President Bush talked about his alcohol use with former prisoners at a faith-based program, calling his alcoholism an addiction for the first time and sharing the role faith played in his recovery. Here’s a video of the men’s response.

GodTube is tapping its pool of 250,000 registered users and taking an unscientific presidential election poll. Mike Huckabee wins the Christian vote, and Obama comes in second.

The Pew Forum finds some common themes in this year’s raucous presidential primary. The election matters to voters, Republican turnout lags behind Democratic turnout, independent voters are playing a big role, and for Democrats, race and gender matters more than issues.

It’s the Super Bowl Blitz, and companies are exploring ways to expand the impact of the $2.7 million they pay for a 30-second Super Bowl ad. This means taking ads online, so check Yahoo, Google, YouTube and MySpace this Sunday.

The world’s aging population will have an effect on international politics. Researchers say a high youth population and high unemployment rates can be an environment to breed resentment and terrorism. As the youth population gets older, areas like Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are due to stabilize soon.

A family buried their son, only to discover years later that they’d left his brain behind in the hands of a coroner. Their lawsuit may change the way we treat the deceased.

American scientists have taken a step towards creating artificial life. They have created all the genetic material for a synthetic chromosome. If they can successfully insert it into another bacterium and make it reproduce, they can claim to have created life. Controversial scientist Craig Venter says, “It puts a lot of power in the hands of humans.”

Wanted: Tall, smart, pretty women – not as models or actresses but as egg donors. The question of embryo destruction is not the only ethical question human cloning poses. There’s also the question of exploiting young women to get the eggs cloners need for research.

Cloners have faced an egg shortage since some states prohibit researchers from paying women for their eggs. Fertility clinics and “egg brokers,” however, may pay women tens of thousands of dollars for their eggs. A California biotechnology company, reportedly the first to clone an adult human being, skirted egg restrictions by soliciting egg donations from fertility clinics.

Dorinda Bordlee, executive director for the Bioethics Defense Fund, told WoW that egg brokers usually target college students burdened by student debt and living costs. Bordlee said it is unethical to offer cash-strapped women large amounts of money to undergo an invasive medical process with unknown side effects.

Jennifer Lahl, national director for Center for Bioethics and Culture, said to retrieve the eggs, doctors first inject drugs that make the body “mimic menopause” so that the donor’s menstrual cycle matches the cycle of the woman receiving the egg. Then doctors inject the donor with powerful hormones that hyper-stimulate her ovaries so she produces more eggs. They then surgically remove the eggs, grade them, fertilize and implant them.

“Every step along the way, that egg donor – and I hate using the word donor – is in harm’s way,” Lahl told WoW. The drugs are powerful and the FDA has not approved them for that particular use. There is no donor database or medical follow-up as there is for organ donors. There are reports of stroke, infertility and in rare cases, death.

As human cloning advances, the demand for eggs will increase. Lahl predicts that cloners and stem cell researchers will reason that their research is a worthy cause: “If we can pay a young girl to make babies, why can’t we pay a young girl to help Michael J. Fox?”

Scientists at Stemagen, an obscure California biotechnology company, have suddenly become famous thanks to their claim that they’ve become the first to clone an adult human being.

The scientists claim that they took adult skin cells and inserted them into hollowed eggs, creating embryos that are the adult’s genetic twin. A similar claim proved fraudulent in 2005, so the scientific community is offering more reticent praise this time. Stemagen also failed to get stem cells from the cloned embryo – the whole point of human cloning – leading Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology to dismiss the news as “underwhelming.”

Scientists have cloned embryos before, but Dorinda Bordlee, senior counsel for the Bioethics Defense Fund, told WoW cloning an adult is more complicated. Embryonic cells are blank slates (called undifferentiated cells), so it is easier to insert the cells into an egg and grow an identical embryo. It is more difficult to take a differentiated cell, like an adult skin cell, and force it back into an undifferentiated state.

There are no federal laws against human cloning and the White House has banned federal funding for cloning. Others have poured millions into research, including Bill Gates, Harvard University, and the state of California. California’s Proposition 71 gives $3 billion to stem cell research.

Only six states have comprehensive bans on human cloning. Other states, like California and Connecticut, allow “therapeutic cloning” (cloning for research purposes) and ban “reproductive cloning” (cloning to initiate a pregnancy). This is supposed to ensure that scientists destroy each cloned embryo they create, but Bordlee notes that if a scientist implanted an embryo in the uterus of a willing woman, the state could do nothing to prevent the pregnancy.

Bordlee said human cloning leads to a “whole host of social and human rights problems.” She also said that scientists can now turn adult skin cells into stem cells without destroying embryos, a practice more successful than Stemagen’s and also ethically acceptable.

In November, scientists discovered how to turn adult skin cells into stem cells. Now scientists from Advanced Cell Technology have made another scientific and ethical advance. They have reportedly figured out how to extract embryonic stem cells without harming embryos.

Researchers allowed fertilized mice eggs to develop into eight-celled blastocysts. Then researchers removed one cell for embryonic stem cell purposes, turning it into blood cells, neurons, heart cells, cartilage, and other cell types. They reported that the seven-celled eggs continued to develop normally.

