Wonderful News! A Potential Cure For Diabetes!

A news release from Novocell today
Reports a major step to find a cure
For diabetes. They have found a way,
From embryonic stem cells, to make pure
And uncontaminated strains, in mice,
Of insulin-producing pancreas cells.
For human diabetics, this is nice
Of course, because this news potentially spells
The end to constant testing and injections,
Daily hassles, both the large and small,
Relief from greater risks of bad infections,
And generally a better life for all.
It’s time to end the ethical debate;
There’s too much cost in making people wait.

That’s right–The news outlets are all reporting on Novocell’s new discovery.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Human stem cells transformed into nearly normal insulin-producing cells when implanted into mice, possibly offering a way to treat diabetes long-term, researchers at a U.S. company reported on Wednesday.

The researchers used human embryonic stem cells — the most powerful but the most controversial source of stem cells.

Writing in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the team at San Diego, California-based Novocell Inc said their work showed that human embryonic stem cells might fulfill the promise of treating or perhaps even curing diabetes.

“Our data provide the first compelling evidence that human embryonic stem cells can serve as a renewable source of functional insulin-producing cells for diabetes cell replacement therapies,” said Emmanuel Baetge, chief scientific officer of Novocell.

The actual report is in the journal Nature Biotechnology (abstract here)

Oh… some of you know already… my son has Type 1 Diabetes. So yeah, I’m happy.

(just noticed….I beat the science blogs to this, and I did it in verse!)

Vaccination Fixation

Oh, pity poor Orac! He’s feeling the love of the anti-vax folks, who apparently think he is a stupid-head. So this one, like it or not, is for you, Orac.

It’s obvious that ignorance combined with desperation
And deliberate distortion mixed with misinterpretation
Not to mention giant leaps of overstressed imagination
May result in opposition to a helpful vaccination.

The Mercury Militia calls for more investigation
Till the government reveals what must be missing information;
A disinterested observer soon would see the explanation:
Anti-vaxxers, as a rule, misunderstand the situation.

The evidence is crystal-clear; I have no hesitation—
Quite the opposite, in point of fact, I have an obligation
To preserve the herd immunity throughout the population
For the sake of both my children and their children’s generation.

But the anti-vaxxers have a beef with modern medication;
I suspect that they’re the people who protested fluoridation
And who’d never take a pill when they could use an incantation
Or a regimen of regular colonic irrigation.

It is possible these whackos have an honest motivation,
Ah, but ignorance is toxic when in such a concentration,
And the Mercury Militia have attained a reputation:
They’ve developed an immunity to science education.

Though the latest of the studies you can find in publication
Once again, despite the protest, shows a lack of correlation—
And by rights should be the harbinger of end of disputation—
I suspect the odds are better we’ll see porcine levitation.

That conclusion, I imagine, may elicit some frustration,
And a straining reminiscent of a mental constipation,
But allow me now to offer you this meager compensation—
That at least this little verse of mine has reached its termination.

Matters Of The Heart (… in a jar)

It’s all over the news–researchers at the University of Minnesota have “created a beating heart in the laboratory“. Basically, they used the protein fiber matrix from one heart, stripped of muscle cells, as a scaffold upon which to grow a new heart, using a solution of cells from another rat. Yeah. I know, all this talk about hearts is so romantic. So, in a bit of a reversal from my previous position, I return to the romantic view of the heart as the foundation of love, with a trio of little verses inspired by the heart in the jar. I can see it now… the picture above, on the front of the Hallmark card, with one of the following verses inside…

I’m new at this game,

And I don’t know your name,

But I love you, whoever you are;

My heart may be true

But it’s also brand new

I grew it myself, in a jar!

I can feel my heart grow,

So I love you, you know, 

And not like a cousin or brother;

I will give you my heart–

Every bit, every part;

If you break it, I’ll grow me another.

My heart is yours; it’s in a jar
That sits upon your shelf;
It’s happy being where you are
And not all by itself.
You asked me for a souvenir
To keep while we’re apart;
I thought a bit, and it was clear—
It had to be my heart.
And now, although my heart may soar,
It is no longer mine;
A message that forevermore
I’ll be your valentine.

