Adult stem cells may be more plentiful than we thought.

With the plethora of research and published studies on stem cells over the last decade, many would say that the definition of stem cells is well established and commonly agreed upon. However, a new review article appearing in the July 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal , suggests that scientists have only scratched the surface of understanding the nature, physiology and location of these cells. Specifically, the report suggests that embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells may not be the only source from which all three germ layers in the human body (nerves, liver or heart and blood vessels) can develop. The review article suggests that adult pluripotent stem cells are located throughout the body and are able to become every tissue, provided these cells receive the right instructions.

No need for the ethical minefield that are embryonic stem cells.

Your blood.

Scientists at A*STAR’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) have developed a method to generate human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) from a single drop of finger-pricked blood ("Human Finger-Prick Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Facilitate the Development of Stem Cell Banking"). The method also enables donors to collect their own blood samples, which they can then send to a laboratory for further processing. The easy access to blood samples using the new technique could potentially boost the recruitment of greater numbers and diversities of donors, and could lead to the establishment of large-scale hiPSC banks.

Imagine a stem-cell bank much like a blood bank. There is truly no need at all to destroy embryos for stem cells. Using blood and skin, the supply is endless.

Professor James M. Tour is a highly-credentialed chemist, and a Christian. Check this link for the list, and for his contention that there is no scientist alive today who understands macro-evolution. Tour, of course, comes at this from a chemical point of view, and has no idea how something like that can happen at the molecular level. He’s asked over and over for someone to explain it to him, but so far no takers.

In an article about an insider’s view of the National Academy, he explains the situation behind the curtain.

Let me tell you what goes on in the back rooms of science – with National Academy members, with Nobel Prize winners. I have sat with them, and when I get them alone, not in public – because it’s a scary thing, if you say what I just said – I say, “Do you understand all of this, where all of this came from, and how this happens?” Every time that I have sat with people who are synthetic chemists, who understand this, they go “Uh-uh. Nope.” These people are just so far off, on how to believe this stuff came together. I’ve sat with National Academy members, with Nobel Prize winners. Sometimes I will say, “Do you understand this?”And if they’re afraid to say “Yes,” they say nothing. They just stare at me, because they can’t sincerely do it.

I was once brought in by the Dean of the Department, many years ago, and he was a chemist. He was kind of concerned about some things. I said, “Let me ask you something. You’re a chemist. Do you understand this? How do you get DNA without a cell membrane? And how do you get a cell membrane without a DNA? And how does all this come together from this piece of jelly?” We have no idea, we have no idea. I said, “Isn’t it interesting that you, the Dean of science, and I, the chemistry professor, can talk about this quietly in your office, but we can’t go out there and talk about this?”

If you understand evolution, I am fine with that. I’m not going to try to change you – not at all. In fact, I wish I had the understanding that you have.

But about seven or eight years ago I posted on my Web site that I don’t understand. And I said, “I will buy lunch for anyone that will sit with me and explain to me evolution, and I won’t argue with you until I don’t understand something – I will ask you to clarify. But you can’t wave by and say, “This enzyme does that.” You’ve got to get down in the details of where molecules are built, for me. Nobody has come forward.

The Atheist Society contacted me. They said that they will buy the lunch, and they challenged the Atheist Society, “Go down to Houston and have lunch with this guy, and talk to him.” Nobody has come! Now remember, because I’m just going to ask, when I stop understanding what you’re talking about, I will ask. So I sincerely want to know. I would like to believe it. But I just can’t.

Now, I understand microevolution, I really do. We do this all the time in the lab. I understand this. But when you have speciation changes, when you have organs changing, when you have to have concerted lines of evolution, all happening in the same place and time – not just one line –concerted lines, all at the same place, all in the same environment … this is very hard to fathom.

He does not claim the Intelligent Design label because:

I do not know how to use science to prove intelligent design although some others might. I am sympathetic to the arguments on the matter and I find some of them intriguing, but the scientific proof is not there, in my opinion.

He is searching for the scientific proofs, but for macro-evolution, they just aren’t there, and no one in academia can provide them.

