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Cloning said to yield human embryos

By Times Wires
Published January 18, 2008

SAN DIEGO   

Scientists at a small biotech company say they have used cloning to create human embryos from skin cells of two men. The work represents a step toward the promise of creating personalized embryonic stem cells that could be used for medical treatments. Although the embryos grew only to a very early stage, the work could also theoretically be seen as a step toward creating babies that are genetic copies of other people.

Scientists at the company, Stemagen, which is based in San Diego, said Thursday that they were the first to use human adult cells to create cloned embryos that advanced to the stage known as a blastocyst, from which embryonic stem cells typically are extracted. However, the researchers did not derive embryonic stem cells. That left some experts skeptical.

BILLINGS, Mont.

Nobel climate speech too hot for high school

A climate scientist's speech to high school students was canceled because members of the rural community were concerned that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate's message on climate change would be "anti-agriculture," the superintendent said Thursday.

Choteau superintendent Kevin St. John said School Board members pressured him to bring in someone with an opposing viewpoint to speak to the school's 130 students, and he thought canceling the speech was the reasonable and neutral option.

"Nobody wants to believe in science and promote science more than we do," said St. John, who is in his first year running the school district. "It was my decision to bring him in and it was my decision" to cancel him.

University of Montana scientist Steve Running said he had never before been canceled in any venue, by any organization. "I think there's a faction of society that is willfully ignorant, that they just don't want to know the facts about this," he said. Running is a member of the U.N. science panel that shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore.

MIAMI

Doubled bail paid, O.J. back in Miami

O.J. Simpson returned home to Miami on Thursday, a day after an angry Las Vegas judge doubled his bail but allowed him to stay out of jail while he awaits trial on armed robbery.

Tom Scotto, who coordinated with four other friends to raise Simpson's bail, greeted Simpson after his arrival at Miami International Airport and escorted him to a waiting sport utility vehicle. Neither man spoke to reporters before the vehicle left the airport.

Simpson, who had been taken to Nevada for violating terms of his release, and two other men face trial April 7.

[Last modified January 18, 2008, 00:39:56]