A rat cadaver’s donor heart
Is stripped of every cell
The protein fiber matrix left
Looks like a ghostly shell;
This matrix, in a sterile flask,
Is bathed in rat-heart goo
With both adult and baby cells,
And starts to grow anew.
In only days, the growing heart
May beat, or merely twitch,
Then work, at roughly two percent…

Like yours, you heartless bitch.

Juxtapositions (I just love that word)

Shelley, at Retrospectacle, once again has captured my attention. Plague week continues, of course, but another post will not be denied attention–how often do you get the chance to watch an egg-sized cyst, full of tapeworm larvae, being removed from a 16-year-old girl’s brain?

Yeah, I know, cool!

Cool…because the girl lives, and makes a full recovery. Because she lives in this century, rather than in a century when people saw the plague as God’s wrath, treatable by prayer, bleeding, herbs, mercury, or lucky charms.

You can complain about modern health care all you like. I take a bit of a wider view. It has saved my life on more than one occasion, has saved my son… There are old cemetaries in this area that are practically littered with infant and child graves, many where the child had not lived long enough to be named. Follow the link. Watch this huge cyst being removed from this girl’s brain. Be grateful to medicine, science, education… you live in a very good time to be alive.

A golf-ball sized hydatid cyst
Is not the sort of thing I’d list
As one I’d like to try.
Indeed, I’d rather think it marvy
Not to host so many larvae–
I’m not that kind of guy.

In juxtaposing these two posts
Where humans serve unwilling hosts
To tapeworms or bacilli,
And treatment may be surgery
Or bleeding, charms, or mercury,
You make my spine go chilly.

I won’t say much, but I concede
That in the past, I’ve had the need
To seek a doctor’s care;
I’m fine, of course, but even so,
I think: It’s not that long ago
My “treatment” would be prayer.

This girl here in your video
(My daughter’s age, I’ll have you know)
Is lucky as can be–
To live in this, the present day
Where science, not the church, holds sway
I hope that you’ll agree.

For her, and for my daughter’s sake
I’d like to take this chance to make
A science-based reply;
For researchers, for doctors, nurses,
Not for priests, or prayer, or curses
The stakes are much too high.

Danger! Warning!

When bloggers write, with laptops, seated,
Bits of them get overheated—
Sitting in their rooms, retreated
To their hidden cloisters.
If I should hear “Well done! Well done!”
I hope they mean my writing’s fun
And not some cruel and heartless pun
About my mountain oysters.

The writers putting out these blogs,
Like robots built with well-oiled cogs,
Or samurai, or feral dogs,
Eviscerate their fools—
But now, it seems they face a danger,
Not from any foe or stranger,
Simply from a heat exchanger
Near their family jewels.

Though Yossi Vardi starts to warn
It’s not time, yet, to be forlorn
(Though if your kids are not yet born
You’re one unlucky putz.)
It is, however, time to plan,
And if you are a hopeful man,
To buy and use a cooling fan.
Oh, yes… and shave your nuts.

Thanks to Greg Laden.

No vaccine for arrogance…

Orac reports on the latest pinhead celebrity to jump onto the anti-vax bandwagon. Yup, it’s that walking, talking hairpiece, The Donald.

The anti-vax pinheads are a group I find particularly annoying. My aunt had polio. My grandparents’ generation saw the Salk vaccine for the wonder that it is, and saw polio for the danger it is. Have we forgotten so much so quickly?

When polio was something that
Your friends and family got,
Damn right you’d wait in line to get
That magic-seeming shot.

When infant graves were commonplace,
Each parent knew the cost;
A victim of our own success,
Perspective has been lost.

But now that science gives our lives
More health and fewer pains,
True geniuses like Salk give way
To Trumps with shit for brains.

I’d bet if Trump was suddenly
Confronted with, say, cancer,
He wouldn’t hesitate to look
To science for an answer.

But ignorance and affluence–
A potent combination–
Are threatening the future of
A younger generation.

With every anti-vaxxer voice,
Our children’s risk enlarges,
And science must–for all our sakes–
Defeat these Trumped-up charges.