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Official: Obama reverses stem cell policy

Obama has signed an Executive Order today reversing the ban on federal funding of stem cells. You may recall he promised to do this during his campaign, and made a point of it in his answers for Science Debate 2008.

Tastes Like Chicken

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has just offered a $1 million prize to anyone who develops a commercially viable "in vitro chicken-meat product." The catch is that the product can't contain or entail the use of "animal-derived products, except for starter cells obtained in the initial development stages."

The idea is simple: Instead of growing a chicken embryo into a bird and cutting meat from it, you skip the bird part and grow the meat directly from the embryo.

Exposed: the great GM crops myth

Major new study shows that modified soya produces 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent

The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Should The Government Set Up A "Do-Not-Track" List?

Now two privacy advocacy organizations are calling for the creation of a "do-not-track" list that would protect registered users from online data collection.

They argue that a list is needed because too many consumers won't or can't understand the methods behind online tracking.

CERN to Morons: Large Hadron Collider Won't Destroy Earth. Morons.

Contrary to the somewhat feverish claims laid out in an recent lawsuit, when our favorite particle-smashing, Force-finding Large Hadron Collider is switched on soon it will not result in the destruction of life as we know it.

Such claims are "complete nonsense" say the scientists at CERN (and everywhere else,) in response to the suit.

Double Your Lifespan with a Drug that Mutates Your Ribosomes

It's been known for a while that restricting your diet will increase your lifespan, but now researchers have shown one reason why: Eating less causes your ribosomes (your cells' protein factories) to mutate. And it's looking like mutated ribosomes (pictured here) could be one key to life extension.

Biologists at the University of Washington have managed to induce the life-extending mutation in ribosomes with a drug that doubles the lifespan of yeast cells.

California proposes $7 billion for prison healthcare

The Schwarzenegger administration says the plan is aimed at bringing care up to constitutional standards. The amount is nearly triple what had been previously proposed.

In a proposal that would nearly double the state's prison construction program, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration asked lawmakers Friday to approve $7 billion in new spending to bring medical and mental healthcare in California prisons up to constitutional standards.

Drugs In The Water No Big Deal, Says NYC Official

In regards to a headline grabbing AP investigation that found the drinking water of major cities contained trace amounts of an array of pharmacopoeia, the deputy commissioner of New York City's Department of Environmental Protection, "A person would have to drink one million glasses of water to get the dose of even one over-the-counter ibuprofen tablet or the caffeine in one cup of coffee...Even at eight glasses of water per day, this would take the average person over 300 years to consume."

Pre-Emption Doctrine Would Make FDA Responsible For All Drug Problems, Shield Big Pharma From Lawsuits

Johnson & Johnson is waiting to hear whether or not a judge in Ohio will allow any lawsuits over its Ortho birth control patch to move forward, and the New York Times says lawyers on both sides think there's a good chance he may find in the company's favor based on the doctrine of pre-emption. The argument goes that it's the FDA's responsibility to monitor the safety and labeling of drugs that go to market, and therefore if something goes wrong, it's the agency's fault and not the pharmaceutical company's. The Ortho patch releases high levels of estrogen and can cause problems for some patients, but J&J says it's the FDA's fault for not requiring a label sooner:

The F.D.A. did not warn the public of the potential risks until November 2005 — six years after the company's own study showed the high estrogen releases. At that point, the product's label was changed, and prescriptions fell 80 percent, to 187,000 by last February from 900,000 in March 2004. Gloria Vanderham, a Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman, said the company acted responsibly.

Olympic torch extinguished, then re-lit

The Olympic torch has been briefly extinguished by officials and put on a bus during the Paris leg of its relay amid anti-China protests, The Associated Press has reported. The incident came one day after anti-Chinese demonstrators attempts to grab the Olympic torch were foiled as it made its journey through London, making it seem more like running the gauntlet than a journey of celebration.

