To read the tribute to SFC Marcus Muralles, please click here
Friday, August 19, 2005
Short Trip Around The News
Here are a few things that caught my eye:
- Researchers discover a new kind of stem cell (cord-blood-derived-embryonic-like stem cells (CBEs)) that have characteristics of both embryonic and adult stem cells.
American and British researchers say that they have found, in umbilical cord blood, a new type of cell -- neither embryonic nor "adult" -- which is more versatile than the latter while avoiding the ethical dilemmas surrounding the former.
If preliminary research proves conclusive, then that would take away the pressure to use embryonic stem cells, right? Or do the advocates for using ESCs care more about using them than curing disease?
And in a further development, the scientists have found a way to mass-produce the new cells, sidestepping the problem of limited supply of embryonic cells. - Austin has become the first city to require (some) pharmacies to fill birth control prescriptions.
The measure, approved unanimously by the Austin City Council, requires Walgreens, the city's pharmaceutical contractor, to fill prescriptions for patients on Austin's medical assistance program "in-store, without discrimination or delay," even if an individual pharmacist declines to fill a prescription based on personal beliefs.
You know, I'm not sure how I feel about this. The pharmacist should have the right to hand off the prescription to someone else if it violates their personal beliefs. On the other hand, the person getting the prescription filled should be allowed to get it without delay or lecture (which I've heard stories about). My problem is with the city council making this decree without there having been any complaints. It's just another case of the Austin City Council acting all enlightened and better than everyone else. It gets old after a while. - Scientists are "creating" new life in the lab. So a new breed of biologists is attempting to bring order to the hit-and-miss chaos of genetic engineering by bringing to biotechnology the same engineering strategies used to build computers, bridges and buildings.
The idea is to separate cells into their fundamental components and then rebuild new organisms, a much more complex way of genetic engineering.... But with success also comes ethical questions.
For example, national security experts and even synthetic biologists themselves fret that rogue scientists or "biohackers" could create new biological weapons - like deadly viruses that lack natural foes. They also worry about innocent mistakes - organisms that could potentially create havoc if allowed to reproduce outside the lab. uh... morality aside (IMO, God creates life... man tinkers with it), this just sounds like a Richard Preston novel waiting to happen. - In what is sure to be considered a sign of the Apocalypse, the 9th Circus Tent of Appeals actually ruled to limit coverage of abortions by Armed Forces medical benefits.
In Thursday's 3-0 ruling, judges said they were not judging the "wisdom, fairness or logic" of congressional legislation that limited abortions under military medical plans.
I guess they need to get it right once in a while, right?
Lawmakers served a legitimate governmental purpose by denying such benefits because of "an interest in potential life," Judge Richard C. Tallman wrote for the San Francisco-based court. - Viruses and worms, oh, my!
Courtney Wilkins, a microbiology and immunology student at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, successfully infected the Caenorhabditis elegans earthworm with the mammalian vesicular stomatitis virus and had it replicate....She said that, with the research, there is now the opportunity to understand how viruses move from one host to another, and what proteins they attach to in humans, she said. Chow said it will also help scientists understand how this virus deals with different kinds of immune systems in insects and mammals.
I'm sorry... I know that this may end up being important medical research... and a very interesting story for science buffs... but... the International Worm Meeting? That's just... funny...
Since her discovery, Wilkins' has taken her research to the American Society of Virology conference at Penn State University in State College, Pa., and also to the International Worm Meeting at UCLA. - From the "ACLU is insane" file...
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union are appealing the conviction of an Easton woman who was accused of endangering a child by using cocaine while she was pregnant.
I'm usually against writing new law, so... how about re-writing the law that says who a person is? This woman (and I use the term only in the technical sense) did something that, in turn, caused damage to the mass of tissue that later somehow became a baby (I'm not going to call him her "son" because that would imply that she should be referred to as his "mother"). Her actions will cause this child a lifetime of problems. But, noooooo! She shouldn't be held accountable for her actions, because she didn't do anything to another person. Go ahead. You tell that boy in a few years that he's not a person... see what he says.
Defense attorneys had sought an acquittal, arguing there was never a risk of harm to another person -- because a fetus doesn't meet the definition of a person under state law. But a Talbot County judge ruled that the person who suffered the risk was the baby after it was born.
ACLU attorneys said prosecuting women for their actions during pregnancy is unprecedented elsewhere in Maryland and claim it is an attempt to create a new crime by charging pregnant women for harming their fetuses. - I'm close to speechless on this one...
The ever-inventive American funeral industry has come up with a new way to commemorate the deceased with the patenting of a video headstone.... The weatherproof, solar-powered video "serenity panel" fits into a pre-cut etching on a tombstone, columbarium or mausoleum.
The "ultimate funeral experience"? I'm sorry, but this seems more than just a little... creepy. Keeping a loved one's memory alive is one thing... this is a bit much.
"What we're trying to do is create the ultimate funeral experience," said Joe Joachim, whose Miami company is marketing the Vidstone.
