STEM CELL UPDATE: Great news: “Researchers at the Children’s Hospital in Boston have figured out how to produce induced pluripotent human stem cells using skin cells. This is a considerable advance on earlier breakthroughs in which viruses were used to ferry the genes needed to transform adult cells into stem cells.” Ron Bailey adds: “If such IPS cells prove out, one can see the end of using stem cells derived from embryos. It is time for supporters of human embryonic stem cell research like me to acknowledge that opposition probably pushed these breakthroughs along. On the other hand, it is also time for opponents of human embryonic stem cell research to acknowledge that these breakthroughs would most likely have been impossible without earlier work on human embryonic stem cells.”

Hey, I told you so.