Stem Cells

Attenzione to all of you that are reading this blog - here is the purpose of it - the question that Lucy and I (Ivan) made for Mr. Guliani  

Enjoy!

Science Lab classes are held by Kelsi and Ron. In our group is Levan, Amanda, Noushin, Heidi, Alena, Ivan and Lucy.

 In our first class we had couple of entertaining debates whether smashed ice or regular ice is better, whether soccer is the best sport in the world or not-you know, stuff like that. It was pretty QL, I mean, how can you possibly have any opinion what-so-ever on ice topic, let alone defending that “opinion”. That`s exactly what made our debates interesting

 But don`t even think that all we did the first day was having fun! No, after debates, we did some seeeerious brain-storming on all topics that concern science. We came up with a lot of ideas, like: genetically modified food, prenatal testing, gene banks, organ donation, animal testing, cloning etc. We can go on like this up until Tuesday, but we decided to go for sth that is current, often talked about and provocative.

Therefore, our topics are:

1. Genetically modified food (Levan, Heidi, Noushin)

2. Science vs. Religion vs. Funding (Alena, Amanda)

3. Stem cell research (Ivan, Lucy)

Hope you are interested in these?? Look for links that are on our blog if you would like to know more about these issues!

If you are reading this, then you must be interested in this lovely topic.You would probably want to find out something more about this topic and the political standings of the presidental candidates. Well, that’s why  we are putting these links here, so you can find something more about this interesting topic. If this isn’t enough to satisfy your hunger for knowledge, don’t bother us with that - keep on googling

ROMNEY -

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/local_news/epaper/2007/07/08/s3c_mitt_0708.html

http://lifeoftheparty.typepad.com/life_of_the_party/fred_thompson/index.html

TANCREDO - http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Tom_Tancredo_Abortion.htm

MCCAIN -  http://lifeoftheparty.typepad.com/life_of_the_party/fred_thompson/index.html

Stem cell research is a newly developed technique of taking a special type of human cells called “stem cells”. What is so special about them is that they are pluripotent, meaning that they are not specialized for any tissue (like muscle cells, brain cells) but can develop to any tissue. The importance of that and possible benefits are immense. They could be the key to finding a cure for a number of serious illnesses, like Alzheimer, Parkinson, spine injuries etc.

  Recently, there has been a huge debate among politicians as well as the people, whether embryonic stem cell research should or should not be funded by the government. The debate is obvious: on one hand, taking stem cells from an embryo means killing it, but on the other hand you get more promissing results than by using adult ones. Most of us are religious, and clearly Christian church as well as others are strongly against “killing life” for scientific purpose. Of course, whether an embryo IS life is a matter of your personal understanding. In my opinion, life is not just a woman’s egg combined with man’s sperm. Besides, isn`t “killing life” excatly what we`re doing by “in vitro fertilization”, knowing that of a dozen embryos created, only one will actually become a child, while rest will be frozen and disposed.

Makes you wonder, ha? Therefore, our big question, not only for Mr Giuliani but also for you guys is: do we follow religion or science?

Welcome to Ben Franklin Institute lab blogs. This blog deals with interaction between politics and science, how they depend on each other and also how to combine them with religion.

We would appreciate any suggestions how to improve it, so please leave comments after reading.

Thank you,

Ivan and Lucy