Good thing you're not a mouse.

I don't think this is as big of a problem as you do.

Regardless of the instrument's origin (bought for big $ from company or open source built), scientists are going to run positive controls. It's a common practice for GOOD experiments. In this case, apply treatment X to a mouse, and you should see response Y as measured by the instrument. If you don't see response Y in the positive control, you cannot trust experimental results. If the positive control give expected results, then reviewers have little choice but to accept the experimental result.

You need to do the same thing for fancypants commercial instruments to make certain they are working properly, operated properly, and the rest of the experimental variables (the mice, the treatment) are as expected.

Bottom line is that if the homebrew instruments work reliably for the positive controls, they will be easily accepted.

Yeah, peer review is a horrible system. The only thing it has going for it is that it is better than other method of assessing these sorts of things.

I think this is the explanation. The lead author convinced herself that the procedure worked. Apparently, she was rather easily convinced by her own ideas. In order to convince other scientists, she had to fabricate some results. Those fabricated results enabled publication of the papers through peer review.

The whole thing stinks. Let's say there is some merit to making pluripotent cells by stressing them with acid. Well, by lying about some of her results, the lead author essentially poisoned the whole area of research. She has made it difficult to now work on this topic because it will be overly scrutinized by any reviewer. Let say the whole idea is bogus. The lead author wasted time and energy of researchers around the world who are interested in this process.

Although this may be obvious. The lesson is just never make up data. It is so myopic to think that you will benefit in any REAL way.

I got the Seiki 39in too. It replaced a set of dual displays. The single huge monitor changed the way I work and has allowed me to better utilize screen space. Plus, I enjoy all of the "Oohh that's a big monitor." comments from people as they enter my office.

Not really. Osteopathy works for neck, back and other musculo-skeletal problems. For someone who wants to medically help people, it makes sense to seek this knowledge in addition to the allopathic MD curriculum.

Now, there are some other aspects of the training, like cranial therapy, which have not been proven to be effective. You can call practitioners of these types of therapies quacks. Fine with me. But, most DOs never draw from that part of their training when they actually go to the clinic. To condemn someone as a quack because they sought useful training that included some non-useful aspects - that doesn't make much sense.

Didn't mean to call you a name. The AC was the twit, as his example was given for homeopathy, which is complete bullshit witchcraft.

That said, I respectfully disagree with your point of view.

I know dozens of MDs and DOs. I teach at a medical school and know curriculum at Osteopathy schools. Many DOs take the American Medical Association tests for their board exams. As far as I can tell, they are essentially the same with the exception that DOs get an osteopathic manipulation training.

Now, I am not going to argue that the osteopathic manipulations work for non-musculoskeletal problems.

But, I will argue that the person is not some quack just because they got training in osteopathy.

You conflate Osteopathy with Homeopathy, you twit. Doctors of Osteopathy (at least in the US anyways) are essentially the same as MDs.

I think genetic engineering is definitely within a lifetime. We have been making genetic changes in the germline of mice for over 25 years. It was horribly inefficient for about 23 of those years. Now, it is fairly easy with RNA Guided Nucleases like CRISPR/Cas9. We are starting to develop treatments for diseases based on engineering somatic cells in adults. Going to germline modification in the human will take some technological developmental and refinements. But, it is not a large conceptual step to go to from genome editing in mice to humans.

Actually, editing the genome is not that far off. We do it in mice and other animals with ease. A recent discovery of CRISPR/Cas9 RNA Guided Nucleases make it a remarkably trivial procedure.

In GATTACA, embryos were screened for beneficial alleles, and the one deemed to be "best" were implanted. This is different than actually editing an embryo's genome.

OK, I get that it is currently a bad idea to try to clone humans or modify an embryo's DNA. We essentially do not yet know how do it with an acceptable safety. So, the process is likely to cause harm to humans, and is wrong.

But eventually, it will be safe and probably fairly easy.

At that point, what is wrong with eliminating a mutation in an embryo to prevent a disease during subsequent adulthood. And if there is nothing wrong with that, then what is wrong with making a change to make the eventual adult a smarter person?

While "fundies" may like the results that human ES cells are not used as much because of cellular reprogramming, they played absolutely no helpful role in "forcing" iPS research or any type of reprogramming research for that matter. Trying to block useful ES cell research is not the same as stimulating reprogramming research. The reprogramming research was initiated by and made possible by the scientists who were interested in the concepts and by the funding agencies that supported their efforts.

Private sector is not willing or able to put in the time and funding needed to perform necessary basic research. It just takes too much time, risk, and money for a company to support the basic biological research, which is what generates the big discoveries.

Basic research (not applied or "translationsal research) in biology leads to knowledge and new techniques. It is not feasible to make a profit off of these unless you can keep the knowledge a secret up to the point of it leading to a product. By definition, for basic research the lag time and uncertainty between investment in research and conversion to a profit making product is too great to realistically expect even large companies to absorb.

Look at the giant drug companies. They have huge research budgets. But, they can support only research that is directly applied to diseases, and only those diseases that will make a profit.

Exactly. It is not the amount of funding per se, but the way it is given out that is the bigger problem. It is given in 4-5yr spans to labs. even worse, NIH budget changes every year, so their long term planning is usually screwed every year. Reducing the number of PhD students and mandating promotions to staff scientists would work only if funds are stable for a given lab.

Thanks for that perspective njnnja. I would mod up if I had points. Unfortunately, from reading comments on slashdot, it appears that many people don't quite get that putting money into biomedical research is a way of increasing human health or moving toward that "pill that keeps our bodies younger longer."