Tickets sold out immediately for the Answers in Genesis Museum’s night of debate between Bill Nye "The Science Guy" and Ken Ham, proprietor of Answers in Genesis. The topic is “Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?”

Since tickets sold out so fast, the debate will be live-streamed on the Internet at http://debatelive.org/ . The debate will be on Tuesday, February 4th, at 7pm. Should be interesting.

Back when Christopher Reeves was still alive and getting the word out on stem cell research, the big push was for embryonic stem cells to be used in that research. All those in-vitro fertilized eggs that didn’t get used were just waiting to be harvested and experimented on. There was just one thing. Pro-lifers, like me, considered them human embryos, simply an earlier form of a regular human life, and therefore considered destroying them for experimentation it on par with abortion, with the added baggage that we’d be, well, experimenting on them. Adult stem cells, even back then, had been proving their worth in many, many situations, didn’t have a tendency to become cancerous when used, and if properly fed and cared for, would never be anything other than adult stem cells. That is, they would never become a human being. The ethical baggage simply wasn’t there, especially for those who thought science ought to be, indeed, ethical.

When President George W. Bush decided to limit the number of existing embryonic stem cell lines that could be used to experimentation, he did two things. First, he put a stake in the ground of scientific ethics; this far and no farther. Second, he lit a fire under the line of research that was trying to find a way to make adult stem cells, which cannot differentiate themselves in quite as many other kinds of cells as embryonic, just as flexible and changeable as their embryonic counterparts.

Research has been advancing quickly, and results have been getting better and better, until last month, this bit of good news came out.

Researchers have for the first time converted cultured skin cells into stem cells with near-perfect efficiency.

By removing a single protein, called Mbd3, a team at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, was able to increase the conversion rate to almost 100% — ten times that normally achieved. The discovery could clear the way for scientists to produce large volumes of stem cells on demand, hastening the development of new treatments.

Almost 100%. From skin cells. Had we taken the easy way out, and not the harder, ethical one, A) the Left would not have branded the Right as “anti-science” over this. (Well, at least, not as much as they normally would.) And B) this research would not have continued at such a pace, allowing us now to produce stem cells at a rate we probably could not have done before.

Anti-science, indeed. More like pro-ethical-science, especially when you can have your ethics, and stem cells, too.

(This is one of the segments of the most recent episode of my podcast, "Consider This!")

On May 16^th, Oregon Health and Science University scientists explained how they had managed to take skin cells, and inject them into a human egg that had its genetic material stripped out. Sounds something like cloning, but the researchers say that the procedure wouldn’t likely be able to make a clone. Still, the stem cells created are pretty much embryonic stem cells, and the organs that would be produced from them would not be rejected by the body from which the skin cells came.

It was George W. Bush who had enough faith that science would find an alternative, and thus who decided to curtail the destruction of embryos as a compromise to banning embryonic stem cell research altogether. You have to wonder, too, if this sort of research into finding alternatives wouldn’t have been nearly as urgently pushed if the floodgates had been opened on the supply of frozen embryos back then.

This proves 2 things. One, that George W. Bush was most definitely not anti-science. In fact, he believed scientists could research their way out of an ethical dilemma, while those who push for using existing frozen embryos, then and now, are putting expediency over ethics. And two, that market forces work, even in the scientific community.

The latest breakthrough in stem cell research turns skin cells into stem cells just as useful as embryonic stem cells, without the ethical issues. Adult stem cells and induced stem cells, while still able to become many other types of cells, still had some limitations. Researchers are saying, however, that stem cells using this new method, are just like embryonic.

We are getting to the point that using actual embryos is going to be completely unnecessary. It’ll be almost medieval to suggest using them, when skin (which is the largest organ in your body; did you know that?) are able to produce what’s required. I wonder how much the advance of methods to create embryonic-like stem cells was pushed forward by George W. Bush’s restriction of embryonic stem cell lines that could be used. Bush, then, was not anti-science, but pro-ethical-science.

