Latest Political Events

Latest Political Events

No real research news today (unless you count the sudden surge of articles about using stem cells to treat damaged tendons in race horses, which I blogged briefly on back in November—looks promising, but needs more time to be sure). I’ve had my head buried much of the last two weeks in an academic paper for publication which I just sent off to the journal editor, so I’m feeling free and easy, more or less, though still a little fuzzy. Unfortunately there’s not much to talk about on the scientific front.

The news today mostly has to do with money. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, donated $100 million to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, and a large portion of it will be used for stem cell research, according to a story on Reuters.

In Florida, the Palm Beach Post reported that both proposed state amendments—one restricting embryonic stem cell research and one supporting it—have failed to get enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot.

The San Francisco Chronicle ran an opinion piece co-written by the director of UCSF’s Institute for Stem Cell and Tissue Biology and the vice-dean of the medical school. The column describes the research that is going on even without the money from Prop 71.

Overviews of on what’s going on state by state with embryonic stem cell research have appeared this week in a couple sources. The Christian Science Monitor printed an article Wednesday about different activities being taken by state legislatures and the patchwork quality that may emerge for researchers as a result of what’s legal in one state and not another. Yesterday the NBC affiliate for the San Francisco Bay Area, NBC11, published a story on its website that gives a state by state overview of what’s happening in several states.