An ACT press release said, “These new results have the potential to end the ethical debate surrounding the use of embryos to derive stem cells.” Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at ACT, urged the White House to approve the research: “This is a working technology that exists here and now. It could be used to increase the number of stem cell lines available to federal researchers immediately.”

Michael Sleasman, managing director and research scholar at Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, told WoW the discovery was another encouraging development: “I think it demonstrates that scientists are trying to find ways that are not necessarily destructive to the embryo, to find research that has promise for medical advances.”

Still, Sleasman and others aren’t wholly sold on the idea. About 80 percent of Lanza’s embryos continued to develop, around the same percentage that survives when scientists remove one cell in an assisted reproduction technique called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. Some ethicists, including Stanford bioethicist William Hurlbut, say that number isn’t high enough. Sleasman has reservations about the research’s effect on the remaining embryos: “I would be concerned that the few days they allow the embryo to develop are not enough for us to fully know the full implications. … You’re unnecessarily subjecting the embryo to the potential for harm.”

The National Institutes of Health will review the technique and then report to President Bush for final approval.

Since scientists discovered that they could turn adult skin cells into stem cells, researchers have begun asking a question that seemed irrelevant before: Do people support non-embryonic stem cell research?

Virginia Commonwealth University says the answer is yes. VCU’s Life Sciences Survey 2007 found that 63% of the 1,000 participants said we need both embryonic and non-embryonic stem cell research, while 22% said that embryonic stem cell research is no longer necessary.

The number of those who favor embryonic stem cell research (54%) has remained stable since 2004, Survey Director Cary Funk told WoW, and the discovery hasn’t diminished overall support for embryonic stem cell research. Those who strongly favor embryonic stem cell research haven’t changed their minds about its necessity: Only 6% said the discovery meant embryonic stem cell research was no longer necessary. They no longer focus exclusively on embryonic stem cell research, however. Some 86% said we need to pursue non-embryonic stem cell research, too.

Among those strongly opposed to embryonic stem cell research, 63% said we no longer need embryonic stem cell research and 20% said we need both kinds of research. Funk said those with a weaker opposition to embryonic stem cell research leaned towards supporting both types of research: A majority (55%) said we need both kinds of research, and 25% said that we no longer need embryonic stem cell research at all.

When it came to setting priorities – advancing science versus protecting embryonic life – public opinion was evenly divided. Forty-six percent said it was more important to make sure that scientists don’t destroy human embryos, and 42% put a higher priority on conducting research that might result in new medical advances.

Some 38% of those surveyed were already aware of the discovery – a surprisingly high percentage, Funk said. As Americans become more aware of new advancements, public opinion may continue to change.

Two weeks after scientists announced that they could turn skin cells into stem cells without using human embryos, the debate over the implications heats up. Scientists and pundits take sides on the breakthrough’s scientific and ethical implications.

In the Washington Post, Alan I. Leshner and James A. Thomson (one of two scientists who developed the technique), cautioned against a quick rejection of embryonic stem cell research. They also said that conservatives can’t interpret the breakthrough as a vindication of George Bush’s restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, noting that the breakthrough “depended entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research.”

Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, said Bush’s policy is just one reason scientists explored less controversial research. Ethics – not just politics or funding – played a role, and Smith said the Bush policy helped by focusing on “the moral importance of the embryo.” Thomson, one of the first scientists to isolate embryonic stem cells, has admitted his own ethical reservations about his research: “If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough. … I thought long and hard about whether I would do it.”

Smith said he believes the new technique will affect human cloning more than embryonic stem cell research, since it has given scientists something they believed possible only through cloning: “Tailor-made, patient-specific, pluripotent stem cells.” He predicts that President Bush’s stem cell research policy will stand through the rest of his term, and embryonic stem cell research will play a lesser part in the 2008 election. A California stem cell agency that spent millions on embryonic stem cell research is now funding research that does not harm human embryos.

But what do the world’s first cloners and stem cell researchers have to say? Ian Wilmut, the world’s first cloner, has rejected cloning research for Thomson’s new technique. And Thomson said the stem cell wars he helped begin will eventually end: “A decade from now, this will be just a funny historical footnote.”

Scientists have discovered how to turn adult human skin cells into stem cells and then into heart, brain and bone tissue, and they have done it without using human eggs or embryos.

Researchers at Kyoto University and the University of Wisconsin announced the advance today, and it has breathtaking implications for the future of medical research and the bioethics debate. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technologies, called the discovery “the holy grail. It’s like turning lead into gold.”

Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University first tested the technique – called somatic cell dedifferentiation – when he turned mice skin cells into stem cells last year. The same technique works with human cells. Scientists insert four genes into the skin cells, turning the cells into blank slates that they can then transform into other cell types like heart, brain and bone. Dr. James Thomson said in every test, the reprogrammed cells behaved just like human embryonic stem cells.

