Stem cell vote set for Congress this week

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Stem cells will be at the top of the agenda for the U.S. Senate when it returns on Tuesday with supporters of the research hoping they can change the president’s mind on the issue and opponents hoping to have a say about their stand.

The Senate will consider two bills, one virtually identical to a bill vetoed by President George W. Bush last year that would have expanded and encouraged federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

The other is a compromise measure worked out by Republicans Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Norm Coleman of Minnesota. It would encourage stem cell research on embryos that have naturally lost the ability to develop into fetuses, such as those that have died “naturally” during fertility treatments.

The compromise bill also would support the creation of a bank of stem cells taken from amniotic fluid and placentas — two recently discovered potential sources.

This bill replaces last year’s alternative sponsored by Kansas Republican Sam Brownback, which would ban human embryonic stem cell research and encourage research using other types of stem cells.

The House of Representatives passed a bill in January that would expand federal funding of stem cell research, which is now restricted by Bush to batches available as of August 2001. But the bill does not have enough supporters to override a second presidential veto.

Even when the Democrates are in power and some of this stuff has a chance to pass we still are doomed to fail thanks to Bush having the power to veto congress. I never liked that factor of our government, why one man should have the power to overrule the decision of a hundred.

But with every step we get closer, and maybe someday soon we will be able to  research and get the full benefit from the use of Stem Cells. Until then… we just have to hope that the next president will have a basic understanding of science that doesn’t come from the bible.

Source: Reuters

Ancient boy’s skeleton sparks evolution debate …

Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of Kenya’s national museum, locked away in a plain-looking cabinet, is one of mankind’s oldest relics: Turkana Boy, as he is known, the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found.

But his first public display later this year is at the heart of a growing storm — one pitting scientists against Kenya’s powerful and popular evangelical Christian movement. The debate over evolution vs. creationism — once largely confined to the United States — has arrived in a country known as the cradle of mankind.

Already this article comes off insulting because it implies that the United State’s second major export, after war, is ignorance. Although I can see that is some what grounded in fact, there are plenty of creationists who don’t live in the United States. But the next part is the best;

“I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it,” says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of Kenya’s 35 evangelical denominations, which he claims have 10 million followers. “These sorts of silly views are killing our faith.”

He’s calling on his flock to boycott the exhibition and has demanded the museum relegate the fossil collection to a back room — along with some kind of notice saying evolution is not a fact but merely one of a number of theories.

At least we now know that this kind of attack on science isn’t only limited to the US. But they are not frightened from any threats.

The museum, which attracts around 100,000 visitors a year, is taking no chances.

Turkana Boy will be displayed in a private room, with limited access and behind a glass screen with 24-hour closed-circuit TV. Security guards will be at the entrance.

“There are issues about the security,” said Dr. Emma Mbua, the head of paleontology at the museum. “These fossils are irreplaceable and we wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.”

Insurance coverage could run into millions of dollars, she added.

Mbua, a Protestant, is a little taken aback at the controversy but has no problems reconciling her own faith to the scientific evidence.

“Evolution is a fact,” adds Mbua, who has run the department for the last five years.

They aren’t going to back down to please any group, they aren’t going to pull any punches. These are scientists standing up for science. It’s what we need more in the United States, if we had a larger group of such men maybe we wouldn’t be falling behind in technology.

Source: CNN