Thundergod_Thor - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Cancer (Score 1) 198

by Thundergod_Thor on Wednesday October 22, 2008 @06:36AM (#25466013) Attached to: Stem Cells From Fat Create Beating Heart Cells

The Cells they are using are no real pluripotent stem cells like the ones from embryos but fat cells treated to behave like stem cells. In general differentiated cells do not revert to stem cells in vivo. You have to insert certain genes to induce this, but the result is not the same as a real stem cell.

Old Materials Resurface For "Prebiotic Soup" 263

Posted by kdawson on Friday October 17, 2008 @10:12AM from the do-not-clean-out-the-fridge dept.

AliasMarlowe writes "Stanley Miller performed the famous experiments in the 1950s showing that amino acids and other building blocks for biomolecules could be produced by passing lightning through a mix of simple hydrocarbons, water vapor, and ammonia (thought at the time to approximate the Earth's early atmosphere). Other experiments approximated the environment around volcanic eruptions, but those results were not published. Following his death last year, a former student discovered the materials from those experiments, in labelled vials. Analysis of this material indicates that the conditions around volcanic eruptions (still thought to be representative of such events in the early Earth) resulted in a higher yield of amino acids than the simple lightning experiments, and resulted in a greater variety of amino acids." Pharyngula has a discussion of the Science paper, including a graph of the amino acids produced.

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