Simply amazing…
Here’s something that people with poor or no vision will be excited about: three patients had their sight restored in less than a month by contact lenses cultured with stem cells.
All three patients were blind in one eye. The researchers extracted stem cells from their working eyes, cultured them in contact lenses for 10 days, and gave them to the patients. Within 10 to 14 days of use, the stem cells began recolonizing and repairing the cornea.
This is reported by the University of New South Wales in Australia and the implications couldn’t get bigger. As I understand it, the technique was developed to treat damage to the cornea resulting from disease, burns, or chemotherapy. They are investigating the technique to handle other optic issues. Stellar work, folks!
The 3 people in the study, by the way, have all retained their improved eyesight for 18 months. One of them recovered enough eyesight to pass the vision test to drive again. That’s some great news!
I’d also point out that this is yet another example of the kind of results being derived from stem-cell research that has nothing to do with embryonic stem cells. There’s no ethical issue, here, and because the cells are harvested from the patient themselves, there’s no immune issues, either. No where in my side of the blogosphere have I read anyone (who knows about this at all) who says anything but the most glowing praise for it. This will, if our colleagues on the left will be honest about it, completely torpedo the bogus argument that conservatives are “against stem cell research.” We’re not. It’s the embryonic part – and most specifically how they’re acquired – that’s the problem.
This is the kind of research that we should be pursuing. It would appear that it’s got enough potential to be attracting its own funding, too, which is good. I hope to hear lots more about this and real soon.
June 3rd, 2009
Posted by
ricjames |
Medicine, Politics, Science, Technology |
no comments
(See Update below.)
On May 6 the Obama Administration published a document that lists the locations and activities of all government and civilian nuclear facilities as part of a report to Congress. The document, labeled “highly confidential safegards sensitive”, was then posted to the Internet. (Note: the publication was performed by a Congressional Office, not the White House themselves.)
The government accidentally posted on the Internet a list of government and civilian nuclear facilities and their activities in the United States, but a U.S. official said Wednesday the posting included no information that compromised national security.
The 266-page document was published on May 6 as a transmission from President Barack Obama to Congress. According to the document, the list was required by law and will be provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Some of the pages are marked “highly confidential safeguards sensitive.”
Good move, Team Obama Congress. For a crew that has now been confirmed to have mishandled sensitive information they’re falling all over themselves to dismiss the breach saying that it doesn’t represent a national security problem.
There are “zero” national security implications to the publication of this document, said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Government’s Project on Government Secrecy. Aftergood found the document on the GPO Web site and highlighted it in his online bulletin.
“I regret that some people are painting it as a roadmap for terrorists because that’s not what it is,” Aftergood said
Really? Because when I hand someone a list of addresses of nuclear facilities that they didn’t have access to before, complete with a description of what those facilities are currently engaged in, it sure sounds like a roadmap to me. Any terrorist group that can lay their hands on this document now knows precisely where to go to find nuclear material and technology – information I sure don’t have and I’m betting most of you readers wouldn’t be able to produce on your own, either – which would certainly improve their chances of acquiring such material and technology. After all, finding the stuff you need is half the battle. They can certainly better plan their operations to get it now that they know where it is.
I hate to keep saying “what if Bush had done that” but, really, that’s the question. The left would be howling about incompetence and the press would be running the “Bush Administration puts Americans at risk of nuclear annihilation – women, children, minorities hardest hit” stories around the clock.
Regardless, this administration Congress can’t even keep it’s own information confidential so how is it that we’re supposed to trust them with ours? (Yes, that’s an Obamacare reference.) Seems to me they need to start proving they’re better able at containing the information on matters like this before they move on to our info, thank you.
Update: I note over at Hot Air Ed Morrissey is reporting that the release apparently came from the House Foreign Affairs Committee to the GPO (Government Publishing Office.) I’ve no reason to think he’s gotten it wrong so I’ve update this post accordingly. There are people making the “oh, this information was already available to the public” noises and Ed takes the words right out of my mouth:
Releasing any sensitive information, classified or not, is rather stupid, especially on nuclear material during a time of terrorist war. Aftergood may well be correct that anyone willing to do enough research could compile a similar report. That doesn’t mean the government has to hand out that information on its websites in order to make that research unnecessary. While we certainly need more transparency in government, we have many, many places where it is more necessary than in finding out which floor of which building has the fissile material for bombs.
Exactly correct.
June 3rd, 2009
Posted by
ricjames |
GWOT, Human Interest, Politics, Science, Technology |
no comments
Strange sequence of events:
Jokes about cup size came grinding to a halt Wednesday after a fire destroyed a controversial topless cafe in a residential neighborhood in Maine.
The blaze was reported about 1 a.m. at the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop in Vassalboro, just north of Augusta, where shirtless waitresses served Java to ogling patrons — angering locals and drawing national attention since the venue opened in February.
…
The fire happened only hours after Crabtree met with town planners to discuss making it more like a strip club, with longer hours and dancing.
Emphasis mine. Wow, funny how the place just happened to get torched right after the owner made his plans known. And note, from the story, that the owner says he carried no insurance on the business (a dumb move, frankly) so there’s no motive for him to burn the place down. It smells like someone in the community decided to veto the planning commission’s adherence to the law.
If I hear more, I’ll pass it along.
June 3rd, 2009
Posted by
ricjames |
Crime & Punishment, Human Interest |
no comments
After an initial sighting that might have been wreckage from Air France (AF) flight 447 military search aircraft were directed to the area for a closer search. It’s now being reported that they have found the wreckage of the plane. Coming to light now, however, is another piece of information that’s a bit more troubling:
Just days before the mysterious crash of Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean, Brazilian authorities reportedly delayed a similar Air France flight from Buenos Aires to Paris after the airline received a bomb threat over the phone.
Police and officials at Buenos Aires’ Ezeiza Airport spent 90 minutes inspecting the threatened plane for explosives on the evening of May 27, but found nothing, according to a Brazilian news report.
A bomb on board would explain the sudden and catastrophic failures as well as lightning, of course. The real answer here is to find the black boxes since, without a real crash scene, it’s going to be extremely difficult to reconstruct the flight forensically. They did so with TWA flight 800 years ago but there was a difference. Flight 800 went down in water that was 120 feet deep. AF477’s suspected crash was into water that is literally miles deep. To find those boxes in that kind of environment would be a miracle, literally, and even if they were found there are still places in the ocean our technology can’t reach.
More details as they come.
June 3rd, 2009
Posted by
ricjames |
Aviation, GWOT, Human Interest |
one comment
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