Geneticist Craig Venter recently gave an interview to Der Spiegel, and discussed the Human Genome Project, what we’ve learned from sequencing the human genome, making synthetic cells, and a few other topics. The interview is vintage Venter and worth reading to get his perspective.

One example, his view on the significance of having the human genome sequence:

SPIEGEL: Why is it taking so long for the results of genome research to be applied in medicine?

Venter: Because we have, in truth, learned nothing from the genome other than probabilities. How does a 1 or 3 percent increased risk for something translate into the clinic? It is useless information.

And one other example, his opinion of NIH Director Francis Collins, faith, and science:

SPIEGEL: Some scientist don’t rule out a belief in God. Francis Collins, for example …

Venter: … That’s his issue to reconcile, not mine. For me, it’s either faith or science – you can’t have both.

SPIEGEL: So you don’t consider Collins to be a true scientist?

Venter: Let’s just say he’s a government administrator.

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My (relatively) new FRC colleague Ken Klukowski has the lowdown over at Townhall.com:

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia denied the Obama administration’s motion to dismiss Virginia’s lawsuit against Obamacare. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed one of the three major lawsuits against President Obama’s healthcare law, focusing on the issue that the individual mandate, requiring every American to purchase health insurance, is unconstitutional.

For the reason my coauthor and I explained in the Wall Street Journal in January and last month, the Obamacare individual mandate is clearly unconstitutional. In researching this issue for our book, The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency, Ken Blackwell and I found that commanding Americans to buy insurance is not authorized by even the most liberal precedents of the Supreme Court interpreting the Commerce Clause, the Taxing and Spending Clause, or the General Welfare Clause.

Read the whole thing…

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The infertility industry in the U.S. is a multi-billion-dollar business. This unregulated industry targets young, vulnerable women for a precious commodity–human eggs. Young women on university campuses are targeted with advertisements for egg donors with desirable genetic traits, attractive appearance and a high IQ. Lured by the large sums of money, the thought of helping a couple have a baby, and assured of the safety of the egg donation procedure, many young women answer these ads. Egg donation is presented as a safe procedure, but the reality is quite the opposite. Egg donation has significant health risks and exploits young women for their eggs.

Eggsploitation is a new documentary that profiles three highly educated young women–Calla, Alexandra and Sindy–all who suffered extreme health consequences related to their egg donation. The film, by the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, exposes the dangers, health risks and exploitation of young women for egg donation.

Eggsploitation premieres August 9, 2010.

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The title is straight from Malcolm Ritter and the Associated Press, a story out today that highlights some of the real successes and promise of adult stem cells, as opposed to the wishful thinking and hype of embryonic stem cells.

The lead story is Dr. Thomas Einhorn at Boston University Medical Center, injecting a patient’s bone marrow into a broken ankle that wouldn’t heal; four months later the ankle was healed.

Einhorn, chairman of orthopedic surgery at Boston University Medical Center, credits ”adult” stem cells in the marrow injection. He tried it because of published research from France.

As the AP piece notes, it’s an example of many innovative therapies doctors are studying with adult stem cells; stem cells taken from body tissue and umbilical cord blood, not embryos. As the AP story notes:

For all the emotional debate that began about a decade ago on allowing the use of embryonic stem cells, it’s adult stem cells that are in human testing today. An extensive review of stem cell projects and interviews with two dozen experts reveal a wide range of potential treatments.

A few of the examples highlighted include multiple sclerosis, heart damage, juvenile diabetes, and blindness from chemical burns.

Apart from these efforts, transplants of adult stem cells have become a standard lifesaving therapy for perhaps hundreds of thousands of people with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases.

Many of the treatments, including new ones being tested in clinical trials now, rely on the idea that stem cells can form other cell types. That seems to be the case for Einhorn’s ankle-repair technique, with the adult stem cells forming new bone and blood vessels. But adult stem cells also seem to have abilities to stimulate tissue repair or suppress the immune system. According to Dr. Rocky Tuan of the University of Pittsburgh:

”That gives adult stem cells really a very interesting and potent quality that embryonic stem cells don’t have.”

That stimulation of tissue repair may be the mechanism for the published adult stem cell success treating spinal cord injury, including long-term injury up to 15 years.

To learn more and see some examples of adult stem cell success stories, watch the three videos at Stem Cell Research Facts.

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The Navy has been testing a sea-based laser defense system, somewhat of a companion system to the airborne laser weapon system.

In this video, the solid-state laser was mounted on a warship gun turret and targeted a remotely piloted unmanned aerial vehicle until it caught fire, lost control, and plummeted into the sea.

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