In Which Zandar Discovers He's Full Of It

Potential stem cells, that is.

Scientists at Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered that the millions of fat cells removed during liposuction can be easily and quickly turned into induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, more easily than the skin cells that researchers used when the first iPS cells were created in 2007.

These iPS cells, like stem cells derived from embryos, can be turned into many different kinds of cells, and researchers believe they eventually could be used to regenerate tissue for organs and repair damage.

Embryonic stem cells are controversial because the embryos are destroyed when the stem cells are removed for research. The iPS cells, which have many of the same basic properties, do not raise the same ethical questions as embryonic stem cells because they come from skin or now fat cells that have been reprogrammed to go back in time, so to speak, and have the ability to turn into any other kind of cell in the body.

No matter what you think about my crappy blog, I know that I now have a purpose in life as a repository of future stem cells that might someday cure cancer or something nifty like that. So, why did we have the huge argument over fetuses and stem cells when it turns out you can just suck them out of big guys like me, anyway?

Zandarmom will be proud of me.