The technique has its drawbacks. As with embryonic stem cells, there is a risk that the cells will become cancerous, but scientists are optimistic that they can overcome this. The technique also has some marked advantages: Using a flake of skin is cheaper than using a fertilized human egg, the new cells are tailor-made for the donor, and the technique is not hampered by ethical controversy like human cloning or embryonic stem cell research. Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow of bioethics at Discovery Institute, told WoW the breakthrough undercuts the drive towards human cloning because it “gives scientists everything they said they wanted, without the moral baggage.”

The news comes days after Professor Ian Wilmut, scientific daddy to cloned sheep Dolly, turned his back on therapeutic human cloning and announced that he was pursuing research in the new technique, calling it not only more practical but also more socially acceptable.

The Guardian reports that maverick scientist Craig Venter is close to creating the earth’s “first new artificial life form” – a synthetic chromosome built of laboratory chemicals and cleverly nicknamed “Synthia.”

Venter and his team manipulated existing DNA to create the chromosome, which they will soon try to transplant into a living cell. The Guardian called the development “a giant leap forward,” but Pat Mooney, director of a Canadian bioethics organization, called it “a wake-up call,” asking for a debate on what it means to “create new life forms in a test tube.”

C. Ben Mitchell, director of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, told WoW the rhetoric is overblown: “He has not in fact created life. He has not created something out of nothing. … He’s just manipulated existing life forms.” Venter spokesperson Heather Kowalski told the AFP that the Guardians’ announcement is premature, and the team is months away from publishing their results.

And while Venter said he believes he is doing “good science,” Mitchell said he has reservations based on Venter’s reputation as a “scientific hot shot” who “routinely operates outside the boundaries of ethical science.” Venter has tried to patent gene parts as inventions, and he introduced his own genetic material into the mapping of the human genome without other scientists’ knowledge or consent – a move that Mitchell said “violates the canon of science.”

Mitchell said actions like this risk breaking trust with the public, “who support the science … who embrace or resist new medicines or new therapies.” Mitchell said he knows of no ethical violations in the creation of Synthia, but he will rest more easily when he sees a peer-reviewed publication of Venter’s results. “It’s certainly a development,” Mitchell said. “Whether we want to call it an advance … we’ll have to wait and see.”

A woman came to the Bronx Women’s Medical Pavilion to see about a pregnancy test and an abortion, but when she saw a group praying outside, she changed her mind about going in. Instead she stepped into an “Operation FrontLine” motor-home – complete with couches and an ultrasound machine – to take a pregnancy test and talk with pro-life counselors.

The counselors and people praying were volunteers with 40 Days for Life, a national campaign that mobilizes pro-life Christians to fast and pray outside abortion clinics from September 26 to November 4. Volunteers are holding vigils in 89 cities. New York City hosts one in Queens and one in the Bronx – a borough where in 2005, 49% of pregnancies ended in abortion.

Chris Slattery, head of a New York crisis pregnancy center network called Expectant Mother Care, told World that the Bronx vigil had drawn volunteers from high schools, prayer groups, and churches. Over 75 Protestant clergymen have joined Franciscan friars and sisters from the order Sisters of Life. Slattery said other churches have been non-responsive, so he has recruited passers-by to volunteer as well.

Sister Magdalene is one of the Sisters of Life, which requires a vow “to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life” and runs a crisis hotline and a home for pregnant women. The Sisters focus on serving women, she said, because an aborted baby suffers for a moment, but the woman who aborts her baby suffers for the rest of her life. When they save an unborn baby, they save the baby’s mother, too.

Sister Magdalene said other Christians may not volunteer because they’re afraid or because they don’t know how to help. She also said that those born after 1973 are conscious – sometimes subliminally – that they are survivors: “Everyone knows they’ve survived a Holocaust.”

A new California group called “Compassion and Choices” is practicing “ghoulish compassion,” said Robert P. George, Princeton University professor and member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. The group offers a toll-free number to help terminally ill people kill themselves and clergymen number among the volunteers.

The clergy say that they are merely practicing the Christian faith. The Sacramento Bee quotes John Brooke, a retired United Church of Christ minister, as saying the work is “consistent with my Christian faith and ministry, which … is a God who has given people free will.”

Tim Rosales, spokesperson for Californians Against Assisted Suicide, said, “This group is putting a clerical collar around Dr. Kevorkian.” George compared the role of the clergy to the role of the medical profession: “It should be always to care, never to kill.”

George said the hotline “is the very reverse of what clergy should be doing for their terminally ill people. They should be helping to prepare them for death — give them spiritual comfort, help to strengthen them and unite them with their family, help them to repent of past sins.”

The Sacramento Bee said Compassion and Choices drew inspiration from Howard Moody, a clergyman who helped women get abortions in the 1960s. Moody sees a parallel between abortion and suicide and has promised to help promote the group: “Why should they not have that right to determine, and … plan their death in a way which is beneficial to their loved ones?”

George said the group’s possibility for abuse is “unbelievably broad.” He is afraid the group’s victims will be the “poorest, most vulnerable members of society:” people whose relatives cannot afford to pay for medical care, “people who other people would like to get rid of, people under pressure to end their own lives.”