Hair follicles, ethical neural stem cells, and a couple of silly tangents

Encouraging news about nerve stem cells found in the hair follicles in this abstract.

I would like to say that this is one of the clearest, best written abstracts that I've seen. Usually, the statistics, jargon and incredibly convoluted writing makes abstracts difficult to read or less informative than I'd like. This abstract tells us what the scientists did, why they did it and clearly outlines the results.

There's a lot of the "yuk" factor in this report. We forget that the test animals go through this sort of procedure, just as we forget the actual source of our hamburgers. I'm sorry and grateful for all the animals who suffer for human benefit. I still won't kill humans who are unable to suffer to save the animals. But I'm grateful.

I'm reminded of a night when I ate at a Italian restaurant with a bunch of friends. A couple were vegetarians, which I thought ridiculous. Then I realized that I was slightly ill at the thought of those who were eating veal. (I ordered chicken.)

We all have our limits as to what sort of pain and suffering and harm to other beings that we can and will tolerate. I'm an organic gardener, except for wasp nests on doors and web worms in the trees. I will go out of my way to avoid using poisons for these and am very cautious with even the "organic" methods, such as Bacillus thurengis, a bacteria that attacks larval forms of insects.

However, we cannot tolerate crossing of the limit that is the intentional killing of humans at all stages of life unless those humans are a threat to the life of another human. Even in these cases, if a non-deadly remedy can be found, we are bound to refrain from killing.