NO LESS a figure than former first lady Nancy Reagan thinks that President Bush should liberalise his policies on stem cell research.
快猫短视频s have been touting human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) as a potential cure for all sorts of diseases, ranging from Parkinson鈥檚 to diabetes to the common cold, and are naturally eager to study them. But there is a problem. Opponents of abortion have made sure that, under US law, no federal money can be spent on research that damages an embryo. This appears to rule out federal funds for studying ESCs, and without the money the research would languish.
But when Bill Clinton was president he decided that if someone had derived the cells using private funds, then public money could be spent studying them. Amazingly, Bush partially embraced this logic, and has said that cells isolated before 9 August 2001 can be studied. That鈥檚 better than nothing, but scientists still complain that there are not enough viable cell lines of the right kind.
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In addition to Nancy Reagan, who in Republican circles is revered as if she were royalty, 206 members of the House of Representatives, 36 of them Republicans, wrote to the White House saying it was time to review the existing policy.
For a president who doesn鈥檛 want to lose his 鈥減ro-life鈥� backers, expanding stem cell research may seem like a non-starter. But Bush is a pragmatic politician, and if he backs stem-cell research that comes up with a cure for a disease, he could be a big hero. Tough choice.
THERE is a bit of science lore that goes like this: the less money available in a particular discipline, the shriller the infighting over its distribution. Thus the tussle over who gets what money for research in biomedicine has been fairly collegial. But listen to cash-starved archaeologists or taxonomists and you would think they were re-fighting the 100 years鈥� war.
The principle appears to be holding true in Washington just a few weeks into the discussion of a recent report on oceans. A commission of experts told the government that the oceans are going to hell in a hand basket, and it is time to do something. Scattergun research and management by different federal agencies should be consolidated into some sort of policy-making ocean super-entity. The commission also declared, to loud hurrahs, that federal research money should be doubled over five years.
Now the bickering starts. Who will get the extra money? Neglected researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say they are logically the ones who should run the show. To start with, they need a new fleet of ships and submersibles. They also want to be given authority over Earth-observing satellites. However, NASA, already stung by criticism over its mega-expensive space station and crippled shuttle programme, does not want to give up satellite projects.
Other agencies with pieces of the ocean and coastal research pie are also nervous. It could be that the 鈥渃onsolidation of effort鈥� demanded by the report will mean less is not more鈥t really is less.