US researchers have reported a breakthrough in stem cell research, describing how they have turned human skin cells into embryonic stem cells for the first time.

The method described Wednesday by Oregon Health and Science University scientists in the journal Cell, would not likely be able to create human clones, said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, senior scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center.

But it is an important step in research because it does not require the use of embryos in creating the type of stem cell capable of transforming into any other type of cell in the body.

The technique involves transplanting an individual’s DNA into an egg cell that has been stripped of genetic material, a variation of a method called somatic cell nuclear transfer.

"A thorough examination of the stem cells derived through this technique demonstrated their ability to convert just like normal embryonic stem cells, into several different cell types, including nerve cells, liver cells and heart cells," said Mitalipov.

If it is, it may not be in the way  you’ve been told.

Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

Is this some sort of sea change? Again, not necessarily.

Another interesting aspect of this new survey is that it reports on the beliefs of scientists themselves rather than bureaucrats who often publish alarmist statements without polling their member scientists. We now have meteorologists, geoscientists and engineers all reporting that they are skeptics of an asserted global warming crisis, yet the bureaucrats of these organizations frequently suck up to the media and suck up to government grant providers by trying to tell us the opposite of what their scientist members actually believe.

An inconvenient truth, to be sure.

Be wary of those who rag on that the Republican Party is primarily made up of old, rich, racist white men. Be wary because when faced with the prospect of a young Hispanic Republican, as in Marco Rubio, the media seems to think that a question of priority for said Republican is to ask him how old he thinks the Earth is. Let’s disregard how other issues were skipped over in lieu of that high priority age of the Earth question. Issues such as: immigration, the economy, healthcare, gun running into Mexico, a U.S. Ambassador being killed in a coordinated attack at a U.S. Embassy and, maybe, the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, you know – low priority issues like that. Oh, and let’s also disregard the fact that Rubio probably-most-likely-maybe thinks that the laws of aerodynamics work consistently enough so that he believes that when he boards a jetliner it will actually fly through the air (as designed); or that he thinks that the laws of chemistry work consistently enough so that when he takes medication it will interact with his body the way it is supposed to; or that he thinks most of that – you know – “science stuff” really works.

Yes, since they can’t accuse him of being an old, rich, racist white man, they simply disregard all of the real issues and paint him out to be some sort of buffoon by asking him how old the Earth is because, when all is said and done, they’re not interested in tolerating a Hispanic Republican.

Be wary.

Recently there’s been a bit about Ada Lovelace and setting aside a day for noting “important women” in science. Why Ada and not another woman? Some ask, if not Ada, who? I say, not Ada. The only rational choice is Emmy Noether. There was nobody like her. Ever. This started as a comment (at my personal blog) on today’s link thread were this was noted. But it grew into post size, so I’ve promoted it.

The point I’m trying to make if had the name the top 5 most influential people in 20th century physics (ignoring their sex), Emmy Noether would be a top candidate for that list … or possibly even the top 3. The Ada Lovelace thing is for “famous women scientists”. Other names are suggested but … none of which have that stature.  The big question is why don’t people recognize her? Have you heard of Emmy Noether? If not, one might ask is the reason why not due to sexism or anti-semitism (she was a Jew)? Is that a factor? Einstein was a Jew … and it didn’t diminish him .. but it’s a possibility I raise, especially noting in the 30s and 40s anti-Semitism was far more common than it is now.

One other possibility was that it was territorial, i.e., Noether wasn’t a physicist. One might think that it’s embarrassing (for physicists) that one of the biggest theoretical discoveries in your field to be made by some one who just stopped in looked at the maths in your playground for a bit and said, you know “I had this little idea, so I wrote it up.” And subsequently this little paper becomes the cornerstone of your whole science for the next century and counting. In part this is why I find the “Ada Lovelace” kind of thing questionable, there isn’t any question of who the most important women thinker/scientist of the last N years has been, where N is a number larger than 100 (1000? or 10000?). There’s only one candidate, and the other question might be was there anyone male or female who was more influential … perhaps there’s a short short list.  There is not a single other woman who has dominated two separate fields of study and wrenched them both around in such a fundamental way. What men might you make the same claim for, what male scientist revolutionized two separate scientific fields? If you think there is a better candidate, put that name out there .. link or comment .. your choice.

