though, is whether profitability is foreseeable.  If the only goal is "we might eventually make something that we someday may sell at some price," it's a crap investment.  But if the goal is "we might eventually develop X revolutionary technology that we can sell and become rich beyond our wildest dreams," you can bet a venture capitalist will come forward.

> Einstein wrote:

> Science by the government is 90% horse crap, and 10% accidental discoveries.

"Oops!  We got lost on the way to Denny's and landed on the moon!"

"Oops!  I was trying to fill out this paperwork really fast, and the intense force between my pen and the paper destabilized the ink molecules, starting nuclear fission!  Maybe we can make a bomb out of this!"

"Oops!  I was drawing pictures of my hand on this stack of forms and accidentally mapped out the human genome!"

"Funny, as I recall scientists in ancient times who discovered something that was even the slightest contrary of Church (read: political authority) opinion were labelled heretics and either placed on permanent house arrest or outright executed."

You know there is a lot more to history than a mere 200 year span in Europe. -.- Course if you want to use Europe as an example you can argue that the Renaissance was the opposite of the Dark Ages. In which wealthy families (which pretty much ran the government in Italy at the time) used tax money to finance many of the great works of art and engineering projects at the time that caused so much innovation. Masonry and engineering knowledge gained from the massive building projects in China. Ironically gunpowder was accidentally made by a bunch of Taoist monks in the 9th century (basically a religious order).

Heck the computer your typing on and this internet we're using to communicate all stem originally from government backed projects. While it is entirely possible for these inventions to have developed on their own from the private sector the chances of them doing so in the same time frame and scale as we saw with the information revolution is slim at best. Surely you must recognize this.

Also @ fokker

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> Khan_Kell wrote:

> A physical body without thought is not a "person." It is a growth of cells carrying human genetics like any tumour, but no more. If the destruction of that cell, which is yet to be a person, can help improve the lives of living thinking people, then it should be.

hasnt the world had enough religious genocides? must you support the elimination of people because they dont fit your religious belief on what a humans are?

@ avo, to your previous post on the 1st page

"eggs are no more a human being then any other cell. an embryo is a human being for all purposes other then religious individuals who insist being human requires certain physical characteristics such as a brain or a heart or live birth, but when you start defining humans by physical characteristics, you can start defining them by having certain skin color, height, or weight, someone who supports killing embryos is no better then someone who supports killing certain races, or overweight people, or short people."

An embryo is not a human being by any means, as had this argument before. A human being breathes, circulates blood and gases, has a conscious, has neurological functions, oh and let's not forget can reproduce ... all of which an embryo is incapable of those making an egg (ovum) and an embryo pretty much similar other than the mitosis and cell division that is current being processed at the moment of time. Oh and that's not coming from a religious stand point, simply facts.

Now in the general response to the forum. It seems some believe that now that was are doing stem cell research that we can "cone humans" or make the ideal human etc from gene make-up. We've figured out the human gene sequence sometime ago (human genome project, i believe its called) we've also established the powers to clone any form of life, all before this. For one to say that it's bad for us to research in things that could vastly improve the qualities of life flabbergasts me.

Take for instance a child that was born with Spinal Bifida, for those that aren't familiar with the congenital defect, it's an abnormality that happen to a child which leaves their spinal cord not totally fused, thus lacking functions to certain parts of the body. Cerebral Palsy, Flaccidity, hydrocephalus, and other complications can arise ... back to the topic if we could figure out the exact mechaisms of stem cells (which as i explained are omnipotent cells that can take the form of ANY cell, thus can replace/repair alot of things) it could potentially correct this childs aliment and maybe allow him to lead a normal life.

I could go on and on about different situations, for instance we may be able to figure out a cure for HIV/AIDS and Carcinoma (cancer) if we could harness the complete properties of the cells. Those that wish to refute this and argue it, please let me know why? Btw i believe Obama said we're going to find a cure for cancer in our generation ...

~ Cloud

Obama gets rid of the two only good things Bush ever did: His space program and stem cell funding ban.
He keeps extraordinary renditions and throwing people into prison without trial.
Good job!