Beware ManSheepMonkey!

Japanese scientists are growing monkey organs on sheep -- but they have a really good reason, I promise!

They’re trying to learn how to grow human organs on sheep for transplants, including hearts, livers, pancreases, and skin. Pretty cool, huh? Thousands and thousands of lives saved.

All thanks to the horror of stem cells.

(Too bad none of these stem cell breakthroughs ever happen in the US. Hopefully, that’s about to change.)

Boo, Obama!!

President Obama is wussing out stem cell research, allowing federal funding only for research involving embryos from fertility clinics rather than those created specifically for scientific research. This is the same plan favored by former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN).

Granted, it’s a hell of a lot better than President Bush’s policy to only allow research on existing lines of stem cells and no new ones whatsoever.

But there are important reasons why scientists want to clone embryos for stem cells for scientific research, which apparently Obama will not allow funding for. Among them, scientists want the stem cell DNA to exactly match patients to avoid rejection and other problems.

This is a big disappointment, Mr. President.

Horsefeathers

A stem-cell repair technique that has already been used to fix hundreds of injured race horses is to be tested for the first time in people with damaged Achilles tendons.

This one doesn't involve embryonic stem cells so no controversy here, just good news.

Give the Order, Mr. President

No Executive Order on stem cells yet, but this is encouraging.

Braaaaaaains!

For the first time, researchers have cultivated embryonic stem cells to form not just individual brain cells but actual brain tissue! In the long term, this could help repair the damage to stroke victims and Alzheimer’s patients. In the short term, it could help test drugs for their effect on human brain tissue in a laboratory environment rather than human testing.

The research, of course, did not take place in the United States. It was in Japan. And it was government-funded. Is it Jan. 20 yet?