http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25550134-2702,00.html

i was hoping there would be a good video on it! GOOD TIMES. THANKS BUSH.

and even though im sure the research has been going on for a while... can't help but notice this news pops up after Obama says MAKE IT SO with the stem cells... looking good Obama.

It seems acceptable for smart states to legalize equal marriage and thus funnel money from the not-smart states.

It's similar to how California and then a few other states brain-drained the rest of the country when they created their own stem cell research institutes after Bush restricted the research.

Yeah, whatever talking Lion. I know they didn't have FUTURE MEDICINE!!!! In the old days but we don't have to worry about that death shit anymore.

Excuse me whilst I go eat my stem cell sandwich with mustard.

My prediction is that eventually white people, latinos, and black people will look like Angelina Jolie, Jessica Alba, and Halle Berry due to reprogenetics and easy stem cell-driven cosmetic medicine, and perspectives that frame things in terms of ethnicity will decline more dramatically.

Pence brought up a good point about methods of stem cell research that are an alternative to destroying human embryos. Although it is still in its infancy (pun totally intended) and coming up to speed on that would set all sciences that can benefit from stem cell research back a couple of years.

Kurzweil does have a decent track record of predictions for advancements in the last couple of decades (certainly better than people who didn't have any models for what advancements would occur), so I think his arguments can't reasonably be blanketly dismissed.

I think predictions on way far-off topics (like the "singularity") are more difficult and less useful, and his emphasis on them weakens his rhetorical position. But things like organ regeneration have already been around for a while. (It was front-page news last fall when a woman's trachea was re-grown for her, but over the last couple of years, scientists had already grown other organs like bladders from patients' own cells.)

When you combine organ regeneration/stem cells with things like the exponential rate of advancement of genomics and the general automation/industrialization of science**, it starts to look like there's a lot going on in medicine. The opinion that old age for baby boomers won't look the same as old age for previous generations seems to have broad support in the medical community.

*http://www.videosift.com/video/Robot-scientist-makes-discoveries-without-human-help
*http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-04/ff_brainatlas

Fetuses before 20weeks have no brain function, that is the science, they are not people by any reasonable definition.

"No brain function?" My goodness, that's a grossly inaccurate claim. First, my understanding is that 20 weeks is the earliest detected (thus far) activity in the cerebral cortex. That is not the earliest brain "function" detected. Far as i know, the brain stem cells are connecting and responding to stimuli by 8 weeks according to some studies. So, to me, 20 weeks is the very *latest* time frame i would consider reasonable to still permit "choice" as a rule. However, since there has been limited study in this area, especially of late, i believe it would be wiser to move the legislative controls to the 8 or 12 week time frame. Certainly your life prior to the pregnancy plus 2+ months of awareness of the pregnancy is enough time for most people to make such a decision. Obviously, there should be a variety of exceptions for rare, extreme cases, but my beef is that the general rule permits abortion later than it ought.

And please drop the nonsense about miscarriages (which usually happen by 12 weeks anyway) being "manslaughter". That is first class idiocy. Natural processes kill people every second and no one calls it "manslaughter". The very idea is both a laughable straw man and terribly insensitive.

Anyway, despite the limited recent study in the specific area of fetal brain activity, you are grossly exaggerating our ignorance by labeling birth the "least absurd of the arbitrary criteria" available to us. Birth was an absurd criteria even before we had ultrasounds, EEGs and the medical ability to keep a kid born months premature alive and healthy. Societies for *millenia* have called it murder when an unborn child is killed by an act of violence against a pregnant woman, because it is very obvious that the unborn baby is a person well before they are born. I'm guessing that you've never closely walked through a pregnancy with a woman before if you can say something ignorant like that. Go have a kid, watch them on an ultrasound at 8 and 20 weeks, feel them kick and respond to sounds (even recognize mom's voice) in the last trimester. Then come back and tell me again how you think "birth is the least absurd" choice for recognizing a baby's humanity.

It seems barbaric that we can do nothing to prevent baby girls from having to grow up without their hands and legs. Regenerative medicine (stem cells) will eventually remedy that.

"I dont know that i understand it all" that says it all brother. You obviously DONT understand, when the stem cells are not used for research they are thrown in the trash. Literally.

Your video, Michael J Fox on his parkinsons & stem cell research, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Of course it's being blown out of proportion. The establishment media Villagers don't like to be called-out on their collective bullshit.

I'm glad Obama said it. He could've said a lot more. He could've told the Moonie Times reporter that his question about stem cells during an economic clusterfuck, on the day that there is a massive banking plan rolled out, is grounds for expulsion from the press pool.

Next week Ron Paul debates Kirk Cameron on the topic of stem cell research.

I don't think he's increasing funding of anything, he's just allowing the current funding to be used on more stem cell lines. Same cost (as far as I know).

>> ^quantumushroom:
The president is presiding over economic failure. The president is watching it, doing nothing about it.


Well, if nothing else Obama is doing what he thinks is right. It may very well turn out that his policies will cause more harm than good, but he truly seems to believe that he is following the best option available.


As far as conservatives, people follow what they understand. Very few people understand the complexity of economics, but they do understand social issues. Fiscal conservatism will never prevail as long as it is tied to social conservatism. People won't follow "cut spending and taxes" if the same guys are preaching that "gays don't deserve rights" and "stem cell research is murder".

People might follow conservative fiscal policies when they are no longer tied to social issues based on the bible.

You know I've been thinking about the Establishment Clause for a while now, and I'm really starting to wonder if it means what we think it does.

We assume that it means that the Federal government can't form a national religion, but I'm thinking it's a lot more simple than that. The words "respecting an establishment of religion" could mean exactly that. I think it might have meant that the government should not endorse any actions or tenets of any religion, and that in doing so they are in violation of the constitution. Making federal funding of faith based programs, bans on stem cell research/human cloning, abstinence only sex ed, "in god we trust" & "one nation under god", the whole myriad of things that are only based on religious dogma unconstitutional.

And yeah, by my interpretation, having an invocation prior to the inauguration would only violate the first amendment if it was a requirement of the ceremony. Which to my knowledge it is not.

I've never minded the invocation before, the choice of Rick Warren though infuriated me. It was blatant pandering to evangelical Christianity, a group that after the last 8 years doesn't need any more encouragement from our Presidents. And sadly it made me think less of Obama for it.