“Terminator Smurfs…” —Glenn Reynolds

Instapundit shoots and scores, and I hope that’s how James Cameron’s half-zillion-dollar Avatar will come to be remembered.

The world doesn’t need yet another morality tale of amoral corporate greed, moral and noble savages, and the morality of ecological moral purity.

[Well actually, some of the world believes it does, and they're gathered in Copenhagen presently...]

King Kong was king because it was a morality tale of man’s inhumanity to man, even if it was to a near-human beast. Its theme was similar, but there were no villains—only men doing what men do out of folly or thoughtlessness, and the unfortunate consequences ensue.

That’s tragedy; and poor Kong, regardless of his animal purity, had to be brought down off the Empire State Building, if only to save the exquisite Fay Wray. You just can’t have gorillas stealing your women and taking over your biggest building. You just can’t, even if it’s ultimately your fault and not his.

Sorry, Kong. But that’s tragedy.

Today, cardboard corporate villains have become the modern Hollywood substitute for the guy twirling his mustache.

Snidely Whiplash, c. 1960

That’s melodrama. Kong was not melodrama; Avatar clearly is, and there you have it.

As for computer-generated ick [CGI], frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. The Na’vi are not people, they are Smurfs. As Reynolds puts it, they’re action figures put into computer motion, as “unrealistic as a kid’s diorama.”

No, I won’t be seeing Avatar, at least until it comes on cable, if ever. I got Al Gore and President Obama and Prince Charles and the whole Copenhagen crowd in my face back here in the real world, saying all the same stuff.

Now, the Avatar the video game looks interesting—you can choose to play an “invading human” and plunk Na’vi to your heart’s content.

If only Al Gore were among the targets. Cameron says it’s boring to shoot zombies, but Copenhagen is a gathering of them like flies on offal, and I’d so much more enjoy a virtual zombie-shoot there than on Cameron’s Planet Pandora. Or Shooting Smurfs.

Now that sounds like fun, unlike Avatar. I might even give my mustache a twirl. Hahaha…

Best to all,
TVD

The propensity of embryonic stem cells to produce cancerous tumors after implantation is often swept under the rug. New research discussed at Science Daily suggests there are benefits to potential therapies derived from adult stem cells (the excerpt below did not use “adult” and “embryonic” labels for whatever reason so I added them):

Results showed that immature (undifferentiated) [embryonic] stem cells are more likely to form tumors than mature ones [i.e. adult stem cells]. The transplantation of “safe” [adult] cells into mice with spinal cord injuries resulted in the formation of new neurons, while “unsafe” [embryonic] cells sped recovery for a short period but ultimately formed tumors.

Proponents of embryonic stem cells tout the totipotency of ESCs as the decisive factor that renders ESCs of superior therapeutic value. Perhaps the mere pluripotency of ASCs will in fact allow be what ultimately allows workable therapies to be developed from stem cells.

(Originally posted at Underdog Soldier)

Peter Lawler has written a must-read account at The Weekly Standard of The Chosen One’s termination of the Bioethics Council.  Bush’s creation of the Council was the greatest indication of the President’s real thinking on science and the public good.  Far from ‘politicizing science,’ Bush brought together a group of broadly trained, highly intelligent people to debate the implications of various policy proposals under the leadership of Leon Kass of the University of Chicago.

For Obama, a valuable Council does nothing but offer advice to the administration. The Bush Council was actually given the additional mandate of public education, of developing a national dialogue on controversial bioethical issues. It’s with that Socratic second mandate in mind that President Bush chose for his first chairman a man trained in medicine, natural science, and the wisdom about being human embodied in the Great Books from Plato through Shakespeare to Genesis–Leon Kass. For Obama, it would appear, there’s no need for such moral and political discussion or such “humanistic” guidance because the experts know the nonideological and objective answer to the key questions that face us in our high-tech and increasingly biotech world. Personal opinion is trumped by what the “studies show,” and public opinion should be guided toward a consensus based on those studies.

(more…)

Even more evidence of the inverse relationship between the number of successful trials implementing adult stem cells and the attention the trials receive.

In Australia, stem cells were taken from patients’ eyes, cultured and coated onto contact lenses. The lenses were then put on the eyes of patients who had corneal damage. The result? Improved vision from a relatively cheap and noninvasive procedure that did not require the destruction of human life!

Two of the patients had damage in only one eye so corneal stem cells were taken from their good  eye and placed on their eye with the corneal damage.

Most interestingly, a third patient had corneal damage in both eyes so stem cells were taken from his or her conjunctiva. These cells with the conjunctiva phenotype (the physical makeup of the cell) successfully switched to the cornea phenotype and dutifully repaired the corneal tissue. Precisely what adult stem cells are purportedly unable to do.

I have seen a good number of positive ASCR results from bone marrow, skin cells and umbilical cord blood. It will be interesting to see what else comes of conjunctiva/cornea stem cells.

See also Adult bone marrow stem cells repairs damaged heart tissue

Here is the article, with the following caveat:

They must use cells culled from fertility clinic embryos that otherwise would be thrown away.

Is that supposed to make me feel better?

Yet another study showing more positive results from adult stem cell research.

Note that the headline reads: “Stem cell treatment effective in heart patients” (emphasis mine). What kind of stem cells? Adult stem cells – but you have to read the article to get that.

Here is a tip: whenever a headline talks about positive results of “stem cell research” – understand that it means “adult stem cells research”. Rarely do I read a headline that actually identifies adult stem cells as adult stem cells.

It seems that this is due to an effort to blur the distinction between ASCs and ESCs. It is done by the pro-ESCR crowd that the results of both ASCR and ESCR might be lumped together and the positive results of ASCR shared equally between the two camps. See The Little Red Hen.

The desired effect is to leave the reader thinking, “That stem cell research great stuff! Aren’t we glad our Obama lifted restrictions on stem cell research?” This impression is left despite that fact that the stem cells were from adults and Hopeful Leader’s lifitng of the ESCR did not contribute to this but actually discouraged such research.

…about stem cell research

Recently, I have noticed a jump in the number of news articles about the latest results of stem cell research projects. The remarkable thing is, the majority (at least that I have seen) involve the use of adult stem cells rather than those derived from embryos (e.g. this one). Nonetheless, embryonic stem cell research still dominates the MSM.

It seems that from a scientific standpoint, the only substantial justification for pushing forward with embryonic stem cells is the fact that they are totipotent whereas adult stem cells are pluripotent. Totipotent cells could become any type of cell if the embryo developed normally and pluripotent cells can become almost any type of cell but they have undergone some irreversible differentiation. Ultimately, however, this could be what makes adult stem cells more effective for developing treatments. Embryonic embryonic stem cells have led to tragic results in some trials (beyond the tragedy of each destroyed embryo) because of their capacity to literally become any type of cell.

The news about advancements made with adult stem cells is encouraging to say the least.

I am most grateful that Feddie has graciously allowed me contribute to SA!

A little bit of background – I have lived in the Great State of Mississippi for my entire life  except for a  brief foray up north for college. Once I got my hands on a biology degree I headed back to Mississippi with my wife where I am now a first year law student at Ole Miss.

In college, I developed an interest in bioethics. My contributions to SA will mostly revolve around these issues, including but not limited to: abortion, stem cell research, cloning, genetic engineering, health care, and pre-implantation genetics.

More to the point -  I am a gun owning, church going, SA reading, pro-life Conservative with a libertarian streak and I am fired up about joining the folks here at SA.