So, was it scientific jealousy? Anti-Semitism? Or sexism? Or something else?

My commenter (this started as a comment response), noted he watches Discover/Cosmos type shows. So, in the nature of a quick “Cosmos” style precis, where does Ms Noether’s work fit in the grand scheme of things? (that explanation goes below the cut) Read the rest of this entry

No, the Bush tax cuts didn’t cause the recession. Yes, Obama’s "recovery" has been the worst in history. These and other economic realities can be summed up in this graph. (Click for a larger version.)

A sex scandal involving adults and children under their charge. No, not the Catholic church of the 60s; the public schools of today.

While he did get the number wrong, Romney was right in that those who pay the least in income taxes are the least likely to vote for him.

The number of scientific papers that had to be retracted last year was a 10x increase over the rate during the previous decade. And a study of those retractions finds that 3/4ths of those retractions were due to misconduct rather than honest mistakes.

Good news in the stem cell debate. "Two stem-cell researchers have won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their groundbreaking work in cellular reprogramming, a technique that unleashed a wave of advances in biology, from cloning to the possible treatment of diseases using a patient’s own cells." That is, there is less of a reason to use embryonic stem cells, when adult ones will do just as well.

Hedging their bets? "A survey by the Pew Research Center discovered that 2.4 percent of Americans say they are atheists and 3.3 percent say they are agnostic. Among the atheists and agnostics, however, 6 percent said they pray daily."

Need more money for your school district, by proving how many students attend? Make them wear microchips. Privacy takes a back seat to cash.

And finally, some apt scripture for the VP debate last night. (Click for a larger version.)

In  my most recent episode of the "Consider This!" podcast, I discussed how polygamy is beginning to get mainstreamed, with major newspapers asking the question; why is 2 some magic number for marriage? Why not "three, four, or 17"?

The website Gawker is now giving press (and rather disturbing press, frankly; the beginning of the article is not for the squeamish) to guys like Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem (pronounced HI-sheh-hem), who is retired from the University of Montreal, and who testified before the Canadian Parliament’s "Committee on Justice and Human Rights." In part, he said:

[I]t is a fact that real pedophiles account for only 20 percent of sexual abusers. If we know that pedophiles are not simply people who commit a small offence from time to time but rather are grappling with what is equivalent to a sexual orientation just like another individual may be grappling with heterosexuality or even homosexuality, and if we agree on the fact that true pedophiles have an exclusive preference for children, which is the same as having a sexual orientation, everyone knows that there is no such thing as real therapy. You cannot change this person’s sexual orientation.

And if they’re "born this way" (to steal from a Lady Gaga song title), who are we to judge? I’m not saying that some of the things done to pedophiles is justified (the harassment they receive), because we are to love the thief, the murderer and the pedophile as Christ would love them. I completely denounce harassment, but words mean things, and this is a big step in the cultural normalization process.

At the moment, there is still some sanity on the subject. One group in Germany attempting to counsel pedophiles uses the phrase, "You are not guilty because of your sexual desire, but you are responsible for your sexual behavior. There is help." This is true of all of us. We all have our weak points of temptation, but it’s how we act (and, as Jesus pointed out, how we fantasize) that is the problem.

However, consider how homosexuality was viewed just a generation ago and how it’s been so normalized that some states allow same-sex marriage. The biggest argument that the homosexual crowd put forth was that this was something in their genes, and therefore was nothing more than being left-handed or blue-eyed. If we consider pedophilia just another sexual orientation, then, while the act may still be frowned upon for the moment, the foundation has already been laid to normalize pedophilia.

Now, I know slippery slope arguments can be…well, slippery. They involve a bit of prediction. If A happens, B will happen next. It’s easy to dismiss these sorts of arguments are mere guesses. However, when initial predictions become true, and when you have so much history to look at and see that it has been indeed happening, it’s time to take the arguments more seriously. I am very supportive of efforts to counsel pedophiles before they act on their thoughts. However, the change in terminology can and does change the culture and the views. Whether or not Dr. Van Gijseghem means it to, this change can easily be taken up by others to slip us further down the slope to … well, who knows where.