Thousands of French police are on duty to protect the Olympic torch after it departed from the Eiffel Tower at around 1030 GMT (0630 ET). It is then due to be carried through the boulevards of the French capital amid threats of protests.

Gator Blood May Be New Source of Antibiotics

Call it a case of gator aid. New research suggests that alligator blood could serve as the basis for new antibiotics targeting infections caused by ulcers, burns and even drug-resistant "superbugs."

The research is in its early stages -- extracts of alligator blood have only been tested in the laboratory -- and there's no guarantee that it will work in humans. Still, the findings are promising, researchers said.

Roll of dice linked to roll in hay

A new brain-scan study may help explain what's going on in the minds of financial titans when they take risky monetary gambles: sex.

When young men were shown erotic pictures, they were more likely to make a larger financial gamble than if they were shown a picture of something scary, such as a snake, or something neutral, such as a stapler, university researchers reported

Food price inflation changes how we shop

Steadily rising food costs aren't just causing grocery shoppers to do a double-take at the checkout line - they're also changing the very ways we feed our families.

Darque Tan Prevents You From Dying Of Vitamin-D Deficiency

According to an article in The Daily Texan, law student Emily Prewett, has filed a complaint with the Texas Attorney General against the company Darque Tan because of their misleading and irresponsible ads. One of their television commercial begins with a man in white lab coat saying, "Science has discovered that UVB from tanning converts cholesterol into Vitamin D." Then the narrator says, "Mmm yeah. Vitamin D-licious. Come get yours with a free week of level 1 tanning." The TV ad and more details, inside...

In another advertisement a man in a lab coat says, "Getting the Vitamin D you need has never been easier. To get you 4000 IU, it takes 20 cans of sardines - Mmm good - or 40 glasses of milk, if you tolerate lactose. Better yet, get a full 4000 IU of Vitamin D in just five minutes in a tanning bed at Darque Tan."

Scientists Create First Memristor: Missing Fourth Electronic Circuit Element

Researchers at HP Labs have built the first working prototypes of an important new electronic component that may lead to instant-on PCs as well as analog computers that process information the way the human brain does.

The new component is called a memristor, or memory resistor. Up until today, the circuit element had only been described in a series of mathematical equations written by Leon Chua, who in 1971 was an engineering student studying non-linear circuits. Chua knew the circuit element should exist -- he even accurately outlined its properties and how it would work. Unfortunately, neither he nor the rest of the engineering community could come up with a physical manifestation that matched his mathematical expression.

Attorney General Signals Shift In Marijuana Policy

Attorney General Eric Holder signaled a change in medical marijuana policy Wednesday, saying federal agents will target marijuana distributors only when they violate both federal and state law.

That would be a departure from the Bush administration, which targeted medical marijuana dispensaries in California even if they complied with that state's law.

Resurrecting the Planet's Extinct Species -Can It Be Done?

Scientists at the Universities of Melbourne and Texas have successfully resurrected a gene from the extinct Tasmanian Tiger.

Col2a1 is only involved in the production of chondrocytes, the cells which produce and maintain cartilage in various joints around the body.

The Silent Minority

There is a minority group in America that is a bigger percentage of the country than blacks or Hispanics.

A new comprehensive study by The Program on Public Values at Trinity College shows that this group is now a whopping 15% of the country. Mormons by comparison are a puny 1.4% of the population, and people can't shut up about the Mormons.

Thumbs up for 3D bone printer

EXACT replicas of a man's thumb bones have been made for the first time using a 3D printer. The breakthrough paves the way for surgeons to replace damaged or diseased bones with identical copies built from the patients' own cells.

Weinand "grew" his replacement bones on the backs of laboratory mice, in the same way that Jay Vacanti of Massachusetts General Hospital famously grew a human ear from human cartilage cells back in 1997.

Islamic Scholar Suggests Using Ethanol-Powered Vehicles May Be a Sin

The opinion comes from Sheikh Mohamed al-Najimi, of the Islamic Jurisprudence Academy in Saudi Arabia.