Remember how Junk-DNA was supposed to be a blatant indication of the process of methodological naturalism? Remember how all that noncoding fluff in the genome was considered the result of the trial and error nature of the evolutionary process?

Yet, it seems that the junk is not so junky after-all.

In the following video by Dr. Fuz Rana, from Reasons to Believe, he tells us of the importance of the Encode DNA Project, and its findings. In the video he states that the Encode DNA team have determined that about 80% of the human genome consist of functional DNA seqences.

I recall a discussion I had years ago with a friend, who accepts the naturalistic evolutionary mindset, and his response to the apparent fact that so much of the genome was noncoding (i.e., “junk”) was, “And that makes sense from an evolutionary point of view.”

What really makes sense, when one sees the vast integrated complexity of the genome, is that one is looking at the work of a designer. A mindless process? Or the process of a mind?

Your neighbor across the aisle does not. Here is some unsolicited advice for the left wing on this topic. If you really think this is a problem, and you want everyone, not just your side of the aisle to push for it futilely … Here’s a newsflash for y’all. You’re selling it wrong.

Look at us over here on the right. We think the space program was cool. We love going to flight museums and wistfully wishing we (as a nation) were still flying SR-71s (RS-71 dammit, stupid Presidents). We gawk at daisy cutters and talk about yields and payloads. While we might take up on those government goodies that are “free” it sticks in our craw and we wish that ‘ol time Yankee rugged individualism wasn’t dying out, killed by bureaucratic mind-numbing cookie cutter schools among other things. Read these two books, here and here. That’s good reading. So, do you like Bob? We do.

In a past era, a Democratic President challenged his nation to go to the moon, not because it was easy but because it was hard. You want a nation to get behind you with a climate crises. Challenge them that way. Tell ’em to go out and fix it, not by sucking back our economy and going all green-ified on us, scrimping out toilet paper curbing consumption of interesting toys and things to do.

No. Fix it the old fashioned way, with a hammer, tongs, and big bad-ass technology. Challenge us that way, and you might get a rise out of us.

Of course it might alienate you’re side of the aisle, but you can’t break an omelette without making eggs, or something like that.

(with tongue firmly in cheek … and attempting to ignore the silly season somewhat)

The ability to make what are called "induced-pluripotent stem cells" (iPS) has been done before. What’s new now is that making them is becoming easier.

Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a reliable method to turn the clock back on blood cells, restoring them to a primitive stem cell state from which they can then develop into any other type of cell in the body.

The work, described in the Aug. 8 issue of the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS), is "Chapter Two" in an ongoing effort to efficiently and consistently convert adult blood cells into stem cells that are highly qualified for clinical and research use in place of human embryonic stem cells, says Elias Zambidis, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of oncology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering and the Kimmel Cancer Center.

"Taking a cell from an adult and converting it all the way back to the way it was when that person was a 6-day-old embryo creates a completely new biology toward our understanding of how cells age and what happens when things go wrong, as in cancer development," Zambidis says.

"Chapter One," Zambidis says, was work described last spring in PLoS One in which Zambidis and colleagues recounted the use of this successful method of safely transforming adult blood cells into heart cells. In the latest experiments, he and his colleagues now describe methods for coaxing adult blood cells to become so-called induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPS) — adult cells reprogrammed to an embryonic like state, and with unprecedented efficiencies.

Zambidis says his team has managed to develop a "super efficient, virus-free" way to make iPS cells, overcoming a persistent difficulty for scientists working with these cells in the laboratory. Generally, out of hundreds of blood cells, only one or two might turn into iPS cells. Using Zambidis’ method, 50 to 60 percent of blood cells were engineered into iPS cells.

Click here for other stem cell stories that we’ve covered. The idea that embryonic stem cells are a must-have for research is a myth.